Progress not perfection
September 1 product update
Wow, it has been too long since I posted a little update for everyone to see and discuss if y'all want. Looks like I trailed off here after the first push on the follow feature (last updated more than a week ago), although I did manage to mention the email notification updates @ezraBC has been toiling away on and that should have started rolling out by now.
So there is a lot to catch up on. I'll do it somewhat chronological:
Following up on follow
Since the last post on this subject we shipped these improvements:
1. Gave guests the 7 cups feed on their feed page so they have something to start with.
2. Put the 7 Cups feed in a consistent place so anyone can go to it.
3. #hashtags ! but you knew about this
4. connect cards - so far it seems like most people love 'em (phew!)
5. repost with comments - improved reposts with the ability to see who reposted, and the ability to add a note when reposting, like a reply or comment or your own spin on the thing
Email only when you want it for things you missed
New email notification preferences and email templates (design still evolving)
All the other stuff
Besides the more visible feature or functionality updates, @cris & @ezraBC have been knocking out a bunch of things we've been wanting to do for some time:
1. Fix to listener signup email confirmation link (was failing for some logged-out users)
2. Setup of smarter email system much less likely to send unwanted email
3. Support Room Leader, Relationship Support, Disability Support, and Parenting Support badges now appear besides names in group support rooms
4. Better tracking of teen data to understand differences in needs and behaviors and to help @iara kick butt at her job.
5. Critical fixes to follow and reposting (too many to mention, most recently misattribution of reposted 7 cups posts and "de-duping" of duplicate repost reposts
6. Adjust process a bit to prevent troll reviews based on ghost chats
7. Enable guests to see that there are group support chat rooms for members they can access by signing up for a member account.
8. Improvements to our internal community admin tools for account management. This may seem incredibly ho-hum, but trust me when we finally get around to automating or improving admin tools, it has a way of unleashing energy that was trapped in cumbersome manual processes. We'll continue working on those less immediately visibleaspects of how this place works becasue we know you'll see the benefit when @laura and her team are better able to do their jobs and to route information or delegate processes to the right people.
OK. That pretty much catches us up to, like, today.
My next TL;DR: post will cover some of our upcoming priorities, including what I've been learning by asking for feedback on recent features and on core experiences, such as browsing for a listener or (listener's only) taking personal requests.
Stay with us. We're in for a heck of a trek.