MIFEX - concerns, updates

[Guest]

.

[wind5001]

Thanks, Gerard!

[Canadian Here]

That's good to know. Thanks so much for the link/update.

Lorna (& "The Critters")

[AccountAbility]

While I appreciate the update, why is this stuff posted so "surreptitiously"?  As the website gets bigger with more and more places where things can change, it is getting impossible to find "the new stuff" without spending literally hours pouring over the website.

There has got to be a better way.  Maybe a separate page on News about Kiva Field Partners, which would also explain any changes in the star ratings (another surreptitious event)?

Dan

[Gerard]

While I appreciate the update, why is this stuff posted so "surreptitiously"?  As the website gets bigger with more and more places where things can change, it is getting impossible to find "the new stuff" without spending literally hours pouring over the website.

There has got to be a better way.  Maybe a separate page on News about Kiva Field Partners, which would also explain any changes in the star ratings (another surreptitious event)?

Dan

A totally fair point. The answer is resources. Right now our best thinking is that we'll undertake a Field Partner page update and journals tab update toward the end of this year, or the beginning of Q1 in 2010. That's not a guarantee by any means.

The idea is to always have updates like this on the Field Partner page so that, any time you have a question about what's going on at MIFEX, you can pull up the MIFEX Field Partner page and find out what's going on.

[Diane R]

EDIT: Gerard posted while I was penning this post.  His comment refers to an engineering change to the website, I'll explore on our call whether adding the discussed "What's New" section to the Help Center might be less resource-intensive and quicker to implement.

This was one of the sorts of "hidden updates" I discussed with Liz in a KF Liaison call in May.  The write-up from that call mentioned her plans to add a "What's New" section to the Help Center on the Kiva.org website, where known bugs and Field Partner updates would be highlighted. 

From the KF Liaison write-up (which mentions the known bugs issue but isn't explicit about FP updates, although we discussed them too):

[3]  Communicating known bugs to lenders:
Can you please address the question of communication around these known bugs with Liz?  I would be interested in understanding why Kiva seems resistant to suggestions that they post notices about known issues on the website (blog, check out page, etc.) or via Twitter.  It seems to me that with an ongoing issue such as the current one with Paypal that having a notice on the website would be beneficial to Kiva in two ways.

1.  It would decrease lender frustration when they know upfront that there could be an issue with their check-out.
2. It would lessen the volume of emails coming into Kiva CS.

DISCUSSION:
Liz understands this but is also aware of limited Engineering resources which may be committed elsewhere.  She is in the process of redesigning the Help Center on the site, and will start with "What's New" updates, with known issues and bug reports, there weekly; at first it won't be updated in real-time but she hopes to get there before long.  She wants to be sure to come up with measures that can be implemented which are not just for people who know where to look; she characterized this as a balancing act to find ways to integrate short-term problem notifications into the process better.  (This sort of notification will likely never appear on the kiva.org homepage, however.)

I'll put it on the list for the next call with Gerard, to ask whether Liz's plans for updating the Help Center are going forward now that she's moved on.

--Diane.

[AccountAbility]

The idea is to always have updates like this on the Field Partner page so that, any time you have a question about what's going on at MIFEX, you can pull up the MIFEX Field Partner page and find out what's going on.

If that is the idea, then we are right back where we started.  As currently structured, we can already go to the MIFEX page and read what's there. 

What is missing is an alert that something new is there.  Without it (or some common place where all new verbiage/changes are simultaneously posted) it is just another needle in a haystack.

Double posting notices in one common place shouldn't take too much resource.  It is not a lot harder than putting a bcc on every email going out.

Dan

[YowieFreak]

What is missing is an alert that something new is there.  Without it (or some common place where all new verbiage/changes are simultaneously posted) it is just another needle in a haystack.

Gerard has posted that they are setting up an alert system, so we will now know when to go and look at the partner pages to see what has changed.

[AccountAbility]

Pardon me if I don't get too excited about using Twitter to fix a shortcoming on the website.   

The alert should also be on the website itself.

Dan

[YowieFreak]

Pardon me if I don't get too excited about using Twitter to fix a shortcoming on the website.   

The alert should also be on the website itself.

Dan

I still haven't worked out how to use Twitter myself (although I have worked out how to access the RSS feeds for it), but Gerard also said in his post:

Working on embedding it in the Help Center so everyone, not just Kiva Friends can see it.

I assume that refers to the "What's New" page that Diane and Liz discusssed.

So, hopefully we will be able to check that single page on a regular basis, and it will have links to anything that has changed recently anywhere else on the site.

[Unilove]

Kiva Updates on Twitter also had this to say:

"Loan export for super-lenders (1000+ loans) going out with the next release (early next week) Thx for your patience!'