Our users seem to confuse “Reply” with PM, so that some posts which should better be private are made public, and clutter the conversation. Can we make Reply and PM siblings somehow, so users have to make a conscious choice whether to Reply or PM? Currently Reply is very accessible, while PM is less so- they have to click on a user’s avatar and hit “Message”.
AI-generated summary
The discussion revolves around the idea of making “Reply” and “PM” (Private Message) siblings in the UI to reduce user confusion. Mark_Schmucker suggests this change to prevent private messages from being posted publicly, cluttering conversations. However, cjk77 disagrees, arguing that it doesn’t make sense to make private replies equivalent to public replies.
Merefield believes the issue is a result of users’ bad habits and suggests actively moderating and pushing off-topic posts into private messages instead. codinghorror questions the audience composition, wondering if they are familiar with common social media platforms.
Mark_Schmucker responds that the audience is affluent and tech-savvy, but still sees an issue. Merefield agrees that users often realize they’re posting publicly and thinks it’s not an issue with the UI, but rather with moderation. However, they also think it’s worth exploring UI solutions to reduce moderator workload.
Pfaffman suggests a potential solution, sharing a link to a discussion about changing the color of private messages, which might help differentiate them from public replies.
Please no.
It makes no sense to make the option of a private reply to a public post equivalent to replying publicly.
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This is a general malaise and I suspect nothing to do with the UI. It’s a bad habit on the part of users who get off topic.
The solution is to actively moderate and push the offending posts into a private message. That is less extreme than deleting and at the same time you get your point across hopefully.
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That’s.. a little bizarre, to be honest. Are these people not familiar with common smartphone era stuff like Facebook, etc? What exactly is the audience composition?
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Not sure why all the backlash- just reporting. The audience is very affluent and largely tech-savvy. If nobody else sees an issue, then just disregard. But if it’s a general malaise and the recommendation is simply to actively moderate, that seems like an opportunity to do better in terms of the ui. I don’t have a specific recommendation at the moment though.
UI button placement aside for a second, don’t you think users realise when they have replied in public given their response ends up in the public stream, as it were? It’s not like there’s any sign their reply has gone into a private space for them and the person they have responded to.
I think they do realise and think that it’s OK. I agree with you that it is not always OK, at least not frequently. Odd asides are fine, but not when they start to take the whole discussion off-course. And that’s where the moderation comes in …
But this is definitely an issue worth tackling because it can take up a whole load of mod time and if there is any UI solution then I’m all in favour.
Not what you asked, but might this help? Change color of personal messages
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