Navigating the KivaFriends Forum: Issues of Organization, Fragmentation, Etc.

[Guest]

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[Jill]

          I'm opening up this thread, as I just said I would in the thread, KivaFriends Calling Kiva.Org.
http://www.kivafriends.org/index.php/topic,898.msg6628.html#msg6628
I'm coming back to post some of my own thoughts here,  later.
The immediately following is almost verbatim of what I wrote in my last post, up there.
     
       It's my hope that this new thread will be a place
where people can share their thoughts and reactions related to trying to limit or not trying to limit the posts in the thread,
KivaFriends Calling Kiva.Org,
   &

where people can talk about other issues including:
how best to communicate with Kiva.Org. on the smaller questions,
challenges of organization and fragmentation in our Forum (and suggestions for remedying the latter),     

and/or about issues
of unrestricted free-wheeling banter, hijacking, "birdwalking," etc.,        and  about
the desirability of trying to have some, but minimal "rules" or no rules,
whatever.

[Wood Fairy Glenda]

I can think of a "rule" for this thread, Jill, that may well fit your purposes:  RULE: Once a question or comment has been submitted to Kiva personnel in this thread, nobody but Kiva personnel should answer it. (Is this what you want, Jill?).

[RichardF]

Personally, I don't believe Kiva staffers have all that much trouble finding out what their friends are thinking.  One problem I do see is Kiva's friends finding out what Kiva thinks about some of these things.  I haven't heard back from her yet, so I'll just blab one of my suggestions to Jill about this issue here.

• A Kiva staffer starts a locked and pinned topic at the "Suggestion Box" board.
  
• The title is something like Kiva Friends Customer Support Ticket System.
  
• The purpose of the topic is to summarize noteworthy issues and Kiva's response to them.
  
• Each following post covers one issue, updated as warranted.
  
• Each post includes the following or similar sections.
  Topic:
  Summary:
  Status:
  Related Kiva Link(s):
  Related Kiva Friends Link(s):
  
• Add a link to the "KFCSTS" at the top of the Kiva.org Help page.  (Thanks Henry!)
  
• All of the free-wheeling conversations take place elsewhere, leaving this to be the one-stop-shop for those who just want to see a short-and-sweet update about what's going on in this little Kiva/Friends world of ours.
  

[wind5001]

Richard,

great idea. I had just thought about such a possibility, but all I could come up with was two seperate threads, one in which you post your questions to Kiva and in which ONLY Kiva staff is to answer, and another one in which you also post your question and then Kivafriends can answer...but that would lead to nothing, because it'd mean confusion all over the place. The pinned thread solves that problem.

I had also wondered, how Kiva staff was to find our true concerns as this forum (luckily!) is more and more active and has more and more members and posters and therefore the threads are filling up quickly, not necessarily with what they'd been meant for (and I have done that MUCH more than once). I think that this is alright, but for the staffers, who don't have forever to go through all the threads and postings, it might be nice to have a central place (although I'd still want them to browse through the rest!!!).

Your solution seems good to me, Richard.

Oli

[RichardF]

Oli, one thing I like about that little outline is the Kiva staffer decides which Kiva Friends threads are related to the topic in question.  It can be stated in the introductory post that is where Kiva staffers most likely will look for Kiva Friends' views on the topic.

[Henry]

I believe Richards Idea is the appropriate answer - with the exception of where it's located.  If it's location is here in KF, then only KF members/guest will find the answer.   I think the more appropriate location would be on KIVA.ORG.  That way, Liz or the support staff could receive, or create questions with answers.  Similar to what they have already.  But having the 'post question' type input screen on their site would grow their Q&A section and allow Non-KF'ers to view them.  

If all we can start with is the "KIVAFriends Customer Support ticket" method, then that would be great.  KIVA should support this, as I'm sure it would help reduce 'customer support' emails and phone calls.

[Jill]

     Thanks for posting, Glenda.

    Seeing even just the word, "rules" rankles... I know. 
    It does me, too.

     I do want to take more time to think about all this
before I attempt one of my (I swear, it's unintended) "treatises,"
but the main thing that was worrying me was the possibility
of our all coming up with so many questions that it would end up being overwhelming
(too time-consuming for anybody at Kiva to try to answer without having to sacrifice time from doing other things they needed to get done).

    I got "scared" that if we filled that thread with too much verbiage
(Look who's talking!) (And yes, mea culpa, mea culpa -- I'm the worst or one of the worst),
and/ or ....

      if we don't limit it to questions that have already engaged/worried/galvanized a sizeable number of us
(the "universal" interest in those questions having already been demonstrated by the flurry of activity and commentary
as that that could be found in the threads dealing with
WITEP & ENTREPRENEUR DEFAULT,
IF I SHOULD DIE BEFORE I WAKE ISSUES
MARK AGWONAH & THE SURVIVABILITY OR FORGIVENESS OF HIS DEBT),

       I'm just worried we're going to unintentionally close off
the avenue of communication
we're all hopeful of having and
we were all thrilled to see maybe opening up
with the introduction of that thread.

(Hey, you guys, I just got the advisory note that there have been three new replies since I started typing,
but I'm going to post this, anyway, without reading them,
and then will digest them and maybe respond to them, later,
if I need to and if the inclination strikes.
Still, remember, this is just one person talking, thinking, suggesting -- me,
and that's how you should take anything I say-- as just coming from one out of hundreds of us).

   

[RichardF]

Henry, I like the idea of expanding the "Help" section at  Kiva a bit, inspired by conversations with their friends, but I'm guessing not everything covered in a "customer support ticket system" needs to be included in their "final answer."  If Kiva already has something like this in place (what techie operation doesn't these days?), it shouldn't be all that much extra effort to post it here.  Like you said, it could even reduce some of their repetitive work - answering the same question for the 92,009th time!  My other solution is to post a link to Kiva Friends on the Kiva.org home page and a link to the "KFCSTS" at the top of their help page! 

Then Joe can give us a "linked from" report to see how many folks become new Kiva Friends from the Kiva.org Home and Help pages!

[Jill]

      Hey Guys,
          I've been trying to read through and understand your suggestions, and I'm feeling a little more obtuse than usual
in the attempt.  That may be due, in part, to the fact that I'm totally unfamiliar with Forum vocabulary and am just
barely on a survival level with my computer skills, so what appears to be second nature and totally comprehensible
to the three of you is a foreign language to me.   I'm saying all that as kind of a warning.  It's possible that I'm
misunderstanding or just "not getting" what you're proposing.
 
          I'm not sure about this, but I think that what Richard proposed and what Henry and Oli are seconding,
is an approach that would put "the onus", in effect, the burden or the lion's share of the organization work
(for communications between KivaFriends and Kiva.Org)
     on a Kiva staffer
     and not on us.

      My entire purpose for initiating the KivaFriends Calling Kiva.Org thread and then,
the concern I was starting to feel when I saw what was happening with that thread,
which concern led to this thread and this discussion here,

all emanated, first, from my/our desire to have at least some direct communication with Kiva,
and then.... the concern...
from my belief we were risking losing the brand new limited pipeline we just got with Kiva.Org
inadvertently and unintentionally,
but as a result of what started looking like us beginning to ask for "too much."

     I say that:

-- Knowing how it felt like we were Never going to hear from them about WITEP (that's an exaggeration)--

-- Knowing how frustrated a number of us get, either trying to find something among the proliferation of threads,
    or trying to follow a topic through all the birdwalking, hijacking and goofing around commentary and
    believing it's absolutely unrealistic and not all that fair to expect the Kiva people to do/ to have to do the same
    in order to communicate with us and/or read our minds ---

-- Believing that some communication -- give and take between them and us in this Forum context--
    is tremendously better than the close-to-none at all it felt like we were getting and

-- Hoping we can come up with something that will be minimally time-consuming and burdensome for them
    but that will be a positive exchange/ information-giving mechanism for us.

      I'm not going to keep writing here, now, because I know I drive most of you crazy,
as I drive myself crazy with how long my posts are.

     I'll close in saying two things.

    I don't think we need anything "Locked"  (I don't know what pinned means). 
We're grown-ups and can restrain ourselves or employ a little self-discipline on the rare occasions here where it might be to our benefit to do that.

    Also, though I know that all of us could come up with an infinite number of things we'd like to know about and talk over with Kiva,
don't you think it would be worth it to try to limit ourselves, at least, at this point, to being content with getting some reasonable
and halfway regular feedback, conversation from them on a few of the really big things?

[Wood Fairy Glenda]

Jill, I think much of the problem is that many of us don't have a clue what thread we're in at any moment  I, at any rate, usually click on "List of recent threads with unread posts" when I enter the site.  If the comment showing is something like "I really like the Germans" and I look back and see "These German posters!" I might not realize that it's just silly "asides" between Henry and Oli, and might be very tempted to ad a "crack" of my own. That's why I suggested the possiblilty of a thread in which KivaFriends could ask questions of staff and only KivaStaff could answer the questions.