Group Leader
- Joined
- Jul 19, 2018
- Messages
- 838
Yo.
Before I get into my suggestion, I want to talk about the state of MD right now.
When the servers go down, either completely, or partly, the best case is we get pinged on discord (This is not a discord-centric community, you're running a website!) and the worst case is no information is given at all.
My suggestions:
0) Stop relying on discord for comms. Really. You've got a website, a lot of your readers don't use discord, that's just ridiculous to expect people to join your discord to even be aware that there's a problem or that someone's working on it.
1) Actually use your website screen real estate. You've got a convenient area top right where you post one -static- announcement. That's just a waste. Make it be like the "latest posts" section, ie, make a proper "Announcements" box where we can see the latest announcements (the last 3 or 5), along with a date and what type they are. This can be used for event announcements, or past maintenance announcements if the mentioned date is still in the future (see below). When a new announcement is posted in the box that has not been read by the user, it should be highlighted so the user knows there is a change.
For the design of the box, don't just copy paste the latest forum posts component. I guess a quick and easy (relatively) way of doing it would be that when it's maintenance related, add a little cat with a hard hat icon, when it's event related, add a little cat with a top hat icon on the left. (don't just use a generic announcement icon or it's a waste of space. we already know it's an announcement, it's in the announcement box.) Obviously this is just my suggestion for the artistic part of it, you can do it however you feel
This box also answers the use-case of the guy who already dismissed the initial event alert and now needs to open an incognito tab just to get the link to the event forum post again.
2) When you are planning a maintenance, whether it'll be a full blown blackout (never good but sometimes, you need to) or a partial maintenance (ie, uploads down, private messages down, etc.), throw a proper alert in advance so that people are alerted. If you want to keep it simple, the format should be the same as the one you use for events now. If the site will still be accessible to readers but some non-essential features will be inaccessible, the alert should be yellow. If the website will be completely down, the alert should be red. The date and time (if possible in the user's timezone(?)) of when the maintenance starts should be shared as well as the estimation (I know these things are annoying to give, but they are sorely needed, especially when you have a community as big as this one) of when it'll be done.
The key here is to be pro-active. The only thing worse than maintenance is unplanned maintenance. And the only thing worse than unplanned maintenance is in the background maintenance where even while it's happening you get no comms whatsoever because the information is not available on the website itself (and sometimes not even on discord).
PS: As I wrote this, there was a maintenance and for once I see that someone updated the message in the announcement box (still static but at least it was updated). This is bad ux. You can't expect the user to look at a never changing box when the content changes once every year if you don't draw their attention to it! If you're going to make a new announcement, it should be highlighted.
Done. Thanks for reading (hoping someone actually reads this...)
Before I get into my suggestion, I want to talk about the state of MD right now.
When the servers go down, either completely, or partly, the best case is we get pinged on discord (This is not a discord-centric community, you're running a website!) and the worst case is no information is given at all.
My suggestions:
0) Stop relying on discord for comms. Really. You've got a website, a lot of your readers don't use discord, that's just ridiculous to expect people to join your discord to even be aware that there's a problem or that someone's working on it.
1) Actually use your website screen real estate. You've got a convenient area top right where you post one -static- announcement. That's just a waste. Make it be like the "latest posts" section, ie, make a proper "Announcements" box where we can see the latest announcements (the last 3 or 5), along with a date and what type they are. This can be used for event announcements, or past maintenance announcements if the mentioned date is still in the future (see below). When a new announcement is posted in the box that has not been read by the user, it should be highlighted so the user knows there is a change.
For the design of the box, don't just copy paste the latest forum posts component. I guess a quick and easy (relatively) way of doing it would be that when it's maintenance related, add a little cat with a hard hat icon, when it's event related, add a little cat with a top hat icon on the left. (don't just use a generic announcement icon or it's a waste of space. we already know it's an announcement, it's in the announcement box.) Obviously this is just my suggestion for the artistic part of it, you can do it however you feel
This box also answers the use-case of the guy who already dismissed the initial event alert and now needs to open an incognito tab just to get the link to the event forum post again.
2) When you are planning a maintenance, whether it'll be a full blown blackout (never good but sometimes, you need to) or a partial maintenance (ie, uploads down, private messages down, etc.), throw a proper alert in advance so that people are alerted. If you want to keep it simple, the format should be the same as the one you use for events now. If the site will still be accessible to readers but some non-essential features will be inaccessible, the alert should be yellow. If the website will be completely down, the alert should be red. The date and time (if possible in the user's timezone(?)) of when the maintenance starts should be shared as well as the estimation (I know these things are annoying to give, but they are sorely needed, especially when you have a community as big as this one) of when it'll be done.
The key here is to be pro-active. The only thing worse than maintenance is unplanned maintenance. And the only thing worse than unplanned maintenance is in the background maintenance where even while it's happening you get no comms whatsoever because the information is not available on the website itself (and sometimes not even on discord).
PS: As I wrote this, there was a maintenance and for once I see that someone updated the message in the announcement box (still static but at least it was updated). This is bad ux. You can't expect the user to look at a never changing box when the content changes once every year if you don't draw their attention to it! If you're going to make a new announcement, it should be highlighted.
Done. Thanks for reading (hoping someone actually reads this...)
