Is there and option for "threaded" discussions?
We are attempting to try out Faithlife as a platform for an online Bible study group. The discussions appear to behave more like "timeline posts" from Facebook where the newest posts just appear at the top. Is there a way to thread the replies so that it has more of a discussion feel? Or is there another option/tab that we should be using for interactive discussions?
Thanks,
Stacy
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Nope. The first implementation of the Faithlife community platform is pretty barebones. What you see is all it can do as far as thread order. Hopefully they will be improving it in the future, but how much time and expense they put into it will probably depend on how popular it is, which unfortunately will probably depend on how usable it is in its first iteration. They sometimes shoot themselves in the foot by rushing to get something out there before it's really fully usable, and then scratch their heads at why not many people adopted it, and then pull the plug on it (think Handouts feature in Logos). I think they are beginning to learn that this isn't the best strategy. I hope the Faithlife study platform ends up being successful. I personally have not spent much time on it and find it poorly executed. But it has great potential.
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@Rosie--Thanks for the reply. I feel kind of caught in the middle between abandoning our attempt at an online study or trying to muddle through with the current non-threaded discussions. It was a real surprise to find out that their discussion feature was not set up like this forum or almost every other discussion board for that matter. I just assumed they were--my bad. I have to agree with your assessment of how they shoot themselves in the foot. After all the hype about Faithlife groups on my Logos home page I am really disappointed to find out that their groups seem to be more of a "beta" project than a finished product. I too hope they put some more work into the platform because I do think it does have a lot of potential. Thanks again for your response!
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William Stacy Ellsworth said:
I am really disappointed to find out that their groups seem to be more of a "beta" project than a finished product.
Yup, this has been Logos's philosophy from the early days. "Release early, release often" is a mantra they are partial to. It means we end up being in almost perpetual beta, which is frustrating as a user. I probably spend more of my time reporting bugs in Logos, helping people who are confused with how to use it because it's not obvious or isn't completely implemented, and suggesting new features or resources or feature improvements, than I do actually studying with the software.
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Rosie Perera said:
Yup, this has been Logos's philosophy from the early days. "Release early, release often" is a mantra they are partial to.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia…
“Release early, release often (also: time-based releases, sometimes abbreviated RERO) is a software development philosophy that emphasizes the importance of early and frequent releases in creating a tight feedback loop between developers and testers or users, contrary to a feature-based release strategy. Advocates argue that this allows the software development to progress faster, enables the user to help define what the software will become, better conforms to the users' requirements for the software, and ultimately results in higher quality software. The development philosophy attempts to eliminate the risk of creating software that no one will use.”
So just how do we get the faster progress driven by what we help to define as better conforming to our requirements instead of something people won't use? Specifically, how does one get Faithlife's attention (and response) on the nearly useless non-threaded discussion "feature" in time for something like an online Lenten Bible Study? :-)
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William Stacy Ellsworth said:
So just how do we get the faster progress driven by what we help to define as better conforming to our requirements instead of something people won't use? Specifically, how does one get Faithlife's attention (and response) on the nearly useless non-threaded discussion "feature" in time for something like an online Lenten Bible Study? :-)
Unfortunately it doesn't work that way. It's user driven feedback loops. Faithlife produces a new version (say 6.1, which is now in beta) gets feedback from beta testers and tries to have a short beta cycle so it can get out to more users sooner. Then people start complaining about what they don't like about it. Faithlife addresses those concerns as best they can, while also adding whatever new feature enhancements they had planned for 6.2 and gets that out the door as quickly as possible, and so the cycle continues.
Where you and I have input into the cycle is through the forums (making suggestions like you did here), through UserVoice (where we can post feature requests and get people to vote for our favorite ones by drumming up support here on the forums), and through contacting Customer Service to tell them how such and such isn't working for us. Also Faithlife collects anonymous data about how users are actually using the software; if you want to participate in this, make sure "Send Feedback" is set to Anonymous in Tools > Program Settings (you can set it to "All" if you want your user account info included). They take that into account when planning how to enhance existing features. If nobody is using a particular aspect of a feature, they might realize it needs to be made more prominent next time around. Etc.
I doubt that the Faithlife non-threaded discussions will be changed in time for a Lenten Bible Study, as Lent begins in two weeks. But you could post a request on the UserVoice forum for "threaded discussions on Faithlife.com" and hopefully that will begin to get some traction.
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Thanks for the feedback, WIlliam. I'll share this with our Faithlife Groups team.William Stacy Ellsworth said:Is there a way to thread the replies so that it has more of a discussion feel? Or is there another option/tab that we should be using for interactive discussions?
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Thanks Ryan!
I hope the team sees, what I hope will be, the increased potential for truly interactive discussions that a threaded format might offer for people trying to use Faithlife Groups as an online learning/Bible study environment.
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Rosie Perera said:
But you could post a request on the UserVoice forum for "threaded discussions on Faithlife.com" and hopefully that will begin to get some traction.
I have gone into UserVoice and suggested this: Format Discussions on Faithlife Groups Into Threaded Responses
If you are reading this and happen to agree please vote for the suggestion. Thanks!
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William Stacy Ellsworth said:
I have gone into UserVoice and suggested this: Format Discussions on Faithlife Groups Into Threaded Responses
If you are reading this and happen to agree please vote for the suggestion. Thanks!
I don't have any votes left, unfortunately. And this is likely to get lost in this thread because it started out with a subject line that was a question. I'd start a new thread and title it something like "VOTE for Threaded Discussion Formatting in Faithlife Groups" to get other users' attention and encourage them to vote.
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