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MNHQ

Please help us to improve Mumsnet - join the Mumsnet Talk Testing Panel

15 replies

JustineMumsnet · 04/05/2021 12:02

It’s no secret that Mumsnet is OLD and as such Talk can be a bit creaky and buggy, particularly when we release new features.

We've been working hard for a while now behind the scenes in preparation for re-platforming to a more up to date and agile architecture and code base. It's taken a while because MN is so big and old but later this year we very much hope to be able to move over to a new and improved platform.

We will be keeping the functionality largely unchanged for now (the aim will be to make updates and add more features once we're on the new platform) but we are planning some limited improvements to the user experience and to some aspects that don't function at all well or where there are large inconsistencies across the desktop and mobile versions of the site.

For example we'll be modernising PMs, image uploading and the way long threads load (to speed things up).

We are really keen to get this right and to minimise disruption, and so we'd love your help us to shape and test the new platform. Please click here if you would like to be part of the testing group, and we will be in touch soon with more details.

(nb At the moment we're just focusing on the web version of the site, so if you only use the app, then we don't need you to participate just yet - we'll be looking at that later.)

Big thanks.

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MNHQ

JanineMumsnet · 05/05/2021 09:29

Hi everyone,

Thanks to all those who have signed up.

Just to explain, for some of the testing we won't require any recording at all, as we will eventually have a working prototype for you to use and beta test in your own time and we will likely ask for feedback in the form of a survey and feedback on a private thread.

However, for some early testing the recording is helpful as we will be asking for quite detailed feedback on one specific feature or section of talk, and the recording makes it helpful for us to be able to make detailed notes to pass on to our developers/designers. The recording will consist of screen, audio and video recording.

So if you aren't comfortable being recorded please sign up anyway as there will be things for everyone to help out with.

Hope that makes sense.

MNHQ

JanineMumsnet · 05/05/2021 09:46

I have just got some clarity on whether video recording is strictly necessary. We don't need the video recording, the most important elements are the screen and audio. We use various different tools for user testing, and generally they all do video recording as part of it. However, if you do not give this tool access to your camera/you cover your camera up then we can still do the testing and we don't have to record your face.

MNHQ

JanineMumsnet · 06/05/2021 08:58

@EggysMom

Happy to participate so long as (1) you actually listen to feedback and (2) you don't make a mess of it. I helped to test another popular forum but found the web designers very resistent to feedback, they referred to us as 'old-timers' when we started to point out unfriendly aspects of the new design. Said forum pushed through their changes and it's now incredibly clunky and has lost most of its regular posters.
We hope this will be a very different experience as we are not using a 3rd party solution - we are building this platform from scratch to take into account the features we know our regular users love and rely on. These are features that just can't be found in an existing off the shelf solution.

So we'd really love for you to get involved. We promise we will listen, and if something just isn't possible, we will be able to explain why.

MNHQ

YetAnotherBeckyMumsnet · 10/05/2021 14:50

@Loushome

Here’s some advice *@MNHQ*..... There have been multiple requests for several years by many posters asking out of sheer desperation for just one section on Chronic Pain.

You STILL fail to acknowledge this, time and time again you come back with the classic fob-off of ‘Start a thread in ‘Chat’ yourself, gather some momentum, come back to us and we’ll keep an eye on it.

Absolute bullshit will you ever give us our own zone.

Shame on you - it’s this attitude that we have to fight daily. It’s not ‘just’ the daily pain, the medication, the brain fog, the hospital visits, the new diagnosis, the new prognosis, the new symptoms, the family members that have to endure what we go through.

NO! It’s your disgraceful attitude in failing to offer this support (where we can turn and help each other) that is the cruellest, hardest, most brutal and unfair fight of all.

You want to help us? Really? Start here.

We’re so sorry you feel we fobbed you off. Obviously, something was amiss in our communication here because we're always open to user suggestions for a new section. We usually ask them to start some threads first to see if the topic has any traction because having many, many topics does make the site harder to navigate - we've had lots of feedback on that.

That said, there have been a lot of requests for a dedicated chronic pain topic (not just back pain). It’s clear that for some posters this would be really significant so we’re happy to say we’ll be launching a Chronic Pain topic in the next couple of weeks or so. Thanks for your patience.

MNHQ

JanineMumsnet · 11/05/2021 09:35

@Backstreetsbackalrightdadada

The “what thread are you on” option... if I click on it I want to go back to the post I made so I can see new posts, but instead it takes me right to the beginning or right to the end of the thread.

Would also be nice to somehow filter out PR, feels like some posters are paid for their content. Not sure how you do that though!

Otherwise the search engine isn’t great as pp have said.

We do allow the option to bookmark a post which should then always take you to that place in the thread until you bookmark another post.

But that is a good suggestion that we can consider for future optimisation.

I just wanted to clarify what you mean about filtering out PR? We do have a number of sponsored threads and guest posts, but these are clear they are not by regular members - these are usually stickied to the top of active or the topics.

However, if you are not interested in ever seeing posts like these in your active list, you can choose to hide these topics by going to your talk preferences here www.mumsnet.com/Talk?call=Preferences

Most of these topics sit in the 'Product tests and surveys' section or in the 'Mumsnet stuff' section.

There are no additional paid for threads on site, and we never pay posters for their content.

MNHQ

StevenTechMumsnet · 17/05/2021 01:34

Hi @BonesJones SkodaKodiaq and other app people. The android app is different from the iOS one and has fewer features, so that might explain the differences in what you are seeing. Hope this helps.

MNHQ

StevenTechMumsnet · 20/05/2021 01:01

Hi @Endofmytether2 I'll have a look what's happened here and we'll be in touch. Sorry for the delayed reply.

MNHQ

JustineMumsnet · 24/05/2021 16:02

@daisychain01

I'm amazed at MNHQs decision to bespoke the build of the new platform. Whyever would you do that?! It's a massively expensive and time consuming approach, and it won't future proof the solution. Does that mean you're going to have to employ yet more staff?

There are loads of good quality out of the box forum software solutions with all the bugs already ironed out and don't involve building the forum from the ground up. You can add extras at additional cost but that's far more cost effective than starting from scratch. All the testing you're going to have to put MN users through, what a massive burden and cost, when you can acquire a product that's a ready made solution with features people have been asking for, for years.

Hi Daisychain - obviously we gave this a bit of thought and considered the off the shelf platforms out there at length as well as the approach of some other big forums. We came to the conclusion that they were too restrictive - we'd simply have to change them too much to make them viable. Moneysavingexpert have gone through a similar re-platforming recently and chose Vanilla (one the main providers) as an off the shelf solution. I think it's fair to say that lots of their users are unhappy with the results and the compromises it's meant. Mumsnet's been around for a long time and evolved into something that would be impossible to replicate with an out of the box product - yes you'd get a like button etc but you wouldn't get the ability to have more than one username or 1000 posts per page for example. We view Talk as the absolute core of what we do and so worth investing in. Basically replatforming will allow us to improve the functionality and stability of the site and the effort of customising means it makes more sense to build our own than to modify an existing product. Thanks
MNHQ

JustineMumsnet · 26/05/2021 20:52

Hi OnceUponaTime1818 and Lndnmummy

I'm really disappointed you think Mumsnet isn't a welcoming place for people of colour and would welcome the opportunity to discuss what more we can do to change that - we absolutely don't tolerate racist posts will always delete them when reported and ban those who persist in making them. I'm not sure of the particular circumstances (thread and poster) that you're alluding to but if you think we've made a mistake we'd be very happy to look again.

MNHQ

JustineMumsnet · 27/05/2021 09:37

[quote Onceuponatime1818]@JustineMumsnet

Thank you, a great place to start would be transparent answers to @Lndnmummy questions above.[/quote]
What I'd really like to do is to try to understand the problem - you seem to be implying that specific policies and representation is the answer to it - and you might be right - but can we first try to define the issues as you see them? You seem to be alluding to a specific response by our mod team as an example of why more training is required - could you explain some more? Not trying to be unhelpful or opaque here - just trying to get to heart of the matter.

MNHQ

JustineMumsnet · 27/05/2021 18:27

[quote Lndnmummy]@JustineMumsnet, hello!
I’m not sure how much clearer I can be on the problem statement. The problem is racism.
In terms of “defining the issue”, again I’m not sure how much more clarity I can add. In my opinion, and that of others too, the “issue defined” is racism and as my questions suggest (or imply) I think the problem is systemic, at MNHQ.

What we are talking about here, in short, is way above and beyond insular examples, posts, or even posters and threads. Whilst I and many others can share many many examples I’m not sure that approach is the right one. That suggests to me, a defensive and reactive stance on moderation which again is likely to be subjective. If I point out an example of where I believe the moderator is incorrect and you disagree, where does that leave us? Such an approach is very unlikely to get to the “heart of the matter”.

I believe, perhaps in contrast to yourself, that the heart of the matter actually lie in the questions I’ve raised above. At the absolute core of the heart of the matter lies an acknowledgment from MNHQ that racism is rife on the boards. After that acknowledgement there would need to be a strategic conversation around why that is and how to remedy and move forward. I think my questions above should be helpful in that regard.
I feel your response (and I might be wrong, I do note your comment on trying to be helpful) is already a reactive and subjective one where the onus is put on me (us) to “prove” what’s racist so that you (as in mumsnet not you personally) can comeback and objection handle as to why a b c is not racist. This approach, is counter productive and unhelpful and would likely end up in a tit for tat much like the threads do. This in turn, would further alienate your posters of colour. Much like the latest government report suggesting there is no issue of systemic racism in the UK.
I suggest (again) that the correct approach would be for mumsnet to acknowledge, listen, reflect and redo. And get it right.[/quote]
I don't believe that we systematically allow racist posts to stand when they are reported, no. If you think that's the case then that's very worrying and clearly we need to look into it, so if you could provide examples of that I'd really like to know about them? Our policy is to disallow racism by deleting racist posts that are brought to our attention. Obviously we don't pre-moderate so we do rely on users to report racism if they see it and to ban posters with racist views - of which of course, sadly, there have been some over the years.

MNHQ

JustineMumsnet · 27/05/2021 19:09

@BIWI

In support of *@Lndnmummy*, I think asking for examples is really not helpful at this stage.

There are/have been so many examples of racist (and other 'ist') posts that haven't been dealt with swiftly enough that it would be impossible for any of us to list those.

I made a throwaway comment up thread about arguing my case with MNHQ, and @Onceuponatime1818 rightly took me to task for posting that. We shouldn't have to argue our case with the moderators. If we report something for racism, or sexism, or ageism, or disablism etc, then we would expect the moderators to listen to that report and not have to be argued into deleting a post.

And I'm afraid that what then happens is posters become irate and post something about the offensive poster, and their post gets deleted, rather than the original offensive post.

I appreciate that @Lndnmummy is posting specifically about racism, whereas I'm widening the conversation a bit here, but it I think that her questions about the MNHQ mod team, in terms of diversity, as well as your internal policies and training around these key issues are really important ones.

Naturally, and very sadly, there are always going to be racist (and sexist, homophobic, disablist, ageist, etc) posters on a site as big as Mumsnet. But knowing that those posters and their posts will be dealt with swiftly is really important for the rest of us.

I agree that users shouldn't have to argue the case about racist posts. I'm not asking for a list - I'm asking for the gist. We can't improve on / fix a problem if it's not clear what we're trying to fix?
MNHQ

JustineMumsnet · 27/05/2021 19:10

And of course we are far from perfect but it's certainly true that we respond on average much quicker to user reports than any of the major (significantly richer) social media platforms.

MNHQ

JustineMumsnet · 28/05/2021 14:06

Hi, I can see your point for sure. There’s a strong argument to delete threads if we think are they likely to attract racist posts rather than to be vigilant and delete them. I think I’ve identified the thread in question so we will have a re-think/re-set on this. Re the make up of the team - yes we have Black moderators and training but to be honest I don’t think it necessarily follows that you have to be of colour to spot or care about racism. As said it’s against our guidelines to allow racism on mumsnet - in this case we were deleting any racist posts on the thread - but I agree that it would be better practice to zap threads like this as soon as they are reported and not necessarily allow the benefit of the doubt. Thanks very much for your input.

MNHQ

DawnMumsnet · 29/05/2021 14:04

Hi Lndnmummy,

In Justine's absence, just wanted to say thanks for flagging this racist post. We do of course understand your concerns about it.

We've checked behind the scenes and can see that it was posted by a previously banned troll who has now been banned again. The post was reported to us yesterday evening and was deleted within ten minutes of us receiving the report, so we hope that gives you some reassurance.

Please continue to report any posts which concern you.

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