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RallyPoint discussion format change
I spoke with some of the RP admins/members, and based on my recent posts (which you may or may not have seen) and some interest in a format change, decided to post my suggestion to change the RP discussion format.
The premise behind this proposed change is simply that RP has become too inundated with several things, which I can explain in more depth but here is the BLUF points (also, understand when I say "need" I mean all in one place):
1. Posts/polls/threads designed specifically to get thumbs up and increase reputation points. We don't need the entire front page clogged up with polls for every section of our ERB/ORB.
2. Off topic posts. We don't need jokes for every branch of service in separate threads, polls on whether someone should wear a dress to the ball or white socks with their boots, or people's thoughts on the color blue.
3. Reposts of news stories over and over. Every time there is a major news event there are 10 people posting the story over and over.
What we do need:
1. Organization. I'll get to my idea, but the basic premise is a regular vB type forum with topics (don't worry, if you want to see ALL topics in one place like the current format, they always offer the new/recent topics button).
2. We need all those above discussions. Even though I shake my head every time I see a new poll about how many fingers you have or if you have a bald head or some other inane information...some people like/love talking about that stuff. So I'm not suggesting that in some sort of Fascist format we eliminate that stuff, we just organize it correctly so that someone that is looking to discuss the meaning or intent behind an AR can do so without having his/her topic lost in all that other mess.
3. We need to be able to see topics we like a lot in one spot. For example, I will never visit the poll section, and rarely the off topic section, but some people may only visit those sections. Right now I honestly don't use RallyPoint anymore for the above reasons and for the reason below:
4. We need a coherent discussion. If someone posts a question or something thought-provoking, the top liked post gets the first post. I can't count how many times I have visited a topic, read the first few responses and then moved on. But the reality is that the most liked post isn't always the best. I'll bust myself out on this one. My post is by far the most liked post in the "should Marines give up their titles" thread. It probably shouldn't be. It's just a joking picture. Haha, move on. But because it's funny and people thumbed it, now many people probably never make it to newer, more meaningful or thought-provoking posts. In a fictitious example, someone asks a question about a regulation and the number one response is the wrong response, someone might never see the correct response.
The discussions here are disjointed and I think that leads to people starting new threads because quite frankly, they want to be heard. So rather than responding and having good discussion they start a new thread because they know their response is not likely to generate too many replies.
This is a broad idea of where I see RP as needing to be. Discussions should be topic-based, not all lumped together (unless you choose to sort the forum that way, which you CAN do on vB forums by choosing most recent posts).
So as a starter idea I see these as the categories. * is the main category, - is a subcategory within that section. Each section would have a description of what should be posted in there as well as moderators to merge/move threads that are inappropriately placed.
* Introductions
* General Military Discussion
- Military News
- PCS Moves
* Branch-Specific Discussion
- Army
- Navy
- Marine Corps
- Air Force
- Coast Guard
* Job-Specific Discussion
- Combat Arms
- Intelligence
- Logistics
- etc
* Job Seeking/Offering
* Polls
* Off Topic
- General
- Politics
- Funny/Humor
- News
This is just a basic idea which can obviously be refined. The example I gave one of the site admins was http://forums.corvetteforum.com/
I'm no longer an active site participant and I have no affiliation with them. But they have a TON of forums and subforums and yet it is STILL incredibly active. Heck, the off topic section has almost 600,000 topics alone. Some people don't even own Corvettes but visit that OT section religiously. I see this site SEVERELY needing a section like that.
I spoke with some of the RP admins/members, and based on my recent posts (which you may or may not have seen) and some interest in a format change, decided to post my suggestion to change the RP discussion format.
The premise behind this proposed change is simply that RP has become too inundated with several things, which I can explain in more depth but here is the BLUF points (also, understand when I say "need" I mean all in one place):
1. Posts/polls/threads designed specifically to get thumbs up and increase reputation points. We don't need the entire front page clogged up with polls for every section of our ERB/ORB.
2. Off topic posts. We don't need jokes for every branch of service in separate threads, polls on whether someone should wear a dress to the ball or white socks with their boots, or people's thoughts on the color blue.
3. Reposts of news stories over and over. Every time there is a major news event there are 10 people posting the story over and over.
What we do need:
1. Organization. I'll get to my idea, but the basic premise is a regular vB type forum with topics (don't worry, if you want to see ALL topics in one place like the current format, they always offer the new/recent topics button).
2. We need all those above discussions. Even though I shake my head every time I see a new poll about how many fingers you have or if you have a bald head or some other inane information...some people like/love talking about that stuff. So I'm not suggesting that in some sort of Fascist format we eliminate that stuff, we just organize it correctly so that someone that is looking to discuss the meaning or intent behind an AR can do so without having his/her topic lost in all that other mess.
3. We need to be able to see topics we like a lot in one spot. For example, I will never visit the poll section, and rarely the off topic section, but some people may only visit those sections. Right now I honestly don't use RallyPoint anymore for the above reasons and for the reason below:
4. We need a coherent discussion. If someone posts a question or something thought-provoking, the top liked post gets the first post. I can't count how many times I have visited a topic, read the first few responses and then moved on. But the reality is that the most liked post isn't always the best. I'll bust myself out on this one. My post is by far the most liked post in the "should Marines give up their titles" thread. It probably shouldn't be. It's just a joking picture. Haha, move on. But because it's funny and people thumbed it, now many people probably never make it to newer, more meaningful or thought-provoking posts. In a fictitious example, someone asks a question about a regulation and the number one response is the wrong response, someone might never see the correct response.
The discussions here are disjointed and I think that leads to people starting new threads because quite frankly, they want to be heard. So rather than responding and having good discussion they start a new thread because they know their response is not likely to generate too many replies.
This is a broad idea of where I see RP as needing to be. Discussions should be topic-based, not all lumped together (unless you choose to sort the forum that way, which you CAN do on vB forums by choosing most recent posts).
So as a starter idea I see these as the categories. * is the main category, - is a subcategory within that section. Each section would have a description of what should be posted in there as well as moderators to merge/move threads that are inappropriately placed.
* Introductions
* General Military Discussion
- Military News
- PCS Moves
* Branch-Specific Discussion
- Army
- Navy
- Marine Corps
- Air Force
- Coast Guard
* Job-Specific Discussion
- Combat Arms
- Intelligence
- Logistics
- etc
* Job Seeking/Offering
* Polls
* Off Topic
- General
- Politics
- Funny/Humor
- News
This is just a basic idea which can obviously be refined. The example I gave one of the site admins was http://forums.corvetteforum.com/
I'm no longer an active site participant and I have no affiliation with them. But they have a TON of forums and subforums and yet it is STILL incredibly active. Heck, the off topic section has almost 600,000 topics alone. Some people don't even own Corvettes but visit that OT section religiously. I see this site SEVERELY needing a section like that.
Posted in these groups: 
RallyPoint
Forums
RallyPoint Forums
Posted >1 y ago
Responses: 12
SFC Jones,
RallyPoint administration definitely takes this kind of feedback seriously, and we appreciate the time you clearly invested in this. Some quick notes for you:
- We are planning on making some improvements in a few weeks which I think you will appreciate, and that you will likely find "in the right direction", but not exactly what you are suggesting. I think however it would effectively address many, if not most of your points.
- RallyPoint is a professional network, it is not a bulletin discussion board, and has no intention to become an old format discussion board. However, that doesn't mean that we can't continue to improve.
- RallyPoint Answers/Discussions is actually only mere 9 months old, if you can believe it. I think we have come quite far in a short amount of time, and fully expect to continue to improve and evolve our overall platform at the same rapid pace.
In short, I think you will like the new improvement we will be introducing in July, and we will continue to improve as we head into our 1 year anniversary of RallyPoint Answers, and beyond. We very much care about our community's feedback, and invest a lot of time in considering different improvements, knowing that any change will always have both pros and cons.
PO2 Tyler Bruels -- Thanks for your great contribution as well. I think you will like our refinement in July.
RallyPoint administration definitely takes this kind of feedback seriously, and we appreciate the time you clearly invested in this. Some quick notes for you:
- We are planning on making some improvements in a few weeks which I think you will appreciate, and that you will likely find "in the right direction", but not exactly what you are suggesting. I think however it would effectively address many, if not most of your points.
- RallyPoint is a professional network, it is not a bulletin discussion board, and has no intention to become an old format discussion board. However, that doesn't mean that we can't continue to improve.
- RallyPoint Answers/Discussions is actually only mere 9 months old, if you can believe it. I think we have come quite far in a short amount of time, and fully expect to continue to improve and evolve our overall platform at the same rapid pace.
In short, I think you will like the new improvement we will be introducing in July, and we will continue to improve as we head into our 1 year anniversary of RallyPoint Answers, and beyond. We very much care about our community's feedback, and invest a lot of time in considering different improvements, knowing that any change will always have both pros and cons.
PO2 Tyler Bruels -- Thanks for your great contribution as well. I think you will like our refinement in July.
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CW2 (Join to see)
I definitely think this will be great and I understand the hesitation in moving to a forum format.
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1LT Shawn McCarthy
Sir,
There used to be an option to sort only by discussions I was following or that I started.
I like the new topical format but now I have to stalk the 'recent activity' section of frequent combatants to find the threads.
Am I missing it or is it gone?
There used to be an option to sort only by discussions I was following or that I started.
I like the new topical format but now I have to stalk the 'recent activity' section of frequent combatants to find the threads.
Am I missing it or is it gone?
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LTC Yinon Weiss
1LT Shawn McCarthy Not a lot of people used that feature, so we didn't keep it, but we're looking at bringing it back in some capacity. For now, you can use this direct URL to access your discussions:
https://www.rallypoint.com/answers?additional_params%5Bfollower_id%5D=159780&o=my
Others can use the same link by changing 159780 to be their profile ID (the number you see in your profile URL)
https://www.rallypoint.com/answers?additional_params%5Bfollower_id%5D=159780&o=my
Others can use the same link by changing 159780 to be their profile ID (the number you see in your profile URL)
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MSG (Join to see)
Just wondering if there is a way to change the "tagging" function so you can, for example, have only the rank and last name show up in the actual comment/post rather than full name.
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4
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Thank you SFC Jones. A lot of thought went into this and there are some great recommendations. My kudos to you.
Just my take on #4 and maybe this ties in with threading as COL Vincent Stoneking references. I've seen a lot of discussion where a top level response becomes a topic unto itself. I believe in my travels, I've seen comments like "hijacking" the discussion. This gets to your point of the most popular response, as opposed to the most relevant response being floated to the top. If I'm understanding the intention, is this where an admin/moderator could decide to break that specific response into its own discussion and therefore be better categorized per your suggested list? That to me makes a lot of sense.
Per previous discussions I've seen thoughts about breaking off into branch specific topics. If I recall there was mixed reaction because sometimes we all can benefit from experiences and views that SMs in sister services offer. So I guess I'm asking if your topic list is more for organizational as opposed to channeling or a combination of both?
Again, great ideas! I'm waiting expectantly to see what LTC Yinon Weiss and the team have in store.
Just my take on #4 and maybe this ties in with threading as COL Vincent Stoneking references. I've seen a lot of discussion where a top level response becomes a topic unto itself. I believe in my travels, I've seen comments like "hijacking" the discussion. This gets to your point of the most popular response, as opposed to the most relevant response being floated to the top. If I'm understanding the intention, is this where an admin/moderator could decide to break that specific response into its own discussion and therefore be better categorized per your suggested list? That to me makes a lot of sense.
Per previous discussions I've seen thoughts about breaking off into branch specific topics. If I recall there was mixed reaction because sometimes we all can benefit from experiences and views that SMs in sister services offer. So I guess I'm asking if your topic list is more for organizational as opposed to channeling or a combination of both?
Again, great ideas! I'm waiting expectantly to see what LTC Yinon Weiss and the team have in store.
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3
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I totally agree. I'm a bit of a forum junkie myself and been wondering when RP will evolve to be structured similar, since it has taken on a forum type of usage.
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