[Site Feedback] Where to create (ie place) the new [Course Forum] links?

Community-Created Courses Course Creator's Corner
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Hi guys, @OliviaZavala & @Joshua,

I am trying to get down to the details of creating several new threads in lieu of the old embedded Course Forum area.

I have a few questions or problems

Issue 1

The description for the “Community Hub” says

The conversation is over here! Join us to talk about learning or seek help from fellow Memrisers.

The description for the “Language Quarters” says

The place to be if you’re learning a language with Memrise! Share your stories, fun facts, recommendations, basically just get talking!

It seems to me that the Community Hub should be where our “[Course Forum]” posts should go, and we can put them in the next level sub-folder ie they could go into this Forum

Non-language courses - Reports and requests

But what if the course is in one of these groups?

Arts & Literature

Maths & Science

The Natural World

History & Geography

Memory Training

Professional & Career

Standardised tests

Trivia

Entertainment

Should we not create our Course Forum posts there?

Or is intended that they all go into “Non-language courses - Reports and requests”

PS EDIT - I have placed my non-language [Course Forum] threads in the appropriate subject area (or sub-folder) (eg History & Geography) as many others have.

That leads me to Issue 2

I have some “Italian” courses (and many of us have other languages).

In theory they should go into “Language Quarters” but that is only for chatting not reporting issues.

I would want to put them into the “Community Hub” to be consistent.

So would you consider creating a sub category for “Language” courses with all the different languages? Or should we put them in the language area despite the description?

But a neater solution (IMHO) would be to amend the area description of the “Language Quarters” to:

"The place to be if you’re learning a language with Memrise! Share your stories, fun facts, recommendations or to seek help from fellow Memrisers. Basically just get talking!

What do you think?

PS EDIT - I have placed my Italian [Course Forum] thread in the Italian subject area (or sub-folder) of Languages and ignored the wording (as advised below).

Issue 3

I have elsewhere (near the end starting “Finally”) suggested it would be nice to have a new sub-category that was just for “[Course Forum]” reports to prevent too many course threads being created amongst all the other posts -

so do you think that would be helpful?

PS EDIT - I have ignored this as most of the threads there, are [Course Forum] threads but if ever a sub-folder is produced, then I will try to move them.

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Whatever the admins say in response to your questions, I’m fairly confident that unless each course can get its own category here or its own forum elsewhere, people will post about courses in the categories that most seem to fit the course topic. Regardless of what the text about “Language Quarters” actually says, for example, people will post about an Italian course in the Italian category. I expect discussions about my tropical fish course would go in the “Community Hub > The Natural World” category, so that’s where I put my posts. Trying to parse the exact text of the top level categories precisely will mislead you - people will see the existing category names and just go to the one that seems to best fit the course they want to post about.

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Thanks for your comments @cos on “Issue 2”, I think that is what I favour, and I just wanted confirmation.

Regardless of what the text about “Language Quarters” actually says, . . . people will post about an Italian course in the Italian category.

I would still value clarification on “Issue 1”.

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I’m still inclined to go with what @OliviaZavala said in her email of 26 May so far as it’s possible. It will provide for the majority of cases. I’m not too fussed that the descriptions used in the introductions to the different categories say because the sub-categories are there for all to see.

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Thanks @alanh

For Language Courses:
Go to http://community.memrise.com/c/language-quarters18
Click on the appropriate language sub-category
Create a new Topic with your course’s title and your username i.e. “50 Spanish verbs by Blue345"

I’m afraid after a 111 posts about how we word them and other issues I have lost the plot!

Yes that’s settled “Issue 2” (although a slight change of wording by @OliviaZavala might help the outsider coming here for the first time).

I’ll get down to it then!

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Ive put my courses forum link under the general heading “language quarters” and I cannot see it…

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There’s no way I’m going to go with what that email suggested, which is to keep all discussion for a course in one single long comment thread. That’s absolutely disastrous. I’m going to post a new post for each new topic even if there are already other posts about the same course. When I have a problem to report in a course, I’ll @ invite the course maintainer if they’re here.

One thing I will do, however, is to make sure to put the course name in square brackets at the top of every course-specific post, and a link to the course itself in the post, so it’s clear which course it’s about and to make it easier to find these posts.

I posted about that recently, here:

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It’s difficult to test, but I think an idiosyncrasy of this forum is that when a category has subcategories, putting a topic in the top level category will make it not show up in the various views.

So I would suggest NOT putting topics in the top level categories, i.e.:

  • Welcome to the Forum
  • Community Hub
  • Language Quarters
  • Bug Control
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but where should I move it?? I’ve created/I’m courses for various languages… Well, I guess it does not matter, after all… I’ll get an email if users post something… I hope I will get notification, I mean, I did not get one about course forums for more than one year now…

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I’d just choose a random language subcategory that you like. The software has to bend to your will, not the other way around.

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this is one nice reply, you’re perfectly right!!! the basics of (industrial) design, indeed - I mean, if only memrise would do that… lol. Well, in this new forum the user can search much easier for an author/creator, there is always some other way. This one good thing about this one new forum.

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I’ve updated my first post in this thread to say what I eventually did, taking advice from all of you - so thank for you all for your help! :gift: :tada:

We could however still appreciate some comment from @OliviaZavala at some stage - please, although it looks like we all have found a solution that works for us.

I now feel almost ready for the 1st July - except I would appreciate an increase in the character allowance of the Description area of my courses before then, so I can post the links.

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I hate that they are getting rid of the individual forums for each course. That, to me, is the easiest way to find and reply to questions, errors, and posts about your course since it notifies the creator of a new post.

How will the course creator know someone has posted a question or someone on their course if they post it here in the main forms somewhere?

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Here we are July 1

None of my course forums have been deleted and my new Forum links are in place.

So maybe the course forums won’t disintegrate after all ?

Who knows ?

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More likely they just haven’t gotten around to it, and may not until after the weekend.

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I am hoping that they will at least wait until they increase the descriptive space as promised, as I still have not set them up for that reason. (An ‘olive branch’ :dove:)

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As usual. Wait and see. I think many curators and/or creators were not even aware of the future change. I for one never saw the mail!

But still no news.

Have a nice week-end.

ps It is irritating that you cannot just click on the link from the description, not to mention the space.

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Still no change on the forums. I wouldn’t have scrambled to archive those pages as quickly as I did if I had known I was getting more time to work with! :dizzy_face:

But yeah, knowing Memrise, it seems likely that it’s just waiting until Monday.

We’re just going to have to rely on users posting course-related comments in the appropriate topics, I guess. The moderators can help with that, too. Depending on your settings, you should either get an email or a notification on the forum when someone posts in your topics. Also, whenever anyone uses a @ before your username (like @icytwilight), it should alert you on the forum.

It’s not perfect, and I certainly also would have preferred to keep the old course forums, but that ship’s sailed, I’m afraid. :pensive:

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Yes I do hope the MemRise team posts suitable instructions:

So yes, we would love clear instructions to be given
(pulling together things we have already noted) :

1) to use the new existing [Course Forum] thread if advertised or

2) to search for the appropriate existing “[Course Forum]” subject or author thread (set up by course creators and supporters who are aware of the change and have followed the guidance).

3) to always quote the course and level if possible (as well as the issue)

4) to always include the @ handle of the creator and any known contributor (often given in the description or introduction - on the web version)

I don’t know what will happen on the app versions.

Cc @OliviaZavala

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I would love it if we used these guidelines for all posts about specific courses:

If the course creator has created a [Course forum] post you can of course comment on that, but I hope they’d use these guidelines for that [Course forum] post too.

For my own courses, I will absolutely not make [Course forum] posts, because I think they’re a horrible idea. Their awfulness will only become clear if they get used for a long time, and I suspect they won’t - that is, I suspect people won’t actually limit themselves to commenting on a course forum post, and will post new posts sometimes. Nonetheless, after enough time passes, some of the course forum posts may accumulate enough unrelated cruft that everyone will start to see how unwweildy it is. But for my courses, I just won’t start down that path at all.

However, the guidelines I suggested in my post above, apply either way. I course creators will use them for course forum posts, and I hope everyone will use them for any other posts about specific courses.