How do you feel about a Discourse upgrade ?
1 - I don’t want to change.
2 - I am willing to consider it but don’t know enough at this time.
3- I looked at this effort and may be interested.
4- I am all for it,
As for me I am between 2 and 3.
Brian Cayer
Hi Brian.
Outstanding - your first post.
A multipart answer to that suggestion -
A question for you - at what average point value do we stop our evaluation? It seems that anything above a 1.5 says we should continue.
The INA Board asked us to look into this and send them an evaluation. I’m inclined to do this.
Let’s put this question to Bob G. He is catching up on things. He should see these postings.
BTW don’t be shy about starting a new topic so this question would stand out. Right now, it’s part of the thread on Costs.
(cool beans - I was able to move this reply from it’s original topic to here)
Hi Brian,
When I started working on this, my answer would have been 3.5, as things have progressed my enthusiasm has waned.
I like your idea of polling. I do polling for some of the classes I present for Vassar Lifelong Learning using Survey Monkey. I’d gladly help put together a survey using my account.
At the moment I’m about where you are on the scale you proposed, maybe 2.5. I want to work for a solution that keeps our group friendly and helpful. From my perspective the current group is better than any of the other sailing groups I participate in. It’s the people not the platform that keeps me coming back to the group.
Listening to other Nonsuch owners, I’m seeing a pattern emerge. There are a fair number of older folks, some of whom volunteer to administer the Google Group who are attached to the current system. I want them to continue to be connected to the INA and feel valued for their loyalty and commitment. I may not share their apprehension, but I respect their feelings and would like to take the time to listen and address their concerns.
We don’t need to move fast, we need to move together.
At the Diesel workshop, we met multiple owners that have been INA members for 25 years or more. Talking to them, I kept thinking how great it was to hear how much they still enjoy their Nonsuch boats.
I can live with the limitations of the current system until we are confident that our longterm members are onboard with the change.
Survey monkey would be a good choice if people are willing to click on a link and go to a website.
So let’s start with what are we trying to learn. What results would be actionable? Unless we get a resounding go away, I would think that the Discourse evaluation would proceed along its current path. The Board might use the answers in their decision about how to proceed, and some answers might affect the implementation plans.
spitballing a few questions…
How do you feel about an upgrade?
What are your concerns?
Do you expect you will want to receive an email for every post?
Do you think you will simply walk away if we make any change at all?
Would you like to see a knowledge wiki as part of the upgrade?
Would a chat function be something you think you might use?
Do you currently use or read the Facebook Nonsuch group?
Do you Facebook at all?
Maybe we should start with a simple open-ended question like Brian asked.
Think of it as a flash poll to gauge willingness of member to click the link and establish a baseline of interest in Discourse. As we roll our communication we may see the baseline shift.
Jon, What is your answer to Brians question ?
His question was very straightforward - how do you feel.
If i remove from my answer all of the work i believe it will take to get there, and other complicating factors, it’s a 4.
In your answer, was it based on your desire to switch alone or did it include complicating factors? Do you like the choice less now that you’ve used it?
To directly answer your questions, Jon.
My answer to Brian’s question is based mostly on the impact I believe the project will have on INA. (I feel) If we try to push too far too fast, we will alienate too many of the folks that I like and respect in the INA.
I haven’t observed enough benefit to justify the cost, effort, and risk.
My personal experience is that Discourse has not provided (me) the user experience improvements that I thought it would provide (me). Many of it’s more advanced features are not things that I ( or the INA as far as I can see ) currently needs or wants. I feel the bonus features distract from the benefits Discourse might otherwise provide to INA.
I am wondering if I should post my original multiple choice question directly to the GDG and stir up some interest.
I don’t want to start any trouble but I would like to see a few more people willing to keep this effort rolling along.
Brian,
I support the idea, but I feel we should run this by the team currently investigating Discourse before communicating with the folks currently participating in INA discussions on Google Groups and Facebook.
In support of your idea, I whipped up a Survey hosted on Survey Monkey (HERE) that would make it easy to tabulate responses.
I also would encourage you to share observations that you have made using both Discourse and Google Groups.
BTW, Congratulations ! You have done well adapting to Discourse, others are still lurking.
I think you should post this to the email list discourse@nonsuch.org since it is a kind of ‘want a response’ message. I have come to think your one question baseline level of interest question might be a good thing to know.
There was also Rob’s idea to use Survey Monkey so people don’t send their responses back to the GDG.
With the next iteration of our Update out in a day or two, if we use SurveyMonkey we can hopefully decide whether to put a link there.
Jon & Rob
Ok let me know when the right time to ask comes about and how to do the survey monkey thing.
Best,
Brian
Brian, Will do.
Feel free to click on the link (HERE) and fill out the survey.
I added a title and description because the tool had a place to put them.
I also changed the word “upgrade” to “move” to pose the question in the most neutral way I could think of and added an “other” and “none” option for folks who like to color outside the lines. Hopefully, I stayed true to what you intended.
Let me know if changes are in the spirit of what you intended, I’m happy to change it so it stays true to your intent. I like the idea of ( when we’ve got the team in agreement ) that you pose the question to the group.
When you use the group do you go to https://groups.google.com/ or do you post from your Email client ?
Adding the link might be different depending on your Email client.
Rob,
I took the survey and it looks good to me.
Thanks,
Brian
Excellent !
In case you are interested in seeing what the tabulation looks like. I know kinda boring with only two respondents ( you and me )…
Other responses look like this…
Cool Beans.
I don’t think there will be much of a response until this gets put directly on GDG.
Brian
Hi All - I can’t tell if I am caught up on this discussion for sure, and that may be partly why I am unable to really commit to this platform as a replacement to GG. I was really hoping that it would look a lot more like one of these forums that are extremely simple and organized (as it looks from a User perspective):
https://www.cruisersforum.com/
https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/forums/-/list
reply
I was hoping that this group was going to be able to get closer to the simplicity of these other forums, and I am positive that the other GG users will not be satisfied with the platform as it currently exists.
Hi Bob,
Good to hear from you.
As President if this group it would be premature to come down in favor of what has been accomplished so far without some kind of feedback concerning this attempt from the members. There is a survey that could be put on the GDG by someone like Me or Rob that might give some direction wether to continue or stop trying. As for me I think the AI portion is slick.
Brian
Hi Brian,
Thanks for pointing out the AI summary feature, I hadn’t got around to using it… It does a good job summarizing a thread. Especially useful if the thread has 30 posts and replies like this one. 
So far my three favorite features in Discourse are :
How about you ? Besides the AI summary, what do you like?
My thought on the poll, I’m curious to know what others are thinking, but agree @bobgehrman should make the call regarding when we invite members to take (The Poll). He may want to gather more input from the board and make some more tweaks before we ask members to comment.
I like the changes, made in the last few days, I find it is easier to follow and more streamlined.
Hi Rob,
I have not actually tried the AI feature and I’m not sure I have the necessary permissions to do so but I have seen an example of the summary it creates early on. I think it’s a great feature but looks a little difficult to implement from what I have seen.
I have also tried to edit a small error in my response to Bob Gehrman but got a message that I could not edit because I was in slow mode (10 minute delay) even though the response was sent a day prior.
I am still learning the features and am eternally in slow mode so it will take some time but I like learning new things and do not look at the learning curve as a bad thing.
I also like that the program has the ability to be customized to suit the needs of the users.
Brian
It’s my understanding that anyone can hit the “Summarize” at the bottom of a post. I will check. I was also of the understanding that the slow mode timer was related to new responses to a post, and not to edits to older posts. I will check…
(You are of course correct… I will knock slow mode down to 2 while we ponder the desired setting)
