[Site Feedback] Changes to Course Forums - email from Olivia Zavala

@Arete_Hime Great to have this dedicated thread course-forum. Bravo !

But really asking users to add tags to their post just so that the course creator gets notified… arghhh.

When you think that in the past it was one click and go for the users…?

This is going to be interesting to say the least.

Wait and see…

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It’s asking course creators to add tags to the topics, and moderators, leaders, and regulars to do that for them if they didn’t. And asking users to copy a line in their post: you’re my only hope @flamantrose! if they post in that topic. I agree it’s not anything resembling a convenient solution. But then again, the original solution wasn’t all that pretty either.

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Thanks @Arete_Hime for explaining. I need a Memrise course on how to use the new Forum :wink:

I thought the tags were key words added to a post, thinking that people add keywords (tags) to posts. But one only adds keywords upon creating a new discussion thread, which is entirely different.

So for the course creator, in the title of the new discussion thread put [Course Forum] at the beginning. Then maybe also the keyword course-forum to the course forum discussion thread.

To get notified or to notify someone people should put mentions @coursecreator in their posts.

Simple two step process, it is better.

Thank you !

I’ve posted my general forum link (for all my courses) in my courses descriptions - at least, in a part of them. The team should the gentleness to allow the links in course descriptions to appear as links - in blue, and to be clickable and to open in a new tab, so the user has a direct link to the forum

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For the benefit of readers of this thread, I am attaching a synopsis of the discussion we had:

By @DW7

Thank you for having a go @Hydroptere and giving us the opportunity to have a look.
I agree with you that the link will need to be an active one and that people
posting in a “Course Forum” (when more than one course) will definitely need to specify which course (and level hopefully) they are reporting on or you could spend ages looking for an entry.

I went to your course to see how you’ve set it up. I did see the
link which I had to copy and paste into a new tab, BUT I only knew what
to do because of this forum.

The example of the link is in “La Mer” course and it had no introduction/ instructions. Ie it wasn’t clear what the the link was for and I think we are going to have to rely on MemRise publicising the new way of posting comments.

Reply by @alanh

Another way to move between the course page and the forum is to
highlight the text of the url in the course description area [it’s not a true link - as @Hydroptere rightly pointed out in another thread] and then right click on it, then “go to…”.

The example I looked at clearly says “Post issues under…” in the
course description area. I did something similar with mine, and added a
new thread in the existing Course Forum for good measure.

By @DW7

But to come back to a comment I made earlier in the other thread (ie this thread now), I think the response rate when it was given as an easy link when one got an answer “wrong” was not used that much, so I don’t know how many normal users will know what to do and report issues under the new system.

Perhaps MemRise will be emailing all users on the 1st July to inform them.

This is a request to @OliviaZavala

By @Hydroptere

A. thanks @alanh

B. @DW7:
1 the “course description” is for describing the course. In fact,
only with great displeasure I’ve posted the link there: it’s eating up
characters, posting “for this and that” would have taken the whole space
provided

2 the link is long and ugly; however, it is clear that is link to a
forum, if one can read: course forum hydroptere’s courses… I expect
the user to read the title of the link and to figure out by
herself/himself. I don’t think figuring out is that difficult

3 this is the max I can do, given the way memrise handles this issue.
Yes, memrise should make clear to the user how s/he can post issues…
at least they can allow clickable links in the course description.
Hallo, @Joshua, hi!

How do you do that thing with tiny.url? maybe I can change the whole
long sausage (the link to my forum I mean) into a tiny tidy something.
well, I’ve shortened the huge link by myself, first but it is too short
a shortening.

By DW7

Hi @Hydroptere, I hope you understood my post, and I agree 100% with you.

You may remember I requested a dedicated field for our links with appropriate wording by MemRise, which has not been granted but we have been promised more space, which should help.

All my descriptions have used up all my allotted space so I can’t do anything until my allowance has been increased.

I have also requested that MemRise re-educates the users to look for a link in our description.

And your idea of live ‘click-able’ links opening to a new tab is vital.

I too could do with help with writing tiny.urls BUT :warning: I resist clicking them as I don’t know where I am going and it could be a virus! :radioactive:
(Normally this could be the case outside of MemRise, but one doesn’t know who might be able to get in or even write a course.)

I think you are doing a wonderful job - trail blazing - but I can’t
help thinking this is such a backward step and so messy - as well as
unlikely to be used as it’s not easy and in the appropriate place (ie
when we get an answer ‘wrong’ or spots a problem).

Please could MemRise note this thread.

Reply by @Hydroptere

Yes I did understand what you were saying, thanks, I’m upset with this strategy of memrise of first throwing the child into the fountain then watching the users saving it - again and again.

The above conversation took place in one of @Hydroptere’s courses but it has been moved here for all to see at her (sensible) suggestion.

If it helps, here’s how to make a link with a short-form clickable description that appears in blue. (Sorry this comment is so long!! It’s in 2 parts: How-to, and example illustration)

  1. The basic little formula is: [ url][/url]
    BUT with no space after that first bracket - If I don’t put a space in there you would just see a blank after my " : "
    I have to “break” the formula with a space to make the magic symbols visible here :smiley: The first bit should really look like this: [url]

  2. Inside that first set of brackets, after ‘url’, type in an “equals” sign: =
    So it looks like this: [url=]

  3. Paste your link right after the “equals” sign, before the closing bracket: [url=PASTELINKHERE]

  4. Type your short-form description in between the two bracketed halves of the formula: [ url=PASTELINKHERE]Description[/url]

(Again, don’t leave any spaces anywhere - I put one in after the first bracket just so the formula is visible. Otherwise you would only see my example word, “Description”, in blue with nothing around it :smile:)


To illustrate this using the link to your Course Forum:

  • Your link is: [Courses Fora] Hydroptère's courses

  • Pasted into the first half, " [url] ", after typing in the “=”, it looks like this: [url=http://community.memrise.com/t/course-forum-hydropteres-courses/895]

  • Using “Course Forum: Hydroptère’s Courses” as the description, and with the second half, the whole string looks like this (but with no space after the first bracket): [ url=http://community.memrise.com/t/course-forum-hydropteres-courses/895]Course Forum: Hydroptère’s Courses[/url]

    (Again, I put in a space after the first bracket to break it and make everything visible)

  • The final result looks like this and links to the forum (the only change from above is removing the space after the first bracket) :

    Course Forum: Hydroptère’s Courses

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Brilliant, many thanks @Parrac.

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Thanks @Parrac. That’s really helpful.

If you don’t mind, I’ll move it to the “How to…” category, where it will be best placed for people to find in the future.

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That doesn’t actually work though in the course description field.

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Great!
(Edit: Though If it only works for the forums it may not be all that useful…)
You’re all doing a fantastic job organising all of this. I’m really enjoying poking around in the forums watching it all happen :smiley:

Ah… Do you know why not?

Nope. It just doesn’t. It would be nice if, in this new reality, it were enabled @joshua, @daniel.zohar, @OliviaZavala. Olivia already said they would try to increase the character limit in the field.

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@Parrac
thanks for your detailed explanation + time and energy you invested in, but it does not work, unfortunately… the course desription field simply does not allow hyperlinks…:angry: If they take the direct link to the old course forum, they should replace it with something… again: dear team, please allow for clickable and in a new tab open-able link to the forum of the course

many hanks

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@alanh why not leave it here and copy it there, or at very least tell us the details to create a blue link is now “here”.

But with the sad caveat that while it works for the forum and most other purposes, it doesn’t work in course description fields…

Just to add to this discussion, here are a few link shortners to save the limited description space we have:

https://goo.gl/
https://bitly.com/
http://tinyurl.com/

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This comment is not addressed to any user in particular, but to anyone who might know the answer. Bear in mind that I don’t fully know how all of this stuff works, so please forgive my ignorance with this postulation.

Instead of us going back and forth on this issue, why can’t Memrise just take the EXISTING link on the course description page (as seen on the website version as “Forum”) and rather than have it go to the current page on the course (that is going to be discontinued on June 30th), why can’t it be linked to the specific course creator page on the Community Forum (that we are responsible for creating). Is this doable ? (Isn’t that kind of like changing from one url to another ?)

To me, this would enable the user to continue to just click on the area that they already know (and they probably aren’t aware, or don’t care if the underlying forum area changes - they just want to post their comments somewhere). This also leaves the description field free of clutter that isn’t really relevant to the course anyway.

In essence, the user wouldn’t need to do anything new. The course creators would only need to create their forum pages (which many of us are already doing), and Memrise would need to create the links to those pages (they could make them clickable behind the scenes, so we don’t have to try to get creative on our own - or worry about potential viruses (@DW7) or hijacks or re-directs from outside sources that mean to do harm. This is after all a Memrise mandate, not a course creator mandate. Why can’t they do the leg work on their end, rather than us.

I don’t say this to be disrespectful, I’m just wondering if this is possible. Again, I don’t know how all of this stuff works, but to me it seems like a clean solution. Am I missing something ? (I know, probably a lot, but any thoughts ???)

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Thanks for your thoughts and comments @pdao.
I am no expert and we are left wondering what is the easiest and tidiest way to implement the change.

I have noted that rather than creating many (perhaps 150 in my case) individual “Course Forums” some creators have resorted to one for their all their courses (or all in a particular field). This to me is a much more manageable solution and I favour that.

Your idea Pdao is is a great suggestion - taken to it’s conclusion, wouldn’t it be good if
a) MemRise automatically created a Course Forum for every creator and
b) MemRise changed the destination of the existing “Forum” link to the appropriate Creator on this new area they are keen on us using.

The only problem left would be that Contributors are no longer informed, but I guess the Creator could include them by the “@” handle to any issue they would like the Contributor to consider.

Finally users will need to be informed to say which course they are reporting on (and ideally which level).

Dear @Joshua and @OliviaZavala, as @Pdao asks, is any of this slight amendment to your plan possible?

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你好 (Chinese for “hello”). Hope all is well with you . Thanks for the note. I don’t think point “a” is necessary. Course creators should take care of that (and it is already occurring as we both see each day). Point “b” is the important point. If Memrise changed the logic on the underlying url from an internal link (within the same page) to an external one (to the Community Forum page) that would be extremely helpful (and is really the key to all the other thoughts along this new path).

To carry this point out further, what if Memrise also gave a small additional line of space - say a fraction of an inch below the description field for courses that creators would fill in with the specific course url, then all Memrise would really need to do is point that url to the Community Forum page for the specific course which the course creator needed to create. (Logic would have to be in place to ensure that no typos occur in the urls, and that a Community Forum page was created so the url from the Memrise course would actually have somewhere to go (no 404 erorrs). Seems pretty easy peasy to me.

This is of course predicated also upon Memrise granting a small space of real estate for the course url. Remember when they said they might increase the description field area. Why not allocate that space in a separate, definable region that won’t be confused with the existing description information, and can ONLY hold url type data - nothing else, or it gets rejected at set up time ?

Finally, course contributors could add the url information in this newly created region for any courses they babysit for, since the goal is to point to a Community Forum page, not a specific @username page. (I know you have many courses you mother hen for, and I just acquired one a few days ago myself). I think this would take care of that issue as well.

Course users wouldn’t need to do anything different (and since not all of them are English-language based, or compute literate, the less they have to be aware of changes, the better). They need just continue to click on the “Forum” button - something they currently do. That button would just be re-directed to the Community Forum page for the course, rather than the existing course forum page, because of the url placed there by a course creator or contributor.

I am not a programmer. Just someone who chases after windmills and is looking for a solution to an issue that maybe doesn’t need to be as complicated as it is being broadcast. I doubt any of this will go anywhere, but even when I am chasing after windmills, I am an optimistic.

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the worse is, not all course creators got the email from @OliviaZavala. And I speak here about courses with more then 20 active users…