One of the main things I've been doing in my long (eight day) tenure at AnnArbor.com is talking to people.
I've been listening to what folks say they'd like to see in the new venture, their concerns about things they'll miss from a seven-day print product, and what expectations they have. I've had a bunch of interesting conversations with people, ranging from folks who are brand new in town to longtime Ann Arborites who were well-established before I moved here in the '80s. Some of those folks are online people who never look at online newspapers and others are dedicated newspaper readers skeptical that anything electronic could ever replace what they're used to now.
The other thing I've been tracking since I started here is the UserVoice online feedback section of AnnArbor.com, which has been live since April. I had the chance to go back and read through comments representing the input of at least 1,000 people. There's a lot of great stuff in there; it's been useful to read through, and we appreciate your input.
We recently took the section down from the site because it exposed one of several issues that come up when you host comments. UserVoice, for all its helpful ways of collecting feedback, is ill-equipped to fight off someone determined to fill it with smelly spam. We also feel the forum accomplished its main goal, which was to serve as a temporary space where the AnnArbor.com team could collect the community's initial questions and feedback.
The other thing I've been tracking since I started here is the UserVoice online feedback section of AnnArbor.com, which has been live since April. I had the chance to go back and read through comments representing the input of at least 1,000 people. There's a lot of great stuff in there; it's been useful to read through, and we appreciate your input.
We recently took the section down from the site because it exposed one of several issues that come up when you host comments. UserVoice, for all its helpful ways of collecting feedback, is ill-equipped to fight off someone determined to fill it with smelly spam. We also feel the forum accomplished its main goal, which was to serve as a temporary space where the AnnArbor.com team could collect the community's initial questions and feedback.
The forum was useful, and we're keeping track of all of the comments and suggestions readers left on it. We've already put many of the ideas in place, while others gave us great food for thought on what we might be able to do in the future.
And just because we discontinued the UserVoice forum doesn't mean we're done soliciting feedback. Far from it. We always welcome your comments, ideas, suggestions and advice. Feel free to let us know what you think by e-mailing share@annarbor.com.
The UserVoice forum still seems to be up, and doesn't appear to be full of spam - the paid moderation features should allow the readers (as well as AnnArbor.com staff) to police this pretty well.
I think it would be a real shame to lose the transparency UserVoice provides - it's great to see what other readers value, what the state of each request is, and what we can look forward to.
I'll ask UserVoice's founder, Marcus, to take a peek at this to see if there's anything that could be improved (I just travelled in Asia with him).
Thanks for the feedback, Dug. I'd welcome an intro to Marcus.
The forum is not full of spam now in part because of work we did to remove it. I didn't see any reasonable way to mitigate it as it came in in that system, and so the expedient measure (remembering that we have a site to launch in not too many days) was to pull back from it for now and reflect on what we learned and focus. There's a surprising number of systems out there for commenting that can be overrun by a single person determined to game out the system; something that you always have to work a fine line between between transparency and expediency.
thanks
Ed
A comment noted in the delicious tag for this article:
" Perfection is impossible. Disappointed that feedback part gone. Even cached versions. Not even a summary. The lack of outrage is worrisome "
As Dug notes, the feedback site is still online at UserVoice. You are all welcome to review it - it's not just cached, it's all there. Going forward, the full intention is for people to give feedback on the site on the site itself.