###Can I draw your attention to a new thread I have started?
Having decided to start creating these new Course Feedback forum threads, I have a series of questions about where to place the “[Course forum]” threads, but I didn’t want to clutter this rather long discussion thread and anyway it’s more to do with the practicality of it.
I have also sought MemRise’s thoughts on the issue:
###I have updated that new thread to show how I followed the advice given here, to create threads covering subjects, and placed them in the appropriate heading group.
(I am sure slow to reply) Yes, I am unsure if there is an option for doing this. That said it could be helpful in organizing course threads that start to get complex.
Of course, all this might be a moot point if users can’t or don’t readily access the forums here to begin with.
You have over 50,000 points so it shouldn’t be a problem?
The reason for this is that our course forums were being littered with spam from bots.
Our new community forum has spam filters and very alert community leaders, so there’s no minimum score required. Anyone can post threads and reply to posts!
(apart from spam bots of course!)
Thank you, @Lien. I think not needing the 50,000 and improving the filters is great . I use Memrise to teach my students so I don’t use it for learning myself, but I had to get 50,000 points to be able to post messages in my courses.
There has been no modifications to an individual courses home page to make it easier for creators to advertise links to the new course forums.
No extra space in the course description, or even better (IMO) an area to place a link to the new forum.
So if I want to provide my learners with a way to contact me I have to go through all my courses and reduce my character count in every course description to provide some information about how to get to my course’s forum. What a waste of my time.
(just as well I don’t have many learners and pretty accurate courses!!)
I agree @leggi, and I have said we are still waiting for the extra space.
I am hopping that @OliviaZavala and the team can set up this extra space (in the description field) soon, so we can do our last task of advertising the new Forums.
@leggi and @DW7 - I just went through the whole space allocation change in the description field of all my courses this morning, and it took a couple of hours for around 20 courses (most public, and a few still private that I haven’t finished yet). I did so for 3 reasons:
I think it is too late in the game for Memrise to grant any extra space in the description field. If they are still operating on a July 1st deadline, then if they were sincere in granting extra space, they would have done so by now. The change is less than a week away, and still not a peep from them, so I think that speaks for itself on this issue.
As course creators, we should think of our “customers” first. They are learners (users), not Memrise. So we should do what we can to aid in their learning process, even if means scattering some extra language in a very small descriptive field. If what we add aids the learners when/if they need to contact us, then that is great, and we have done our “job” successfully.
I believe (and others may dispute me on this) that learners will want to try (and potentially stay with) a course based on its content, not on the few words we put in a descriptive field before they actually begin to use it. Yes, what we put in the descriptive field may entice them to give a course a whirl, but if their is little substance in what we offer, they will quickly abandon it, so why worry about what we write (no matter how much space we are given). We should focus more on what is inside the course, not on what is outside of it. If that makes sense.
So, while the exercise is a bit tedious, and like so many others, I too wish there would have a better or more aestethic way to handle the new information, it is crucial that we get it out, and get it out in a respectful way for our “customers”. After all, if we didn’t expect any learners, we probably would have kept our courses private.
I tried to go one step further, and I added a multimedia field up front in each of my courses, kind of directing learners what to do if they need to contact me (which I doubt anyone ever will, because like @leggi I have created pretty accurate courses ! ).
I think the piece that is really still missing in this whole exercise is letting learners know that they can’t just click on the pseudo-link information we are asked to put in the descriptive field. Not everyone who uses Memrise for learning is computer literate, computer intuitive, or even of the same native language as us course creators. So I hope somehow Memrise will take some extra steps to educate the public on this. This I feel is their area, not ours. The learners, at that point, are their “customers”, not ours.
So take the time and go through the exercise to add the additional text. Yes, it is not ideal, but think of the higher purpose in what you doing. You are not decreasing descriptive text, you are increasing customer service. Who knows, maybe the responses you might receive in the future from learners on your courses may be truly wonderful and positive (rather than just asking you to fix something) and that would make it a win-win. Just my two cents on this issue…
I have also posted in all the current course forum threads (on the courses I’m supporting), to inform those users of the change and where to find ‘me’ in future, giving them a link. (As that information is currently sent to their email address )
@pdao I agree with all that you are saying, I published my courses because they are of a high quality and I want to share, but I just don’t have the time at the moment to go through them all (and too fussy/anally retentive to do a rush job!) even if it’s of benefit to the learners. I have changed my profile description and added the forum address there.
To me, it’s just another thing that Memrise could have done so much better to improve the experience for both learners and creators (their generous content providers at the end of the day!), but I’ve been around long enough to at least know I shouldn’t, yet again, be disappointed with changes, Memrise does as it wants and ignores suggestive feedback from it’s users - those that want Memrise to be as good as it can be!
@DW7 I hope too, but experience says Memrise will just move on to the next aesthetic change.
Looks like the language on the Memrise KB about forum posting will also need to be changed regarding the new state of affairs. Here is what it currently still instructs users to do:
Memrise feedback pages open automatically in “Google-German”? in my browser- or what the name of that language might be. In any case, it cannot be “German”. The whole FAQ is one most hilarious? mad? “instructions for use manual” ever
(" Fragen in Community gestaltet Kurse (wie meinen?): Es tut uns leid zu hören , dass Probleme in der Gemeinschaft geschaffen Kurse mit Ihrem Lernen stören! (wie meinen?) Haben Sie versucht, mit dem Verlauf Schöpfer (loool) in Verbindung zu setzen? Die Mehrheit der Memrise Kurse werden von der Gemeinde gemacht und Ihre Eingabe wird sicherlich den Kurs zu verbessern (???), aber es ist bis zu Schöpfer (who what?), diese Probleme zu beheben. Sobald Sie 50.000 Streckenpunkte (haia!haia!haia!) haben, können Sie sie kontaktieren , indem Sie eine Nachricht auf dem Kurs Forum zu verlassen (die Nachricht , die Sie ihnen auch gemailt werden lassen), und sie werden es mit Aussortieren auszukommen. " HUH? jeeziee creeziee)
I’m really disappointed about the changes to the forum! I put in a lot of time and effort to create detailed descriptions/lessons and now they are all gone without any warning.
I’m really sorry to hear that @fractal_shadow. A lot of us got the email from MemRise - as you will have seen by this thread but I also know a lot of creators did not.
It is really sad to have lost a lot of good information in those Forums - for all of us.
Probably the safest place for useful information is in multimedia levels in the course - but that won’t help you now, unless you kept a copy.
Sorry but I don’t quite understand what you are saying here. It’s the content of the old-style course forums that have been removed, not your courses themselves. Could you give a bit more detail of what has been lost?
. I use Memrise to teach my students so I don’t use it for learning myself, but I had to get 50,000 points to be able to post messages in my courses. 
).
