PF Betterment Survey Staff Responses

[Greg Bernhardt]

Thank you for your over 200 responses to our PF Betterment survey. They contained valuable feedback that will improve your experience here. I have started to organize feedback and the staff has begun to discuss important or commonly expressed feedback. To return the favor of your feedback we decided to give a public response regarding our discussion on an issue if we feel it will be helpful. This thread will remain closed for comments to remain efficient. Feel free to create a new thread in feedback with your question or comment. Here we go!

Issue #1: Community Civility and Reporting

Overall
Physics Forums must be grounded in civility. We have members from across the globe, guests from literally every nation on earth, ages spanning 8+ decades, with expertise in dozens of fields and we all must act civil to each other. We don't have to agree or even like each other, but we must act civil. Going forward staff will be acting more often on behavior that is unfriendly and unwelcoming. PF must be a force for good. We're in this together. Below is a reminder of our values. Remember them every time you post.

We Value Quality
• Topics based on mainstream science
• Proper English grammar and correct spelling
We Value Civility
• Positive and compassionate attitudes
• Patience and diplomacy while debating
We Value Productivity
• Disciplined to remain on-topic
• Honest recognition of own weaknesses
• Solo and cooperative problem solving

Reporting
We've had some confusion on the purpose of the report link available under each post. PF averages hundreds of posts a day and PF staff consists of only about 20 members. We work incredibly hard, but we can't review all posts. We encourage members to click the report link for a post/thread that they feel should be looked at. This can be for any number of reasons. It's just a way to notify us to take a look. Being part of a community means you help take responsibility for it. It's no different than the communities you are apart of in the real world. In the real world if you see an issue you let someone know. Again it's not only about reporting bad behavior. It could be a broken image, a poor thread title, garbled formatting, anything you think staff should know about so we can take a look. Take pride and ownership in our community. Lastly if there is bad behavior or a post that gets you riled up we ask you not douse more fuel to the fire by replying in a less than civil manner. It's best to report and walk away. Let us handle it

That's it for the first issue. I will be back in a few days with the next one.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

Issue #2: Thread Level Prefixes

A couple years ago we introduced thread level prefixes in several forum categories as an attempt to offer greater clarity as to what level the thread starter wants discussion be at. We decided to use one letter prefixes for compaction and title alignment. The drawback is that it's not always descriptive as to what they are on initial viewing. To help make it more clear we've added a mouse over tooltip at the thread list level.

note: I'm still working on changing the prefix filter at the top

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

Issue #3: Thread Closure Messaging

Through the survey we've been informed that our moderation and closure messaging is confusing. To help increase clarity we will promise to make a better effort in providing more detail as to why a thread has been closed. Furthermore when we use the "closed for moderation" message we will provide more detail in why it's closed for moderation and an approximate window when the thread will reopen. If you see a "closed for moderation" message that hasn't been updated for 24 hours or an ambiguous "thread closed" message please report it and we'll take a look. Thanks!

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

Issue #4: Adding a DIY/Projects forum

Several members had suggested adding a DIY/Projects forum. So we added one! It's in the engineering category. Please make sure you read the stickied rules for proper use and safety notices. https://www.physicsforums.com/forums/diy-and-projects.264/