[Solved] Knock Knock.... Just a little status update, anyone home?  

RE: Knock Knock.... Just a little status update, anyone home?

Hello Shane.

Personally, I feel before we add any new forums, we should work towards fixing the current forum bugs. The slow page loading. The inability to edit posts, even if straight after publishing. The greyed out reply box, which only reappears after some page refreshes (although this seems to have reduces as of late). While the current forum platform seems to work, it 'feels' clunky, and this in turn has frustrated many new users in the past - enough to turn them away.

I would also work towards turning this into a hub for information. I rarely use Github, even though it can be a valuable source of information, but bringing that kind of information/support over onto the forum, where issues can eb 'properly' discussed would be invaluable, especially considering the number of highly knowledgeable users the forum has. 

Oh, and maybe make my build guide threads 'stickies'........ 😉 lol

RE: Knock Knock.... Just a little status update, anyone home?

Let me be Mr Obvious in here.

Reduce forums to English sections is good idea, lock everything else ( its probably dead except German section? Just guessing). Maybe an overkill but should help to restrict maintenance overhead. Especially when we see people posting in oher languages in English sections...

I would be very cautious in closing topics if people ask basic questions. I saw many forums which were getting abandoned because too restrictive forum cleanup ended in people not bothering to ask because it would be locked.

Also making too many or too little stickies is hard because it will end in too long posts people do not read or too many stickies that people will skip as one giant block of text on the top of the forums. Stickies should keep the list of the most common issues how to debug issues with links to topics with solutions or help pages.

Another issue - do not let posts to hang without an answer for too long, at best it should be answered within 48h even with some basic info to acknowledge the issue. Or redirect urgent issues to Discord maybe (not to mention official support of course).

Merge similar topics or close with a redirection to an existing topic. Extract solutions as stickies or help articles or GitHub issues.

Get at least 3 mods per printer model so that they do not feel the urge to clean up everywhere and being overwhelmed by the issues people report. Lot of people are interested in only specific sections ( you can see that they are active only there).

Redesign help pages but that's another story, I think the wiki would be much better form than the current solution ( which is based on wordpress I guess?), because it would allow people to contribute. Or go mental and use git docs and pull/merge requests.

RE:

Redesign help pages but that's another story, I think the wiki would be much better form than the current solution ( which is based on wordpress I guess?), because it would allow people to contribute. Or go mental and use git docs and pull/merge requests.

I can only recommend this platform to the administrators of the Prusa forum:

https://js.wiki/

Anyone who has ever had a Bambu Lab knows what a gold mine it is to work with this platform. Even the printer assembly instructions (if they still exist in the future) can be found there.

Reduce forums to English sections is good idea, lock everything else ( its probably dead except German section? Just guessing). Maybe an overkill but should help to restrict maintenance overhead. Especially when we see people posting in oher languages in English sections...

I write in the English forum because that's where you get the most answers when you have a question. You could say that most of the content is found in the “English forum.” Normally, I would have to write in the German forum, but I translate my questions or topics and post them in the English forum.

I would be very cautious in closing topics if people ask basic questions. I saw many forums which were getting abandoned because too restrictive forum cleanup ended in people not bothering to ask because it would be locked.

Also making too many or too little stickies is hard because it will end in too long posts people do not read or too many stickies that people will skip as one giant block of text on the top of the forums. Stickies should keep the list of the most common issues how to debug issues with links to topics with solutions or help pages.

That wasn't my intention either. It always depends on how, what, and with what content such a post is created. Basically, it would be nice if the mods referred more to existing content as a guide for fundamental questions, which crop up here all the time and keep popping up again and again.

RE: Knock Knock.... Just a little status update, anyone home?

I was active on a Chinese language FPGA forum for a while. It was Chinese only but I was able to communicate because google translate was embedded. It was so well done that at times I thought I was on an English only forum. I've often wondered if there was any useful information on the German or Czech Prusa forums I was missing out on but I have yet to venture over there.

Being a native English speaker I'm of course OK with the forums being English only. Or... I don't know... make it Esperanto instead. Of course I'm joking. But I think the advantage of enforcing a single language is beneficial to all. 

RE: Knock Knock.... Just a little status update, anyone home?

I didn't realise the forum in other languages was actually different forums - I always thought it was just the English forum that was translated to another language! lol

RE: Knock Knock.... Just a little status update, anyone home?

Apologies for the double post - got an error page, resubmit, and the post went up twice! lol

RE: Knock Knock.... Just a little status update, anyone home?

Ok so to address a few things.

For the technical issues with the forum. I already know about them and already collected feedback on those issues and submitted them. I mentioned that about them in my original post and it would be best to keep comments about the tech issues out of the discussion as its already a known issue, being investigated and if its brought up often, other suggestions can be buried and missed. So please, I know about them, they are being investigated, hold off on those comments please 🙂


For the forum itself, it has always been a place for the community, and a apart of that is the community helping each other out. To have official staff here on a regular basis is not possible.

For developers, they are responsible for our github and respond to the ticket system there. As someone mentioned previously, having engineers engaging in forum cases + their regular tasks would burn them out, along with other departments requested to be on here.


What I can do is the following;

- To reach developers, it would be the same policy, going to github, searching to see if there is a ticket already submitted, if there is, then comment on that. If not then submit a ticket. 

- For product managers, I can send links to posts for them to monitor them.

- For support cases, I can send the links WITH THE ORIGINAL POSTERS EMAIL ADDRESS and they can then reach out to them to assist for individual support.

For other comments about the community creating their own useful information for supporting the printers, AFTER I get this initial feedback sorted and organized, I can look into that.

FAQ / Guides and other things;
This is already written down to create and post for various topics, I will just need time to implement them.

Reducing the forums to one language, that is something that would need to be investigated heavily, as I am not sure it would be of value to non english speaking community members, even if there was an auto translator in use. It’s not just about language, but also finding other community members in their area, and other cultural things.

RE: Knock Knock.... Just a little status update, anyone home?

Hello,

m2c:

• Improve the search function. Example: I want to refine the search -where, date etc - before I search and not after the initial search 
• Reducing the forum language to only one language - English as mentioned before - is very dangerous/risky. People can order with their mother tongue but then can not communicate in their mother tongue when in need for help/support..!?!?!?! 
  I would try to think about improving the Help Pages based on questions on the forum, independent in which "language" section. Then pointing to this pages or linking to them. I know we already have a lot of links placed to direct us in the right/correct direction. There it is - one of the mayor "problems" of our time: Do we have or take time to read all the already given informations?

RE:

For me, the single biggest turnoff is when someone reports a bona fide bug and they are told, “Prusa doesn’t monitor this forum.  Go to GitHub.”  Hell, this is the official Prusa Forum, is it not?  Note my signature…

RE: Knock Knock.... Just a little status update, anyone home?

Posted by: @jan-d-slay

When a new topic is created that cannot be solved with existing knowledge from the forum, Github, or Prusa help topics, it must be mandatory to “educate” the user seeking help so that they at least include the most important information in their topic!

It is unacceptable that the first 3-5 posts in the forum are used to clarify what the issue is, what settings are involved, etc.

The administrators should take a clear stance here in order to provide everyone in the forum who wants to help with a sufficiently good basis for writing solutions.

Well, a lot of questions come from users who have already proven that they are not good at following instructions (on building and using their printers). 😉 So I am not sure how promising it is to create even more instructions for them (on how to properly post in the forum).

Actually, the questions with far too little background information tend to come from that category of "let's wing it" users more often than not. Those who take a more thoughtful approach tend to provide relevant details on their own.

RE: Knock Knock.... Just a little status update, anyone home?

For what it’s worth, people on GitHub aren’t any happier.  Many of them are also dismayed by Prusa’s lack of attention.

<excerpt>
Xxxxx-xxxxx left a comment (prusa3d/Prusa-Firmware-Buddy#4862)

Gave up on waiting for Prusa. I’m now the proud owner of a new Bambu P2S. After one week of printing 60 hours worth of product, I’m wowed and delighted! Prusa was great in their day, but that time has passed.

I'm seriously considering this as well. My Prusa went from a tool to a project over the past month really quickly. 6.2.6 is better but the firmware still has issues with "replacing filament" mode.

<excerpt>

RE: Knock Knock.... Just a little status update, anyone home?

I was going to be a little more polite and only request two things, but since it took me 4 attempts and several minutes just to log in... The log in needs work. First and for most. If you can't login and do anything, the rest is moot. (I am assuming there is some sort of bot mitigation going on that's causing that but who knows... Modern internet gonna modern internet)

A few requests that may or may not be tech versus just settings are:

1.) I would like to be able to edit posts within reason beyond 5 minutes. Ideally, forever, or until someone replies to lock it in.

2.)When I am on a page I want to reply to, and I am not logged in, if I log in, the site forgets where I am. It would be nice to remember so I don't have to look for it again.

3.) When someone posts a reply to my thread, and I get an email that such has happened, it would be nice to be able to see that reply without having to log in. I don't know why there is some sort of push delay, but there is.

4.) There are too many ways to attach pictures. I'd like that to be simplified.

5.) Definitely avoid AI. I avoid anything AI I possibly can. I don't find it beneficial to train my eventual overlord. I saw the ending of that movie.

6.) Do not "subscribe to this topic" by default.

That's all I got.

RE: Knock Knock.... Just a little status update, anyone home?

Alternatively, if your gonna send me an email that a reply was added, include the full reply in said email.

Also it took a good minute just to post that message. Traffic is really screwy.

RE: Knock Knock.... Just a little status update, anyone home?

Duplicate posts + search: 
I've stopped using the search function 1-2 years ago, instead using a search engine or gen AI to try and find prusa forum posts. I also see a lot of the same posts over and over again. Maybe with an improved search function, users could automatically get suggestions for similar posts when they are creating posts. That way, they might check previous posts and find their answers immediately without having to create a duplicate thread. (Maybe an FAQ could be created, but that's more of a help-section thing.)

Prusa staff visibility
Glad to see more Prusa staff on the forums. It really does feel like the forum has been abandoned the last 1-2 years. 

Too many sub-forums
There are so many sub-forums now that ... it's become a bit too much if you're here to just browse for leisure / learning / contributing. I instead just look at the first 1-2 pages of "recent posts" to try and find something interesting. If you're only interested in a certain aspect of a certain printer, the current system is fine, but maybe it would be better to have fewer sub-forums but push more heavily on tags or something similar. As previous forums members have said, many issues raised are printer-agnostic. 

High quality content - Are contests good?
The contests and "featured" models on Printables is by far the best things, because they help me find high quality content. I find that I rarely browse the forums anymore, simply because much of the content here isn't interesting or stimulating for me. I'm not against contest or something similar, as long as it manages to create (or makes it easier to find) high quality content. 

PS: I personally prefer a Reddit-style forum that more easily allow for different thread within the same general topic, but that's not a deal-breaker for me. 

RE: Knock Knock.... Just a little status update, anyone home?

The contests and "featured" models on Printables is by far the best things, because they help me find high quality content.

Huh. "Features"... yeah, that has brought a few good things to my attention. "Contests"... here I have the opposite reaction. If it's in a contest, it's usually some crap someone hacked together to meet the deadline. Over the years, I printed some of the "winners",and-uh-no good. So I stopped looking at contests a long time ago. These days I usually go to Printables to look at my feed of people I follow or to search for something specific. Haven't looked at the front page in ages. 

RE: Knock Knock.... Just a little status update, anyone home?

Too many of the Printables contests are thinly veiled sponsorship deals. I find that off-putting enough that I no longer follow them. Might have missed some nice ideas that way, who knows? 

But anyway -- Printables already exists as a platform for that kind of community engagement. I don't think we need contests here. What would they be? "This February, give the best advice on stuck filament"?   

RE: Knock Knock.... Just a little status update, anyone home?

"What's your favorite detergent? "

The contests and "featured" models on Printables is by far the best things, because they help me find high quality content.

I think you have that the wrong way around - Contest entries, even the winners, are by definition, designed in a hurry without proper testing and judged in a hurry without proper testing.  Featured models are, sometimes, a little better but we desperately need a filter to exclude competition entries from search results.

"What's your favorite detergent? "

I'm for the Fairy team 'though you, I expect, root for Dawn...

Cheerio,

RE: Knock Knock.... Just a little status update, anyone home?

- For support cases, I can send the links WITH THE ORIGINAL POSTERS EMAIL ADDRESS and they can then reach out to them to assist for individual support.

While this is great for that user, it's not so great for the community - what's good for the community is a resolution to the issue being published within that thread. It can be quite annoying searching online, finding an old thread that shares your current problem, but then seeing that the resolution hasn't been published........

RE: Knock Knock.... Just a little status update, anyone home?

Posted by: @shrap-2

I was going to be a little more polite and only request two things, but since it took me 4 attempts and several minutes just to log in... The log in needs work. First and for most. If you can't login and do anything, the rest is moot. (I am assuming there is some sort of bot mitigation going on that's causing that but who knows... Modern internet gonna modern internet)

A few requests that may or may not be tech versus just settings are:

1.) I would like to be able to edit posts within reason beyond 5 minutes. Ideally, forever, or until someone replies to lock it in.

2.)When I am on a page I want to reply to, and I am not logged in, if I log in, the site forgets where I am. It would be nice to remember so I don't have to look for it again.

3.) When someone posts a reply to my thread, and I get an email that such has happened, it would be nice to be able to see that reply without having to log in. I don't know why there is some sort of push delay, but there is.

4.) There are too many ways to attach pictures. I'd like that to be simplified.

5.) Definitely avoid AI. I avoid anything AI I possibly can. I don't find it beneficial to train my eventual overlord. I saw the ending of that movie.

6.) Do not "subscribe to this topic" by default.

That's all I got.

Technical issues are already under investigation 😉