Help & Feedback Discussion Board

Have ideas for new features on the site?

PattyTherre — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 06:39:10 GMT

I could not have said it any better than pitcherday just did. I am trying to figure out how the feature will help retain members or encourage them to read reviews, write reviews, or do anything but get info about a product and then leave (or not even come back for that. Email notifications make it so you never have to return).

Maybe more clarification is needed.

Have ideas for new features on the site?

pitcherday — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 12:25:31 GMT

Matt said…

That helps. Perhaps one possible solution is to separate out the product level discussions from the general forum discussions. Part of my vision for product level forums is to give visitors to the site a way to ask product specific questions that are not review or reviewer specific. For example, if I am considering buying an SUV but I have a specific question about how many car seats will fit in the back seat, I ideally would be able to pose the question to a) all the people who have reviewed the product, or to b) our members who have earned a reputation as experts in that category. We just need to improve the product level forums so that when a question or comment is posted, it notifies those members who have written a review of the product. So I see product level discussions as another way to engage visitors and contributors in a conversation that ultimately helps them make a decision. Do you think I am way off base?

I do like the idea of being able to go to the bottom of your review and just quickly post a question to the discussion boards that way. The newbies will be aware that the boards exist, and won't have to figure out how to start a thread.

However... if you look at many of the reviews being posted to the boards, they are complaints and praise and not questions about the product/services. I do not think those are helping any. If people do have questions, their threads are getting pushed way back as well as the other topics.

Also, I don't know what makes you an "expert" in a category. Lots of reviews with HV's in a certain category? And again, how are these experts being notifed?

If you can start a thread about a certain SUV, what is the motivation to read the individual reviews, comment and rate them? It drives the traffic away from reviews and to the "one stop shopping" discussion boards. Just post a question thread, sign up for the replies to be emailed to you and you don't really need to come back to the site after that.

It might help people make more informed decisions, but drive traffic away from individual reviews, and maybe even the site.

Have ideas for new features on the site?

PattyTherre — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 06:19:11 GMT

Matt said…

I agree with you on this. The question is linked to the product but there is no option to notify/alert anyone (previous reviewers, category experts etc) that the question has been asked. We need to do that.

But who would you alert? Are there designated experts in certain categories? Or would the people who wrote reviews of the product get a notice that there is a question about something they reviewed? This, of course, brings me back to why a person can't just ask a question of the reviewer rather than bring it here but I understand a little better what you mean about your vision.

I just don't want to lose the helpfulness of a reviewer answering questions on their reviews. I really enjoy when I get comments and discussions on my reviews and they stay there for all time, easy to find. With discussion board topics, once the topic is done being discussed, the thread is pushed back and probably never seen again. On reviews, comments remain readable every time someone reads the review.

But if it brings more people to the site and you figure out how best to present these discussions, who am I to disagree? You'll fine tune things, I am sure, so that there is a balance between cluttering the boards and taking away comments from reviews and helping people to find answers to questions about products from people who know the answers.

Have ideas for new features on the site?

Matt — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 03:14:14 GMT

I agree with you on this. The question is linked to the product but there is no option to notify/alert anyone (previous reviewers, category experts etc) that the question has been asked. We need to do that.

Have ideas for new features on the site?

njchicaa — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 02:59:21 GMT

Matt said…

For example, if I am considering buying an SUV but I have a specific question about how many car seats will fit in the back seat, I ideally would be able to pose the question to a) all the people who have reviewed the product, or to b) our members who have earned a reputation as experts in that category.

But if the question wasn't linked to a specific review or product listing, then how would *anyone* experts or newbies even know that it existed? When people comment on reviews, those member get notices that there has been activity on the reviews and they can decide whether or not to respond.

If you make threads about topics that aren't connected to reviews.... your "experts" aren't even going to know that they exist unless they wade through 500 daily message board posts as they are free-standing discussions.

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Matt — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 02:16:41 GMT

That helps. Perhaps one possible solution is to separate out the product level discussions from the general forum discussions. Part of my vision for product level forums is to give visitors to the site a way to ask product specific questions that are not review or reviewer specific. For example, if I am considering buying an SUV but I have a specific question about how many car seats will fit in the back seat, I ideally would be able to pose the question to a) all the people who have reviewed the product, or to b) our members who have earned a reputation as experts in that category. We just need to improve the product level forums so that when a question or comment is posted, it notifies those members who have written a review of the product. So I see product level discussions as another way to engage visitors and contributors in a conversation that ultimately helps them make a decision. Do you think I am way off base?

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Buggheart — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 01:55:16 GMT

AnnaBanana said…

BayouBengal said…

I would like to see the page numbers here in the forum also added to the top of the page. Right now it is at bottom only and when you visit the board, you have to go to bottom of the page to get the the current discussion. Would save some time!

I second the motion! I could have sworn it WAS that way at one time.

It was there at one time but was removed with the last big release we had. So you didn't imagine it or anything :)

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pitcherday — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 01:47:33 GMT

Just wanted to chime in and say that Patty's post on this topic clarifies my feelings on the subject well, and voices my concerns in an even better way than I would have... with links included!

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PattyTherre — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 03:29:20 GMT

Matt said…

Patty, JovialCougar and pitcherday, I have some clarifying questions for you on this topic. Do I read your comments correctly that you like the fact that each product now has its own discussion board but that you don't like that those produce level discussions are being surfaced through the main discussion board? We did it this way so that both our staff here and the community leaders who have an easy way of finding new produce level discussions, but it sounds like you feel like it is making it harder to use the general discussion board. Am I read your comments correctly?

This is just my take on the matter. For one, the product discussions definitely clutter the boards, pushing down more general discussions that more people can relate to. Many good general discussions have been dropped because the product discussions forced the topics off the page and, often, people don't go past the first page looking for topics to discuss.

But for me, having a discussion board for each and every product is just mind boggling. It seems that, if someone wants to discuss a product, they can do so on a review of that product with a comment. I have some reviews that actually have people talking to each other about the product, agreeing and disagreeing, and it not only brings traffic to my review and the others on the same topic but keeps people on the main site rather than on the message boards. (See below for a couple of examples.)

I really don't understand why anyone would need to discuss a product via the discussion boards if a review is posted is that product. If there are no reviews of a product, I suppose coming here and asking anyone of they have experience with a certain thing is fine.

I am a CL and I don't read the product topics. I have nothing to say about things I am not familiar with and, if I do happen to own a product, chances are I reviewed it or will soon! If we discuss the pros and cons here, is there going to even be a need for reviews on the product?

I could be misunderstanding why we have product discussions. No one really said why. They just appeared one day and we all were somewhat confused about them. I still am.

Here are a couple of examples of how products are discussed right on my review page rather than here on the boards. I am not trying to pimp out reviews, just show what I mean:

http://www.viewpoints.com/Xanax-XR-vs-Short-Acting-Xanax-review-89185

http://www.viewpoints.com/As-Seen-On-TV-Easy-Curves--142236-review-198b0

And look at my sister's Laurie's comments on this review!

http://www.viewpoints.com/InboxDollars-review-62763

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AnnaBanana — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 23:32:32 GMT

BayouBengal said…

I would like to see the page numbers here in the forum also added to the top of the page. Right now it is at bottom only and when you visit the board, you have to go to bottom of the page to get the the current discussion. Would save some time!

I second the motion! I could have sworn it WAS that way at one time.

Have ideas for new features on the site?

Matt — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 14:38:09 GMT

Patty, JovialCougar and pitcherday, I have some clarifying questions for you on this topic. Do I read your comments correctly that you like the fact that each product now has its own discussion board but that you don't like that those produce level discussions are being surfaced through the main discussion board? We did it this way so that both our staff here and the community leaders who have an easy way of finding new produce level discussions, but it sounds like you feel like it is making it harder to use the general discussion board. Am I read your comments correctly?

Have ideas for new features on the site?

lilsquibb — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 02:12:25 GMT

on the "My Home" page, I would like to be able to control the discussion posts I see come up when there are new posts. There are several that I may have posted to a long time ago... like games and such, that I never go back to, but they still come up on the list when there are new posts, making a huge list of discussions I'd like to be able to turn some of those off.

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PattyTherre — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 01:27:55 GMT

pitcherday said…

I posted this on the bug thread, but I will put it here too...

I have complained about this, and I know Patty, and JovialCougar have too now... why is it at the bottom of a new review, you can post the review to the discussion boards? I would like that eliminated. The reviews show up in the community timeline, and those posts, move better topics further down in the pages of the threads.

Agreed 100 times over. I think discussing products can be done on the review page in comments. That is what the comments section is all about. It would be nice to get a good discussion going on a reviewed product. I have seen some and have a couple of reviews that actually have people talking amongst themselves about the product and I love it! I don't like, nor do I read, the product discussions here. I feel they take away from our reviews by moving the discussions away from them.

I agree that page numbers on the top would make getting to the end of the discussion faster and easier.

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BayouBengal — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 01:10:34 GMT

I would like to see the page numbers here in the forum also added to the top of the page. Right now it is at bottom only and when you visit the board, you have to go to bottom of the page to get the the current discussion. Would save some time!

Have ideas for new features on the site?

pitcherday — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 20:40:04 GMT

I posted this on the bug thread, but I will put it here too...

I have complained about this, and I know Patty, and JovialCougar have too now... why is it at the bottom of a new review, you can post the review to the discussion boards? I would like that eliminated. The reviews show up in the community timeline, and those posts, move better topics further down in the pages of the threads.

Have ideas for new features on the site?

sunninjim — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 22:49:40 GMT

I think it would be cool if we could put our favorite reviews by season:

Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, Valentines etc one for each month.

12 months in a year, maybe a calendar w/ our favorite review for that month?

Just a suggestion.

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PattyTherre — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 20:10:26 GMT

Maybe it would be cool to be able to feature seasonal reviews we have written. Like we could highlight our top gifts we reviewed or whatever for Christmas, romantic stuff for Valentine's Day shoppers, etc. Although with 1300 plus reviews, I don't even remember what I wrote about. I wrote a review last night only to find out I wrote a review in 2007 on the product. DOH.

My favorite reviews are the health related ones such as SAD products, ways to lower cholesterol naturally, snacks under 200 calories, etc.I don't really have any favorite reviews of products. I suppose I could look through and find some.

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Buggheart — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 14:04:34 GMT

Sorry if this has already been mentioned (I'm too lazy and don't have time to look at 200+ replies :) )

Anyway, I was thinking it would be cool if members can feature their favorite reviews on their profile, sort of like how VP staff has their favorite review on their business card. I'd love to be able to feature say 5 of my favorite reviews (positive or negative) on my profile so people can see the stuff I really love or really dislike when visiting my profile, and be able to change them from time to time, maybe with a theme. For example, 5 of my favorite LUSH products, 5 of my least favorite, 5 holiday gifts, 5 things needed for winter survival, etc.

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GigiandAdonai — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 21:31:05 GMT

I mentioned months ago: I would like for there to be more colors on those little bubbles in the stats. You know when you rank Top 5, 10, 25, 50, 100, 500? There is green and yellow and I want to say I saw red if it was in the top 5. I wish they would differentiate the 25, 50, 100 and 500 and add two more colors. It would liven up the stats some and make the ranks more noticeable.

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vivasuzi — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 03:25:56 GMT

Perhaps there should be a feature to say you can't create new topics on the message board too close together. I've been on other sites where if you tried to create 2 msg board topics back to back it would tell you "it's been too soon since your last post" and make you wait like 5 mins before you could start another topic.

It would help prevent spam as well as convince people not to post 10 new threads all in 2 minutes.

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LadyMagic — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 00:07:07 GMT

I'd like to be able to organize my gallery of friends and fans. I'd like to put my more active friends in the front where I can more easily find them.

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Nancy44 — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 09:29:28 GMT

MikeMaroon said…

This site WASN'T built by deities?!?!?!? CRAP!!!! :)

HAHAHAHA Mike you funny dude U ;) - no wonder you were the first person here I "friended"!!!

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Nancy44 — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 09:28:42 GMT

Funny I saw this posted...my suggestion would be to change the discussion boards here to "Viewpoints Village" ~ if that hasn't been suggested already?

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PattyTherre — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 09:22:56 GMT

RudiXeno said…

Is it time for video reviews?

Ugh! That will be my undoing. I won't do any of those. Although maybe makeup ones. Hmmm.

Video reviews are tough for people to actually get into, I think, because they take time and sound and many people do research from work. I was once a part of a new video review site and was asked what I thought and I said what I thought (They were not good!) and the site closed down. Not because of ME obviously but the reviews just didn't cut it.

Naturally, the people here are much better at reviewing things on video than anywhere else though. I just don't know if I personally would do any.

But the words "Sound Bite" kind of do mean to me video or audio as opposed to just a title for a written review. Never did understand why they were called that!

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RudiXeno — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 03:26:38 GMT

Is it time for video reviews?

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MikeMaroon — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 02:56:15 GMT

How about adding the ability to comment on a blog directly? Right now all we can do is comment on their page.

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Jo — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 22:11:04 GMT

In the fun facts we have last good book read. How about adding last good movie seen? Jo

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PattyTherre — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 02:03:47 GMT

pitcherday said…

When you go to look at the reviews for a product, I wish there was a little camera icon or something to indicate that the review also included pictures. Reviews with pictures can be really helpful, but you can't tell which ones have pictures when you see them in the list.

That's a good idea. Pictures often say more than words. I love to read reviews with pics in them. It really helps me to "see" what the review is saying. They don't make or break whether a review is helpful but they certainly do add a new dimension of helpfulness to reviews.

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darlyn63 — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 00:44:33 GMT

So far I'm getting into the swing of things, learning all about the site. Starting to feel confident about what I am doing. But still learning. Everyone on here is very helpful and lots, and lots of good feedback on products they have tried. I wish I had any idea's at this time. I haven't had any problems with the site. I enjoy coming on here, reading and leaving reviews. I think it's great.

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pitcherday — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 00:24:11 GMT

When you go to look at the reviews for a product, I wish there was a little camera icon or something to indicate that the review also included pictures. Reviews with pictures can be really helpful, but you can't tell which ones have pictures when you see them in the list.

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nicki2442 — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 01:51:22 GMT

nice idea!

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nicki2442 — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 01:48:31 GMT

agreed

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vivasuzi — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 01:25:25 GMT

Quick: I would like to see a pop up feature on the write a review screen to show you details and a larger image of each option.

Long: I search for a movie, for example, and 2 or 3 entries come up with different photos of the movie covers. The images are small so I can't read them, nor can I click to see which is which. Both have the same title so I can't be sure which is which. I end up going to IMDB on the side to see which movie cover matches the movie I watched. SO, I would like an option to click a link like "details" and have a pop up window that shows you the products details. For movies that would help a ton b/c it would show me the year. Then I'd know which one I wanted to review without having to go elsewhere.

Another quick example is sometimes I can't tell if the entry refers to the movie or the book, and the small image doesn't help me much with figuring that out.

Please add this too your list or something similar :) Thanks!!!

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PattyTherre — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 05:13:55 GMT

Meredith said…

Hi Gigi!

Good news. You can edit any of your tags by going to MY HOME > About Me > Manage I Am. Use the edit pencils to change any tag you have ever used. You can delete tags, add new tags and change tags there in the "Tag Wizard."

I hope this helps as it should eliminate the occurrences of duplicate tags that you use.

Let me know if you have questions and I can email you a screen shot of an example.

Thanks,

Meredith

I have had to TRY to compile my tags using the tool. I have so many tags! I did get rid of some close but not exact tags but there's much work to be done. I must have come up with tags based specifically on one review way back because some are very specific. I am going to change them all....in time.... lol

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PattyTherre — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 05:10:18 GMT

GigiandAdonai said…

With all the new rewards out there can I suggest one? How about the Chatterbox award for those of us who participate a lot in discussions? Well, I know Vivasuzi and I would earn it ;+) Seriously, many of us contribute a lot through the boards and that is one way that I encourage newbies to acclimate to Viewpoints. I send them a "welcome letter" and direct them to some of the popular boards.

You do get points for all your discussions and you can see on the leader board that you are actually #1 for discussions. I would actually prefer a badge for discussions to points so I think that's a good idea! Even points and a badge would be OK with me. Some people are very entrenched on these boards!

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vivasuzi — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 04:36:36 GMT

Edited: Oops! My original comment was about something I thought I saw but I was wrong :) I thought Gigi and I were the only ones on the discussion leaderboard, but that was only b/c my Awards were expanded and I didn't see the other people. I think when you visit a leaderboard, Awards should not be expanded by default b/c it threw me off for sure.

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GigiandAdonai — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 01:33:07 GMT

With all the new rewards out there can I suggest one? How about the Chatterbox award for those of us who participate a lot in discussions? Well, I know Vivasuzi and I would earn it ;+) Seriously, many of us contribute a lot through the boards and that is one way that I encourage newbies to acclimate to Viewpoints. I send them a "welcome letter" and direct them to some of the popular boards.

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MikeMaroon — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 06:24:34 GMT

Buggheart said…

cmohr80 said…

Can we have an option for us to feature certain reviews we've written on our profile page?

I like this idea!

This IS a nice idea.

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Buggheart — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 17:38:47 GMT

cmohr80 said…

Can we have an option for us to feature certain reviews we've written on our profile page?

I like this idea!

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lilsquibb — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 15:17:35 GMT

GigiandAdonai said…

I'm familiar with the Tag Wizard and believe me; I have used it a lot! It's just sometimes if we don't remember how we typed the I Am tag we may in default produce another similar tag. Auto suggesting would allow us to see which ones we have already used and prompt us to continue to use them. But hey, I won't be picky because the Tag Wizard has allowed me to reconstruct many of my reviews and merge many of the I Am tags. Thanks for the feedback!!

Don't the ones you commonly use show up when you are in the review format? Or at least common for that category. Then you can see it and click on it instead of creating a new on. If you don't see the one you want, usually there's the option to see more.

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GigiandAdonai — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 17:57:22 GMT

I'm familiar with the Tag Wizard and believe me; I have used it a lot! It's just sometimes if we don't remember how we typed the I Am tag we may in default produce another similar tag. Auto suggesting would allow us to see which ones we have already used and prompt us to continue to use them. But hey, I won't be picky because the Tag Wizard has allowed me to reconstruct many of my reviews and merge many of the I Am tags. Thanks for the feedback!!

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Meredith — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 14:31:32 GMT

Hi Gigi!

Good news. You can edit any of your tags by going to MY HOME > About Me > Manage I Am. Use the edit pencils to change any tag you have ever used. You can delete tags, add new tags and change tags there in the "Tag Wizard."

I hope this helps as it should eliminate the occurrences of duplicate tags that you use.

Let me know if you have questions and I can email you a screen shot of an example.

Thanks,

Meredith

Have ideas for new features on the site?

GigiandAdonai — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 22:46:42 GMT

I know Patty Therre mentioned it before, Sometimes if we don't remember the exact way that we wrote an I AM tag we may generate another one typed differently. For instance I use VERY picky eater a lot but sometimes I type very picky eater and it generates another tag. Is there any way you could format the I AM tags to auto suggest the tags we have used once we start typing? For example if I type a P it could pop up Princess In Training, practical, professional career person. Just a thought. This might help reduce our duplicated I Am tags.

Thanks again for all the hard work everyone behind the scenes does to make this site a wonderful place to live, love, laugh and learn at!

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cmohr80 — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 01:45:15 GMT

Can we have an option for us to feature certain reviews we've written on our profile page?

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Meredith — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 14:08:37 GMT

Hey Anne! Sorry you are not receiving your fan notifications. I'll send you a follow up email with a couple questions so we can get you back on track. Examples of things we'll need to know are... 1) When is the last time you received a fan notification? A date would be awesome. 2) Check your email settings to verify your preferences. 3) See any notifications in your spam/trash box? Etc. 4) Are you receiving any VP notifications at all?

Thanks for letting us know!

Meredith

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AnnaBanana — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 02:39:23 GMT

Alas, I can no longer receive e-mails telling me someone has become my fan and often don't realize it for a while unless they send me a message.

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MikeMaroon — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 01:16:34 GMT

This site WASN'T built by deities?!?!?!? CRAP!!!! :)

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kevin — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 14:16:39 GMT

Pitcherday, you can clean up your I AM tags by going to your My Home -> About Me -> Manage I Am Tags. With in that screen you can see a list of all of your I Am tags, and edit each one. When you edit a tag there you can choose to change it for all or just some of your reviews that it is attached too.

As far as Pros and Cons, the way that you describe of deleting/readding is currently the only mechanism available.

As far as friends...if you friend someone they get a message indicating that you added them. You can track their reviews and other contributions within your Friend's Activity Feed (also under My Home). Essentially, "friend" / "fan" are just opposite sides of the same coin.

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GigiandAdonai — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 05:14:30 GMT

I am not sure what the difference is between a friend and fan. If I add someone to my friends list, do they get a message saying that they have a new fan, or do they get a message saying I added them to my friends list? Is that the same thing?

I can answer this part for you: A friend is someone you choose to follow. You can add and remove them to your list of friends any time. When you add someone as a friend you then become their FAN. Fans are people who choose to add you to their friends list. You can add and remove friends but you cannot add/remove fans. When you add someone to your friends list they will receive an email telling them they have a new fan and they will be given the option to view your profile and if they want they can also choose to add you as a friend.

BTW: I love the drama mask.

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pitcherday — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 03:13:39 GMT

As far as the "I am" tags are concerned: sometimes I know I have an "I am" tag I want to use, but it doesn't show in the list (not even in the 'view more tags'). I don't want to add it, because I already know it's there and if I spell it differently, I'll just end up with another tag that is almost identical. It bothers me that I have so many tags that are similar. I try to remember the spellings and capitalizations so I am using the same tags all the time.

With "pros" and "cons" can we be allowed to correct spelling? I try to make sure, but if I misspell a "pro" the only option is to deselect it and retype in a new one spelled correctly. I don't really like doing that so I will use a "pro" or "con" misspelled by someone else.

Thank you.. pd

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vivasuzi — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 05:27:06 GMT

Haha just a special chat for me and you only :) You know what would be cool though... this might be difficult but might as well throw it on the list!

Facebook has a thing at the bottom that shows which of your friends are online and you can click them to open a little chat box. What I like is the IM is all built in to the page so as you navigae Facebook, you can still be chatting with the person. The chat and list of online friends is always on the bottom of the screen and you can still browse :)

Anyway, that's it!

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dmlichnerowicz — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 02:35:25 GMT

Like I said, I may have missed it...I'm not always the most observant. Thanks so much!!! I'll try that out.

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lilsquibb — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 02:06:12 GMT

A chat screen so vivasuzi and I can chat on nights like this :) Lol

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lilsquibb — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 02:04:58 GMT

vivasuzi said…

Above your review, there is a link that says "Share This". Click that for options to post on facebook and other sites :)

Ahhh you are right... I missed it. Surely it could have bit me it was in such plain sight.

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vivasuzi — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 02:00:15 GMT

Above your review, there is a link that says "Share This". Click that for options to post on facebook and other sites :)

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lilsquibb — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 01:52:11 GMT

dmlichnerowicz said…

Maybe I've missed in on the site, but I would love to see a way to share the Viewpoints link on social networking sites. A lot of other sites (not just review site, but in general) have an option to share Viewpoints info on Facebook, MySpace, etc. I'm a huge addict to VP and FB, so I'd love to be able to show VP stuff on my social networking page.

Interesting cause that link used to be on review pages... maybe one of the VP peeps can chime in on that feature.

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dmlichnerowicz — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 20:14:07 GMT

Maybe I've missed in on the site, but I would love to see a way to share the Viewpoints link on social networking sites. A lot of other sites (not just review site, but in general) have an option to share Viewpoints info on Facebook, MySpace, etc. I'm a huge addict to VP and FB, so I'd love to be able to show VP stuff on my social networking page.

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leon — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 03:52:33 GMT

You caught us in the middle of a software update. Give us a few moments and they'll be back. Sorry for the inconvenience.

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JovialCougar — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 03:39:24 GMT

I noticed the front page has changed. At the moment a lot of the photos are not displaying for prodcuts.

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ashleycmays — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 06:18:23 GMT

I think a homeopathic sub category under "health" would be useful. Most of these products don't have FDA approval, and are used because of recommendation's by personal users. Viewpoints would be the perfect place to offer personal experiences with homeopathic remedies, as well as reviews for homeopathic products that promise some sort of result but don't perform.

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LisaCarey — Fri, 08 May 2009 18:47:02 GMT

I too would like a green category - I am trying to use more green products too and many of them being new it's nice to know someone else's experience before I buy them.

Maybe the could cross post? say green and dishwashing liquid. Just a thought and maybe it made the tech guys run screaming from the room

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GreenKeen — Fri, 08 May 2009 17:46:39 GMT

I think a "Green Living" subheading on the top toolbar would be a good addition. I mostly like to research and review eco friendly merchandise, particularly because a lot of it is "new" or new to the mainstream shopper. I think it would be a big help to consumers. Thanks for reading my comment!

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lilsquibb — Fri, 08 May 2009 14:23:17 GMT

onyx95 said…

Along the lines of what was GigiandAdonai was saying..... I just wrote a book review and there are now 7 reviews on "Nora Roberts - The Hollow" and 2 reviews on "The Hollow". Seeing as how these are obviously all reviews on the same book, is there any way to combined them so we have one spot that keeps track of all 9 reviews? It seems like it would affect the average rating as well as just being more difficult to find all the reviews on this book.

I believe you will see that this is now fixed. If you see duplicate listings please e-mail them to Meredith and she will make sure they get fixed.

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onyx95 — Fri, 08 May 2009 00:58:54 GMT

Along the lines of what was GigiandAdonai was saying..... I just wrote a book review and there are now 7 reviews on "Nora Roberts - The Hollow" and 2 reviews on "The Hollow". Seeing as how these are obviously all reviews on the same book, is there any way to combined them so we have one spot that keeps track of all 9 reviews? It seems like it would affect the average rating as well as just being more difficult to find all the reviews on this book.

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LisaCarey — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 03:58:04 GMT

great job on the characters/words! saves me so much time and now it's also easier to write what people NEED to read instead of writing too much and boring people.

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Jolie — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 23:33:29 GMT

Thanks for bringing this to our attention. This is on our list of to do's! :) We agree, we need to clean it up a bit. We will keep you posted on when we make the change. In the meantime, thanks for being so patient as we get it fixed.... and yes, I totally understand what you are talking about! Love the pix by the way.

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Meredith — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 16:59:04 GMT

GigiandAdonai said…
Okay, I hope I explain this well enough for others to understand where I am coming from. This is pertaining to the way book reviews are titled. When we click on "write review" we are taken to the screen to do a product look up OR add a new product. Of course we are encouraged to look up the product to see if it already exists so that we are not creating a new one that others may have already reviewed, right?
IF the book I wish to review is in the system I merely click on "review it" and the system will produce the title, author, and most of the time a picture of the book.
IF the book I wish to review isn't already available then I am given the option to "add it to the book category. I am then prompted to enter the title, author and if I have a picture for the primary photo I can upload that.
Why is it that when the book already exists it produces the author's name in front of the title in my product name? For example: I just reviewed The Stuff Of Life by Karen Karbo. It was already available as a "review it" so I selected it. Now, it has my product listed as Karen Karbo-The Stuff Of Life. I think that looks tacky and someone else noticed it and mentioned it to me believing that I was randomly doing this. Now when I recently reviewed the McKaslin Homecoming by Jillian Hart I had to add that book so in my product name it merely says McKaslin Homecoming.
Is there anyway you can do away with the pre-formatted style so that the author's name doesn't appear in front of the book title? Wouldn't that also allow for uniformity in the product names?

We hear ya, Gigi. Right now, when you select a book that is a Shopping.com product in search on the Write a Review page, the listing automatically defaults to author first, then title. When you add a new book to our database, you are able to enter the title first, then the author because that product has not been found as a Shopping.com item.

We can eventually create a more uniform display. You're right, consistency is better. In the meantime, I can manually change the book titles for you if you'd like.

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GigiandAdonai — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 03:30:06 GMT

Okay, I hope I explain this well enough for others to understand where I am coming from. This is pertaining to the way book reviews are titled. When we click on "write review" we are taken to the screen to do a product look up OR add a new product. Of course we are encouraged to look up the product to see if it already exists so that we are not producing a new one that others may have already reviewed, right?

IF the book I wish to review is in the system I merely click on "review it" and the system will produce the title, author, and most of the time a picture of the book.

IF the book I wish to review isn't already available then I am given the option to "add it to the book category. I am then prompted to enter the title, author and if I have a picture for the primary photo I can upload that.

Why is it that when the book already exists it produces the author's name in front of the title in my product name? For example: I just reviewed The Stuff Of Life by Karen Karbo. It was already available as a "review it" so I selected it. Now, it has my product listed as Karen Karbo-The Stuff Of Life. I think that looks tacky and someone else noticed it and mentioned it to me believing that I was randomly doing this. Now when I recently reviewed the McKaslin Homecoming by Jillian Hart I had to add that book so in my product name it merely says McKaslin Homecoming.

Is there anyway you can do away with the pre-formatted style so that the author's name doesn't appear in front of the book title? Wouldn't that also allow for uniformity in the product names?

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Meredith — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 14:58:29 GMT

If it's a product title correction needed... email or private msg me with the URL and I'll fix it... meredith@viewpoints.com. I'm happy to correct any typos. ANYONE can send them my way :)

In an effort to keep our data as clean as possible, we only allow the brand and product name to be entered once when you add it to the database. Repeat editing of brands and products would greatly affect the way reviews are listed across the site. Also, the probability of duplicate brands can potentially increase so we've chosen to manage data adjustments on our end.

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lilsquibb — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 17:14:34 GMT

PattyTherre said…
I still want to be able to edit my photo captions. I have left typos in because I just could NOT delete the pic and find it again plus it was in a certain order meaning that pic would have been the last one or I would have had to delete all pics and start over. That and I would LOVE to be able to edit comments on people's profile pages. I made a stupid typo on a new member's page and went to edit it and there was no edit button. I know we can edit comments (thankfully) but not on profile pages.

Patty,

If you go to your profile page and click on your in-box then filter by comments you have written you can find the comment and edit it.

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PattyTherre — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 04:58:23 GMT

I still want to be able to edit my photo captions. I have left typos in because I just could NOT delete the pic and find it again plus it was in a certain order meaning that pic would have been the last one or I would have had to delete all pics and start over. That and I would LOVE to be able to edit comments on people's profile pages. I made a stupid typo on a new member's page and went to edit it and there was no edit button. I know we can edit comments (thankfully) but not on profile pages.

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JazzSinger — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 23:56:57 GMT

I would like to able to go back and edit the information entered when first adding a product to the site. A couple of times, like on the review I just wrote, I've accidentally misspelled something, and there's no way that I can see to go back and edit that information.

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Katrena — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 17:46:33 GMT

Is there a way we could add choices to add a review to the favorites list, email to a friend, etc. at the bottom of the review? I usually have to read a review before I decide whether or not I want to add it to my favorites, etc. If it's at the bottom, people might find this more user friendly.

I hope you guys have a great weekend and get to go outside at least for a little while!

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cmohr80 — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 22:32:14 GMT

Could we have the option to chose our own articles that we want to feature on our profile pages, including to be able to have up to 5 featured articles and we can change them anytime and in any order we want them featured? . . . I'm not sure if that made sense but I hope it does.

I just think it would be interesting to see who's everyone's favorite articles of their own. Also, if you have articles that are seasonal, you can circulate them on the featured articles depending on the season.

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Jo — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 18:40:23 GMT

Word count is what I vote for but that's not why I'm here.

I just noticed the subscribe to button but it is an RSS feed. If I adding everyone to my Yahoo page that would be crazy. As it is I know we get alerts but they aren't all of them. Is there a way to make our alerts come more often and be comprehensive of all our friends? Thanks, Jo

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GigiandAdonai — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 20:48:08 GMT

All is well now. I reviewed all the discussions and a few months ago I had sent a comment similar to this and Kevin responded back and said they were working on getting the SEARCH function to work. I just assumed it still wasn't working b/c nothing ever appeared on the boards that the issue had been resolved. I just tried to use both the SEARCH and READ REVIEWS functions and they both worked exactly the way I was expecting them too. Sometimes I will remember a product but not the reviewer OR I am trying to read up on a product before I purchase so I like these functions. Sorry to have bothered you and thanks again!!

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Meredith — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 20:06:49 GMT

Hi Gigi!

I'd like to send you an email with some screen shots so we're on the same page but I do have a couple examples I can share here too.

About the search engine function:
The search bar at the VERY top of each Viewpoints page should allow you to type in a term and receive a list of results with reviews containing that term.

Let's use your Danielle Steel example... I typed in "danielle steel" in the search bar and received the following results:
(I can't make this a clickable link so please copy/paste the URL below into your browser.)

http://www.viewpoints.com/search?q=danielle+steel&commit=Find

These search results supply exactly what you would want them to - reviews of Danielle Steel books.

Regarding your comments: I would really love for the READ REVIEWS function to work. There have been times when I wanted to read up on a product and that function just doesn't work. When I type in what I want it doesn't take me anywhere. It gives me the WRITE REVIEW format. There are times when the item is so popular that it will take you to another area and give you an overall Viewpoints summary of a product and then ask if you want to review the product.

I'll email you about this one because I'll need to send screen shots to make sure I understand what you are referring to. Not sure what "Read Reviews" button you are using.

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GigiandAdonai — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 18:27:37 GMT

I vote for the word count b/c that is the criteria we must meet for the post to count as a review toward writer levels and recognition. The character count is not to exceed 150,000 and besides me doing that extremely large review that exceeded 150,000 characters I don't think we are maxing out that often ;+)

I would really love for the READ REVIEWS function to work. There have been times when I wanted to read up on a product and that function just doesn't work. When I type in what I want it doesn't take me anywhere. It gives me the WRITE REVIEW format. There are times when the item is so popular that it will take you to another area and give you an overall Viewpoints summary of a product and then ask if you want to review the product.

For example: Many times I want to review books by specific authors and I cannot get to them. I can only read reviews thru my friends activity.

And the SEARCH engine still isn't working because that would be ideal for READING REVIEWS. I can know the exact title of a product and know it exist in review format at VP and when I type it into the SEARCH area it comes back as "nothing found." I think the SEARCH function should be like googling. If I type the word Danielle Steel then give me a list of her novels that have been reviewed. If I type Guess Jeans give me a list of those products that have been reviewed.

Other than those suggestions, I still think Viewpoints is a great place to hang out!

Remember to

Someone

Making

Look

Easy

Make the best of this day!!! ~Gigi girl

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Meredith — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 23:08:32 GMT

Katrena said…
I've noticed that some are asking for a word count and some are asking for a character count for our draft boxes--is there a way to have both with a really obvious way to see which is which?
Also, I've noticed that when I search for an item and there's not a review on the item that when I click on writing a new review on it that I have to re-type the type of product (unless I remember to copy the name first)--is there a way to automatically display that information in the new review page once we select a category?
It might help to have the subcategories alphabetized. Sometimes I might stick something under misc. because I didn't see the subcategory.
Would there be a way to add a suggestion box for subcategories? For instance, I was writing a review for a sippy cup and was looking under baby for sippy cup and couldn't find it. I ended up backing out and searching for other sippy cup reviews to see which categories under which they were listed (bottles) and then went back in to write my review. If I had a box I could click for suggested categories for my selected product, that would help a lot.

All good ideas!

We will look at ways to incorporate a character/word counter. This is def something we want to add. Interesting to hear you would want both character and word counts. For space and simplicity sake, ideally we'd chose to display only one of these. Does anyone else have a strong preference? Typically, similar sites display only one. We'll also do some research around this feature to find what works best. Thank you for putting this out there.

Re: the second topic you bring up... I'm not quite sure I understand what you mean. Are you talking about adding a new product to the database or looking up a product within the search results on the Write a Review page? OR Are you refering to performing a product search in the search bar at the top of the page? If possible, can you email me a a specific example? (meredith@viewpoints.com)

If you are referencing the Read Reviews page... We generally list the subcategories by popularity and content demand. For example, under the Sports category, we find visitors are searching for the exercise equipment sub-category far more often than memorabilia.

Adding a suggestion box for subcategories is certainly something we can look into as we streamline the Write a Review process. It may be a little while until we get to this but we'll include this option as a potential feature.

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Katrena — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 23:18:00 GMT

I've noticed that some are asking for a word count and some are asking for a character count for our draft boxes--is there a way to have both with a really obvious way to see which is which?

Also, I've noticed that when I search for an item and there's not a review on the item that when I click on writing a new review on it that I have to re-type the type of product (unless I remember to copy the name first)--is there a way to automatically display that information in the new review page once we select a category?

It might help to have the subcategories alphabetized. Sometimes I might stick something under misc. because I didn't see the subcategory.

Would there be a way to add a suggestion box for subcategories? For instance, I was writing a review for a sippy cup and was looking under baby for sippy cup and couldn't find it. I ended up backing out and searching for other sippy cup reviews to see which categories under which they were listed (bottles) and then went back in to write my review. If I had a box I could click for suggested categories for my selected product, that would help a lot.

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cmohr80 — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 22:47:34 GMT

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Katrena — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 12:10:11 GMT

Meredith said…
Fixed these. Ditto to Lilsquibb's suggestion to email me with these corrections. Thanks!!!!! Happy weekend!!!!

Thanks!

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LisaCarey — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 08:25:54 GMT

a word count on the draft bar would be nice -- mentioned in the "how do you do your reviews" discussion board. i think many of us that type straight into the site would find it handy -- and keep us from getting too long winded :D

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Meredith — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 22:44:44 GMT

Fixed these. Ditto to Lilsquibb's suggestion to email me with these corrections. Thanks!!!!! Happy weekend!!!!

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lilsquibb — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 19:38:43 GMT

Katrena said…
Another couple of requests to fix weird double titles:
http://www.viewpoints.com/Shout-Shout-stain-remover-reviews (There are several ones on Shout--I'm not sure if they are different or if they can be combined as well)
http://www.viewpoints.com/Oster-Oster-5712-Electronic-2-Tier-6-1-Quart-Food-Steamer-reviews (This might also need to be combined with some others as well)
Thanks for ALL that you guys do and hope you have an awesome weekend!

If you ever find any of these weird listings, you can always shoot an e-mail to Meredith and Jolie as well and they will fix it.

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Katrena — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 22:19:25 GMT

Another couple of requests to fix weird double titles:

http://www.viewpoints.com/Shout-Shout-stain-remover-reviews (There are several ones on Shout--I'm not sure if they are different or if they can be combined as well)

http://www.viewpoints.com/Oster-Oster-5712-Electronic-2-Tier-6-1-Quart-Food-Steamer-reviews (This might also need to be combined with some others as well)

Thanks for ALL that you guys do and hope you have an awesome weekend!

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GigiandAdonai — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 01:18:52 GMT

Hey Meredith and Kevin. I just wanted to tell you thanks for getting one of the revisions going. I just posted a review and I was going to link a book to the current review. When I went to the other book I noticed it had a colon in the title. Well, I was assuming the worse and just knew I would have to email someone to get them to change the title for me so that the link would work. Well, I decided to try it before I bothered you and the link worked! We can now put the colons in our titles and link back to them later!! Yippeee!! Thanks again--hey, that's one less thing I'll be bothering Meredith about ;+)

Make the best of this day and evening! Keep up the good work and know that we do appreciate all you do to help us enjoy Viewpoints. ~Gigi

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Katrena — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 13:59:45 GMT

Meredith said…
Katrena said…
No puedo escribir en espanol!
I'm putting out a plea for help but I'm not sure there is a way to fix my problem. I wrote a review about a book named Strega Nona. Well, when I did a search, I clicked on the picture of the book that matched the one I had and wrote my review. Well, the title clip is coming up in Spanish! The name of the book (Strega Nona) and author's name (Tomie DePaola) are correct, but I didn't know if it should be edited or not because the book I had was in English:
http://www.viewpoints.com/Tomie-De-Paola-Strega-Nona-UN-Cuento-Tradicional-review-6b403
Hola mi amiga, Katrena! Fixed the title of this book review. You didn't do anything incorrectly... occasionally Shopping.com does not supply an exact product match, but that can easily be fixed with some changes behind the scenes on our end. Luckily this mismatch is pretty rare. Feel free to email me or send me a comment on my profile if this happens again and I can fix it.

Muchas Gracias!!!!!!!

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Meredith — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 01:51:28 GMT

Katrena said…
No puedo escribir en espanol!
I'm putting out a plea for help but I'm not sure there is a way to fix my problem. I wrote a review about a book named Strega Nona. Well, when I did a search, I clicked on the picture of the book that matched the one I had and wrote my review. Well, the title clip is coming up in Spanish! The name of the book (Strega Nona) and author's name (Tomie DePaola) are correct, but I didn't know if it should be edited or not because the book I had was in English:
http://www.viewpoints.com/Tomie-De-Paola-Strega-Nona-UN-Cuento-Tradicional-review-6b403

Hola mi amiga, Katrena! Fixed the title of this book review. You didn't do anything incorrectly... occasionally Shopping.com does not supply an exact product match, but that can easily be fixed with some changes behind the scenes on our end. Luckily this mismatch is pretty rare. Feel free to email me or send me a comment on my profile if this happens again and I can fix it.

Have ideas for new features on the site?

Katrena — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 19:40:33 GMT

No puedo escribir en espanol!

I'm putting out a plea for help but I'm not sure there is a way to fix my problem. I wrote a review about a book named Strega Nona. Well, when I did a search, I clicked on the picture of the book that matched the one I had and wrote my review. Well, the title clip is coming up in Spanish! The name of the book (Strega Nona) and author's name (Tomie DePaola) are correct, but I didn't know if it should be edited or not because the book I had was in English:

http://www.viewpoints.com/Tomie-De-Paola-Strega-Nona-UN-Cuento-Tradicional-review-6b403

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kevin — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 18:48:20 GMT

Anna, I'm glad you found a fix on your end. We still have some stuff to clean up on our side too! Thanks for the update.

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AnnaBanana — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 13:40:48 GMT

kevin said…
Anna, Kyle has investigated and found the bug that is causing your printouts to come out funny. We'll work on getting this fixed. Thanks for the feedback!

Dear Kevin, Kyle, and everyone else involved:

I have good news and I do apologize -- turns out that the problem was the ink cartridge. I accidentally left a tiny shred of protective tape over a crucial place on the cartridge.

I do apologize for taking up your time for nothing as I know you guys have a lot of work to do but did want you to know that everything is okay on this end -- just made a perfect print-out. I don't know about you but in this world of tech, I aways cheer to find out that somehing is just my own mistake and therefore easily fixed.

Have a great weekend!

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kevin — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 19:44:33 GMT

Anna, Kyle has investigated and found the bug that is causing your printouts to come out funny. We'll work on getting this fixed. Thanks for the feedback!

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AnnaBanana — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 14:07:19 GMT

Kudos to the gang who are keeping the ship afloat generally speaking. Here's one more thing which I have noticed which isn't a major problem but a little odd.

I used to be able to print out a page of the "Stats" list, which is sometimes useful to do especially if you are tracking the progress of your top reviews. You can save the print-out and wait a few days to compare to what is happening then.

The good news is that I can still print out the page but NONE of the numbers show up! Except for the colored numbers in the circles denoting rank of some items, only words are printing out, no numbers at all.

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AnnaBanana — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 14:00:44 GMT

PattyTherre said…
Speaking of I AM tags, every time I edit a review, at least one of the tags is dropped. Then I have to remember what I used and retick it again. Sometimes two are gone and nowhere to be found. It happens every time I edit a review. I did mention this before. It's not a huge deal but it can be time consuming when I just want to edit a review for a typo to go through the I AM tags and find the ones I used before.

Also ... Is there any way we can edit pic subtitles without deleting the pic? Again, a small thing but, if I make a little typo, I have to delete the photo and reupload it then recaption it. It would be great to just be able to edit the caption. And Bob, I agree, people really should take a minute to write a little caption rather than leave the photo name up. It takes a second and make a difference!

Patty - who will never use am I AM tag that doesn't fit the I AM structure of the sentence.

THANK YOU for bringing up the photo caption editing thing, Patty. I thought I was doing something wrong. Sometimes my captions tend to get a tad gregarious and it can be a major project to delete, download again and write a whole new caption just to correct one word or grammatical error.

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Katrena — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 21:01:45 GMT

kevin said…
Katrena and Gigi, thanks for the feedback.

The idea to show a character counter is a good one and I'll make sure it gets added to Meredith's feature wish list for consideration the next time we revamp those forms.

As far as the comments not giving an appropriate error message, I'll see what we can do to get that done a bit quicker, as it is a pretty bad experience for the unsuspecting user.

Thanks!

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kevin — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 16:05:54 GMT

Oh, forgot to add this: the current character limit on comments is 2,000.

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kevin — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 15:42:27 GMT

Katrena and Gigi, thanks for the feedback.

The idea to show a character counter is a good one and I'll make sure it gets added to Meredith's feature wish list for consideration the next time we revamp those forms.

As far as the comments not giving an appropriate error message, I'll see what we can do to get that done a bit quicker, as it is a pretty bad experience for the unsuspecting user.

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GigiandAdonai — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 16:53:27 GMT

I second that b/c when I was writing my Top 10 Favorite Horse movies I discovered that you can't have more than 150,000 characters (not words) in your review.

Also, if your comment to someone is too long you get the comment "enter a valid comment." I have several friends who don't know what that means b/c they believe their comment IS valid. I figured out what it meant and I just randomly remove a sentence at a time until the comment is valid.

So, what is the count for comments to be "valid?"

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Katrena — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 13:10:54 GMT

Hey--would there be a possibility of adding a word count option to the box where we type reviews?

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Meredith — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 20:33:00 GMT

Jo said…
Hi, I'm wondering why I (we?) don't get a notification of all our friends' activity. Jo

There are many people with many, many friends... sometimes hundreds of friends. For the sake of space and length, we defaulted the Friend's Activity email notification to the 12 friends with the most recent activity in 3 categories: Community/Profile, Reviews and Feedback. You can always visit your Latest Friends' Activity feed (from your MY HOME page) to view ALL of your friends activity.

Also, the majority of members who supplied feedback about notifications did not want to receive super long emails with a bunch of activity piled in. Additionally, they did not want their inbox slammed with individual emails of friend's activity without the ability to control the volume. That's why we allow the ability for members to subscribe to friend's contributions at customized frequency levels.

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Jo — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 16:58:48 GMT

Hi, I'm wondering why I (we?) don't get a notification of all our friends' activity. Jo

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Katrena — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 13:01:20 GMT

Meredith said…
onyx95 said…
I read through some of the many, didn't see this one (might have missed it sorry if it has already been put out there)....
Is there any way to have new helpful votes highlighted so that it is easier to figure out where those votes are going?
Visit your stats page to adjust helpful votes by time period. That display helps show what reviews are receiving votes. Where exactly would you like to see votes highlighted more distinctly? On the review page of a product? On your review page accessed from your profile?

Hey--maybe it would help to add an option on the drop down menu to have a choice of the last day or 24 hours? Maybe adding options to list all reviews by the number of helpful votes and number of comments in addition to the number of hits?

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Reviewer11 — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 08:43:45 GMT

Meredith said…
Reviewer11 said…
Reviewer11 said…
Hi there. ;D

I have a request. You don't have to, but if it's possible, can you add options to the blog entries like the option to select font types, font colors, and font sizes?
Yes? No? Maybe? lol
We will certainly add this to the wish list of requests. Thanks for the suggestion.

YAY!! You're very welcome. :D

AND THANKS! :D

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Meredith — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 22:39:13 GMT

onyx95 said…
I read through some of the many, didn't see this one (might have missed it sorry if it has already been put out there)....
Is there any way to have new helpful votes highlighted so that it is easier to figure out where those votes are going?

Visit your stats page to adjust helpful votes by time period. That display helps show what reviews are receiving votes. Where exactly would you like to see votes highlighted more distinctly? On the review page of a product? On your review page accessed from your profile?

Have ideas for new features on the site?

Meredith — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 22:36:26 GMT

Reviewer11 said…
Reviewer11 said…
Hi there. ;D

I have a request. You don't have to, but if it's possible, can you add options to the blog entries like the option to select font types, font colors, and font sizes?
Yes? No? Maybe? lol

We will certainly add this to the wish list of requests. Thanks for the suggestion.

Have ideas for new features on the site?

onyx95 — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 16:12:59 GMT

I read through some of the many, didn't see this one (might have missed it sorry if it has already been put out there)....

Is there any way to have new helpful votes highlighted so that it is easier to figure out where those votes are going?

Have ideas for new features on the site?

Reviewer11 — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 15:32:48 GMT

Reviewer11 said…
Hi there. ;D

I have a request. You don't have to, but if it's possible, can you add options to the blog entries like the option to select font types, font colors, and font sizes?

Yes? No? Maybe? lol

Have ideas for new features on the site?

Katrena — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 02:45:38 GMT

Meredith said…
Katrena said…
lilsquibb said…
Hey Katrena,

Discussions - the listings on you home page will "disappear" after you have read the most recent discussions. once something is posted there again it will come back. If you have more than what is listed there get through the ones there then hit refresh and the rest will come on. It only list the 10 (I think) most recent discussions).
That usually works for me as well, but if the entire discussion has been deleted and I click on it under my list for discussions, it is still on my profile page. The others do just as you mentioned above, but they are still active discussions. Just wondering if anyone else might have ones that were deleted in the boards but still showing up in the profile.

Katrena - What the name of the thread you are referencing that appears on your profile but has been deleted?

"I will be missing you guys when I'm gone"

There may be others, but this one I know has been deleted but stays on my profile.

Thanks!

Have ideas for new features on the site?

Meredith — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 19:31:34 GMT

Katrena said…
lilsquibb said…
Hey Katrena,

Discussions - the listings on you home page will "disappear" after you have read the most recent discussions. once something is posted there again it will come back. If you have more than what is listed there get through the ones there then hit refresh and the rest will come on. It only list the 10 (I think) most recent discussions).
That usually works for me as well, but if the entire discussion has been deleted and I click on it under my list for discussions, it is still on my profile page. The others do just as you mentioned above, but they are still active discussions. Just wondering if anyone else might have ones that were deleted in the boards but still showing up in the profile.

Katrena - What the name of the thread you are referencing that appears on your profile but has been deleted?

Have ideas for new features on the site?

Katrena — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 18:20:53 GMT

lilsquibb said…
Hey Katrena,

Discussions - the listings on you home page will "disappear" after you have read the most recent discussions. once something is posted there again it will come back. If you have more than what is listed there get through the ones there then hit refresh and the rest will come on. It only list the 10 (I think) most recent discussions).
That usually works for me as well, but if the entire discussion has been deleted and I click on it under my list for discussions, it is still on my profile page. The others do just as you mentioned above, but they are still active discussions. Just wondering if anyone else might have ones that were deleted in the boards but still showing up in the profile.

Have ideas for new features on the site?

Reviewer11 — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 15:06:26 GMT

Hi there. ;D

I have a request. You don't have to, but if it's possible, can you add options to the blog entries like the option to select font types, font colors, and font sizes?

Have ideas for new features on the site?

lilsquibb — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 16:50:55 GMT

Hey Katrena,

Discussions - the listings on you home page will "disappear" after you have read the most recent discussions. once something is posted there again it will come back. If you have more than what is listed there get through the ones there then hit refresh and the rest will come on. It only list the 10 (I think) most recent discussions).

Searching - you can click on the community tab and on the right hand side there is a search box where you can type in a user id... it may be a llttle easier than searching through your friends anyway... On the profile would be neat too.

Have ideas for new features on the site?

Katrena — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 05:55:55 GMT

I can't find where I think Meredith asked if people would like for discussion games to be posted under "Toys" or whether they should make a new topic or leave it under general discussions. I wasn't sure if anyone responded to that question, so here's my 2 cents worth. Perhaps you could change the name of "Toys" to "Toys and Games." This might make it easier for searching. Just a thought.

Also, I tried to go through all of the discussions at the bottom of my profile page in which I have posted responses. (And thanks for adding that feature!) I noticed on a few of those discussions that they have been removed, but they still appear in my profile. Does anyone else have that? Is there a way to remove them from appearing in the profile if they've been discontinued?

I think a lot of people here may have pretty large friends lists. Is there a way to add a search on the profile page where we can type in the name of a friend without searching through lots of friends on the profile or heading over to the discussion board to search for a friend's name?

Thanks for all that you guys do!

Have ideas for new features on the site?

LisaCarey — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 20:15:52 GMT

I would like to have a subscribe to all friends or all fans instead of having to do them one by one. As I add more people I forget and then when I go back can't tell where I left off. If I could just click something like subscribe all and get an email when any of them post a new review it would be really helpful then I can visit easily and quickly and spend more time reading instead of searching.

Have ideas for new features on the site?

GigiandAdonai — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 19:52:50 GMT

I'm not sure if this has already been addressed. I thought I was going to read all the comments before I posted mine to prevent that but then I realized there were four pages and nah, I don't have time.

Is there anyway you can link someone's reply with the original comment so that when we get a reply we see what the person was replying to? Sometimes I will get a comment/reply and I will be thinking to myself: "Well, what did I say on this date and time?" I have to scroll through several comments, dates, and sometimes days just to find out what the person was referring to.

Is it possible that when the reply comes thru the orig. comment is attached to it so that we can see them both? I know lots of times I will go back and read really old reviews from other members since I am still relatively new to Viewpoints. Well, if I post a reply to something someone wrote in May they will have a lot to go thru to see what I was making reference to.

Okay, that's all for now--I'm off to write a review ;+) ~the one and only Gigi girl

Have ideas for new features on the site?

Reviewer11 — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 12:43:53 GMT

Meredith said…
Isn't part of the game (and fun) to find the game threads among the other topics? :) It's like hide and seek among general discussions.

OOh, good idea!! :P :D

Gigi, lol, thanks for the fun. We had a blast... and no, not the air biscuit kind. LOL!

Have ideas for new features on the site?

GigiandAdonai — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 17:13:47 GMT

Wow--you must have read R11's mind because she started another game this morning and I had to "find" it. I find the new threads by following up on my friends' activities through the My Home section.

Check out Mindgame, chasing after, would you rather..., poster above me and the slumber party (Anyone staying up late....) to see how much fun R11 and I had during the wee hours of the morning. I think we were going for a record. We bounced around for about 5 or 6 hrs.! I didn't even get in bed until after 7 this a.m. but I sure did have a lot of fun!

Thanks to everyone at VP for making this possible. ~Gigi

Have ideas for new features on the site?

Meredith — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 16:43:11 GMT

Isn't part of the game (and fun) to find the game threads among the other topics? :) It's like hide and seek among general discussions.

Have ideas for new features on the site?

Reviewer11 — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 09:05:45 GMT

vivasuzi said…
There have been a lot of Games going on... Could we add a "Games" discussion board to separate them out? Actually would probably need to be something people could easily identify as not being about Video games... so maybe
"Discussion Board Games"??

I think that's a good idea. If you like. :D

Have ideas for new features on the site?

Reviewer11 — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 11:56:17 GMT

lol no I just meant I knew this request was gonna come sooner or later. It's no problem at all. :D

Then again, "R11 started the games" sounds good.. hmm.... nah, i'm kidding! :D

Have ideas for new features on the site?

vivasuzi — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 19:05:02 GMT

Or maybe we should call i the "Reviewer11 started all this" board :)

Have ideas for new features on the site?

Reviewer11 — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 18:23:52 GMT

vivasuzi said…
There have been a lot of Games going on... Could we add a "Games" discussion board to separate them out? Actually would probably need to be something people could easily identify as not being about Video games... so maybe
"Discussion Board Games"??

I knew this would come, lol.

Have ideas for new features on the site?

vivasuzi — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 18:20:39 GMT

There have been a lot of Games going on... Could we add a "Games" discussion board to separate them out? Actually would probably need to be something people could easily identify as not being about Video games... so maybe

"Discussion Board Games"??

Have ideas for new features on the site?

cmohr80 — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 19:37:59 GMT

I like to update my theater movie reviews when I hear that the DVD is about to be released. Once it's updated, can it be arranged for those ones to be reactiviated in current circulation? I'm not sure if I'm articulating what I'm suggesting clearly. . . Or can we at least create a discussion topic under MOVIES & TV, where we can all post that we've updated a movie review for its DVD release? Thanks!

Have ideas for new features on the site?

Reviewer11 — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 16:29:54 GMT

LOL!

To me, I'm happy the way it is now. :D

Have ideas for new features on the site?

Meredith — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 14:50:34 GMT

Whoopsi! Thanks, we'll check it out.

Have ideas for new features on the site?

Matt — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 01:56:36 GMT

Bob - the same thought has occured to me. Great minds think alike! We will consider this change in the coming week or two.

Have ideas for new features on the site?

AmyA — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 10:52:43 GMT

Morning. Love the congrats after a review is finished, but I noticed one little booboo

"Congratulations! This review counts toward you writer status. You're on a roll".

Should it be you're writer status? I could be off...just started to learn German LOL

Have a Happy Day!

Have ideas for new features on the site?

rulistenin — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 17:29:16 GMT

kevin said…
rulistenin, I believe we already have the feature that you are asking about. Clicking the little gold icon next to each discussion thread in the Discussions You Have Posted To module will take you to the most recent unread post in the thread. Try it out and let me know if that's what you were asking for...

hey... great minds think alike, lol (just kidding). Truly, thanks kevin! I guess I never scrolled over that icon. That is a great feature and exactly what I was asking about. Good to know, thank you!

Have ideas for new features on the site?

kevin — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 17:08:57 GMT

rulistenin, I believe we already have the feature that you are asking about. Clicking the little gold icon next to each discussion thread in the Discussions You Have Posted To module will take you to the most recent unread post in the thread. Try it out and let me know if that's what you were asking for...

Have ideas for new features on the site?

rulistenin — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 17:59:35 GMT

I would love to see an addition to the section Discussions You Have Posted To on the Home Page. Right now we can click on latest post, which is great. Yet, I really do try to read all the posts, and I often base what I've already read by where I last posted myself. So, wouldn't it be a great feature to be able to click on something like where I last posted? Then, I can go back to that post and read forward from there. Thanks.

Have ideas for new features on the site?

bkovacs — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 15:45:45 GMT

Reviews shown on the front page under "The Latest" tab should have some sort of screening. I suggest that they be from writers who are at least at the Writer I level.

The problem is that these reviews are highly visible, as the eye is drawn directly to them when someone arrives at www.viewpoints.com. Yet these reviews are not screened in any way and can be extremely poorly written, unintelligible rants or even objectionable (porn, racist, etc.) I know they cycle quickly but why not expose visitors to more seasoned and thoughtful reviews? Sometimes I've checked and found most of "The Latest" reviews to be Sears or BedInABox. That's hardly representative of Viewpoints.

Just a thought.

--Bob (who misses having my reviews featured on the front page)

Have ideas for new features on the site?

Katrena — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 12:58:02 GMT

I think it would be great to add a feature on the homepage to click on reviews/discussions/blogs related to the next holiday(s). For example, if people wanted to see reviews about Veterans Day or Halloween right now, they could click on that link. Maybe you could even add a choice where people could choose from any holiday and not just the ones that are coming up soon. I know this would take some extra time in the making. Perhaps add a question when we write/edit like "Is this related to a holiday?" Then a drop-down box could give choices like Veterans Day, Thanksgiving, 4th of July, etc. in order to provide the links needed.

Have ideas for new features on the site?

PERRYEASTEP — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 15:43:03 GMT

Welcome to the board summergirl! :)

Have ideas for new features on the site?

summergirl — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 15:41:17 GMT

How about a spot to post your favorite recipes. I know there is a spot to review recipe books but just a spot to review recipes. I know I have a few.

Have ideas for new features on the site?

PERRYEASTEP — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 22:56:49 GMT

vivasuzi said…
Here's an idea. I see a arrow symbol when people reply to me, but it would be cool if there was some kind of symbol on each comment showing that I replied (kind of like your email system shows a symbol next to the email to remind you if you replied).
That would be nice and would stop me from wondering "did I reply to that?" Sometimes I think of something to say in reply but cannot remember if I already replied or just thought it :) Thanks!!

Very good idea! Just today I replied to a message on my home page, and wasn't sure if I already did.??? So, I sent a (another?) reply. I know you can go to their page and check to see if you sent them something, but if they delete, or get to many messages, you can never know.

I'm not sure if anyone has touched on this but what about a "return to discussion" link at the bottom of the thread page? That way we wont have to scroll back up to the link.

Have ideas for new features on the site?

LadyMagic — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 22:44:44 GMT

I agree I was just about to write something similar to this on the board about the profile page. See ya!!!!!

Have ideas for new features on the site?

vivasuzi — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 14:37:42 GMT

Here's an idea. I see a arrow symbol when people reply to me, but it would be cool if there was some kind of symbol on each comment showing that I replied (kind of like your email system shows a symbol next to the email to remind you if you replied).

That would be nice and would stop me from wondering "did I reply to that?" Sometimes I think of something to say in reply but cannot remember if I already replied or just thought it :) Thanks!!

Have ideas for new features on the site?

Meredith — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 14:27:07 GMT

LadyMagic said…
Thanks. But not a whole page....just a section on the Community page and in each of our Friends and Fans sections. I'm pretty sure it could really be done but the techs would know that better than me.

We agree about birthdays! It is really fun to know who's having one and when. We're still deciding the best technical options here. Many folks are not comfortable sharing birth date information for security reasons. In order to create the functionality to send birthday alerts or create a section on the community page... we would have to require that users supply their birthday rather than making it optional as it is now. I have certainly added this feature to the wish list!

Have ideas for new features on the site?

LadyMagic — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 23:44:03 GMT

Thanks. But not a whole page....just a section on the Community page and in each of our Friends and Fans sections. I'm pretty sure it could really be done but the techs would know that better than me.

Have ideas for new features on the site?

vivasuzi — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 17:49:39 GMT

LadyMagic that sounds cool! I must have missed the others suggesting that. A birthday page would be awesome

Have ideas for new features on the site?

LadyMagic — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 17:39:02 GMT

Katrena, Patty, and Meri, I agree wholeheartedly about the birthdays. Perhaps there could also be a listing on the Community page Listing the birthdays of the month and on each members Friends & Fans section a listing of that month's birthdays.

Have ideas for new features on the site?

LadyMagic — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 17:34:38 GMT

Meredith, I searched for Avalon products and got an Avalon hotel and I think a movie along with a few other things. Tried the search again and was more successful.

Have ideas for new features on the site?

LadyMagic — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 17:31:02 GMT

I agree when you have a lot of comments, which are always welcome, : ) It can get a bit confusing when I want to make sure I answered them.

Also anyone I haven't answered yet I hope to answer new ones and any I missed by the end of the day. Thanks for your patience.

Have ideas for new features on the site?

vivasuzi — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 16:09:06 GMT

"What do you think of having a choice to view only comments that do not have replies?"

Good idea! I second that! There are always time where I feel like I might not have replied.

In addition, would be neat if we could view related comments together. IE if I commented on someones review, and they replied, then I replied, I could see all of these kind of linked in a Thread view. I still like the Date view we already have but a Thread view might help me keep track of what I was talking about.

Have ideas for new features on the site?

Meredith — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 15:46:52 GMT

Meri said…
I would like to be able to edit any comments I make on someone's profile page. I am dyslexic when I type and I often leave out a word some place and don't catch it until I reread it at a later time.

Meri, Patty & Krislynn -

You can edit your comments by going to your My Home page - then your Inbox. There will be edit links above the comments that you posted. Make sure the filtering box is selected to include ones you've written.

;)

Have ideas for new features on the site?

Meri — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 21:50:59 GMT

Patty, your picture still scares me!

Have ideas for new features on the site?

PattyTherre — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 04:42:07 GMT

krislynn said…
Meri said…
I would like to be able to edit any comments I make on someone's profile page. I am dyslexic when I type and I often leave out a word some place and don't catch it until I reread it at a later time.
You are not the only one. I am always reversing letters, typing the wrong word, and leaving out a word or two. I think my typing is faster than my brain.

Me too! My friends have learned to read my ridiculous typing but I'm sure people here can't. I find that I sometime post a comment twice and can't delete the second one so I have to edit to say "Oops..."

I'd like to edit profile comments as well but it's not a big deal one way or the other. Eventually everyone will know my brain types 190 wpm and my fingers type 12 correct wpm.

Have ideas for new features on the site?

krislynn — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 03:43:07 GMT

Meri said…
I would like to be able to edit any comments I make on someone's profile page. I am dyslexic when I type and I often leave out a word some place and don't catch it until I reread it at a later time.

You are not the only one. I am always reversing letters, typing the wrong word, and leaving out a word or two. I think my typing is faster than my brain.

Have ideas for new features on the site?

Meri — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 03:11:47 GMT

I would like to be able to edit any comments I make on someone's profile page. I am dyslexic when I type and I often leave out a word some place and don't catch it until I reread it at a later time.

Have ideas for new features on the site?

Katrena — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 02:11:39 GMT

I really like being able to see all the choices of views for friends and fans. I found a few people whom I thought I befriended but if I did, I accidentally deleted them as friends. Because of the new feature, I was able to see each of those at a glance and fix it.

What do you think of having a choice to view only comments that do not have replies?

Also, is there a way for us to change the default on what we see of other people's activity? Maybe I'm weird, but I almost feel like a peeping Tom when I can see when someone posts a comment on someone else's profile/review or when somebody befriends someone else.

Have ideas for new features on the site?

CyndiA — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 17:42:23 GMT

I'd like a main board button from sub boards. When I click into cooking etc, then I have to click again to get the main board button back up top.

Have ideas for new features on the site?

Meri — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 17:28:19 GMT

I like to remember birthdays but I agree we don't need the year to do it.

Thinking.... would we need an alert for awlafon who has a birthday every day of the year? hmmm

Have ideas for new features on the site?

PattyTherre — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 17:10:31 GMT

Good news and I don't think anyone needs to know the year of someone's birth. Just the month and day would be nice to drop by and say HB. I don't have my year up but would if I had to. I agree that people may feel uncomfortable putting their entire birth date with year up.

I also think, if people want to opt out of putting a birth date up, that should be OK. We just won't be notified of their birthday since we won't know when it is. I understand people have levels of comfort about the info they share on the net, as I am sure everyone here does.

Have ideas for new features on the site?

Meri — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 16:54:45 GMT

Meredith, that is great news! Thanks for listening to all of us and making the site better and better and better.

Have ideas for new features on the site?

Meredith — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 16:04:36 GMT

UPDATE: Again, thanks everyone for all your wonderful ideas.

As you may have heard from our Profile Page redesign thread, we are working on new functionalities there. Private messaging will be a new feature we will introduce when we launch (no official date yet but it is coming soon.)

We agree about birthdays! It is really fun to know who's having one and when. However, we're still deciding the best options here. Many folks are not comfortable sharing birth date information for security reasons. In order to create the functionality to send birthday alerts... we would probably have to require that users supply their birthday rather than making it optional. We are looking at ways to only require month and day but leave year optional. Ultimately, safety and respect for our member's personal information is a top priority.

We are also working on ways to quickly access and track discussion board comments in threads you are participating in from your profile page. Stay tuned!

As always... we're listening to your feedback. Keep bringing it on!

Have ideas for new features on the site?

Meri — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 15:23:47 GMT

PattyTherre said…
I actually was thinking of asking for birthday notifications weekly or monthly for either all or just those on our friends list. I was thrilled when people noticed mine and I constantly am missing others'. It's a small thing but makes the community warmer, in my opinion.

That is a great idea, Patty. I vote for that too!

Have ideas for new features on the site?

Meri — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 15:19:22 GMT

Now that I've been here a bit I feel that I can add my two cents worth.

I don't care for the I AM tags. They are confusing and it really annoys me when they are not grammatically correct [not I always am either].

I would LOVE to be able to send a private message to someone; especially those on my friends list. I noticed a misspelled word on a friend's review and wanted to tell her. The only way to do it was to post a public message and then go in and edit the message after she replied. It was awkward to me. I would appreciate a heads up if I have an error in my review.

The other thing I'd love to see is a little green dot or a tab that will tell me which of my friends list people are online. As a new person it would be helpful to see, "OH, anon friend is online....maybe she can help me figure out...." Then, of course, in a perfect world I would send her a private message and she could respond. :-)

Have ideas for new features on the site?

PattyTherre — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 23:22:16 GMT

I actually was thinking of asking for birthday notifications weekly or monthly for either all or just those on our friends list. I was thrilled when people noticed mine and I constantly am missing others'. It's a small thing but makes the community warmer, in my opinion.

Have ideas for new features on the site?

Katrena — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 22:10:24 GMT

Is there any way to automatically send a message to a person's fans when that person has a birthday? I'd love to send a personal comment wishing friends a happy birthday but I'll probably miss people because I can't think to write down their birthdays and can't remember anything. I know this one might be impossible to do but thought I'd ask.

Have ideas for new features on the site?

Meredith — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 16:01:15 GMT

steve9631 said…
Meredith said…
steve9631 said…
Please fix the search engine. Not to be critical, I know you all do your best. But the search engine for reviews is very 20th century.
Hey Steve. No worries... we welcome critical feedback too. What feels particularly old school about the search engine? When you type in a term in the search box do you not feel you get appropriate results? Just want to make sure we know the specifics of what you feel is lacking.

P.S. Like the new seaside profile photo in Tacoma! You look happy as a clam.
Hey Meredith,
What I dislike about the search engine is, when I'm looking for a review, it has to be exactly as it is titled or categorized. For example if a capitol letter is used instead of small case, it will show no match. Another example is, when I wrote a review of Wash DC, it came up blank on search so my review ended up in a new category, when in fact there were 3 reviews already on file.
When I hit search for the site, frequently I will come across a review, that search has declared doesn't exist. Google comes up with probable matches when things are misspelled or have similar tags, and positive results are usually achieved. Don't get me wrong, I think many things on the site work particularly well, but the search engine frustrates me.
How on earth did you know that photo was taken at my house in Tacoma? (Never mind, I just found where I typed it)
I'm a part-time psychic for my other job ;) Thanks for the additional details. It's really helpful. Enjoy Labor Day weekend.

Have ideas for new features on the site?

steve9631 — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 00:16:51 GMT

Meredith said…
steve9631 said…
Please fix the search engine. Not to be critical, I know you all do your best. But the search engine for reviews is very 20th century.
Hey Steve. No worries... we welcome critical feedback too. What feels particularly old school about the search engine? When you type in a term in the search box do you not feel you get appropriate results? Just want to make sure we know the specifics of what you feel is lacking.

P.S. Like the new seaside profile photo in Tacoma! You look happy as a clam.

Hey Meredith,

What I dislike about the search engine is, when I'm looking for a review, it has to be exactly as it is titled or categorized. For example if a capitol letter is used instead of small case, it will show no match. Another example is, when I wrote a review of Wash DC, it came up blank on search so my review ended up in a new category, when in fact there were 3 reviews already on file.

When I hit search for the site, frequently I will come across a review, that search has declared doesn't exist. Google comes up with probable matches when things are misspelled or have similar tags, and positive results are usually achieved. Don't get me wrong, I think many things on the site work particularly well, but the search engine frustrates me.

How on earth did you know that photo was taken at my house in Tacoma? (Never mind, I just found where I typed it)

Have ideas for new features on the site?

Meredith — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 20:46:30 GMT

steve9631 said…
Please fix the search engine. Not to be critical, I know you all do your best. But the search engine for reviews is very 20th century.

Hey Steve. No worries... we welcome critical feedback too. What feels particularly old school about the search engine? When you type in a term in the search box do you not feel you get appropriate results? Just want to make sure we know the specifics of what you feel is lacking.

P.S. Like the new seaside profile photo in Tacoma! You look happy as a clam.

Have ideas for new features on the site?

DUISparky — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 19:57:13 GMT

Dunno if anyone has thrown this out there yet, but how about links to subsequent pages in multi-page threads on these discussion boards at the top of the thread as well as the bottom? Cuz right now you have to scroll all the way to the bottom of the page to hit the "Next" or "2" or "3" etc. buttons. If you already know you wanna go to page three cuz you've already read everything on pages one and two, it'd be nice to just open the thread and hit 3 instead of "all that scrollin" d;-)

Have ideas for new features on the site?

steve9631 — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 19:42:53 GMT

Please fix the search engine. Not to be critical, I know you all do your best. But the search engine for reviews is very 20th century.

Have ideas for new features on the site?

Jo — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 13:40:53 GMT

Hi Vytas and all, is it just me or is this something that i'm missing and bugs me - I don't know if I've given a review a rating. So let's say I just went to a review. I click on helpful and the 10 votes don't go to 11. Is that because I already voted? and if so is there a way that we could know we've already voted. It's just a second but still the seconds add up. Thanks

Have ideas for new features on the site?

GeorgeChabot — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 13:00:43 GMT

A distrust button so the membership can weed out the few bad users.

Have ideas for new features on the site?

Katrena — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 04:30:11 GMT

I have two more ideas for possible site tweaks:

I read about three or four website reviews before I realized that the website address that was being reviewed was way up at the top. Is there a way that the website address could also be available at the bottom of the screen or perhaps in a larger font? Best case scenario would be a link that one could click. I just remember reading a few of those reviews early on and thinking--gee that looks like a great website, but why didn't the author put the website address in the review so that I can just click on it? I was afraid to post a comment in the review because I didn't want to sound like a jerk by asking for the website address. I ended up to a google search to find the website instead until I realized where the addresses were appearing.

Another idea would be to have a pop-up warning if an author is about to publish a rating rather than a review and what's missing (I am tag, pro/con, etc.). I forgot to put "I am tags" on two of my reviews and didn't realize they didn't count as reviews until I read about ratings/reviews in a discussion here. Is there an easy way to identify ratings that we've written? I tried to look through each of my reviews to figure out which were ratings and found all but one. I know there's probably a MUCH easier way than looking at each review.

Have ideas for new features on the site?

SpokaneMan — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 16:58:34 GMT

vytas said…
Since this site was built by people and not deities, there's always room for improvement. Share your ideas for making Viewpoints better - be it some tweak to what's already here or a completely new feature. We're listening!

Thought it would be a great time to suggest private chat again. :) It would be extremely helpful when trying to help out new users on the site.

Have ideas for new features on the site?

Jo — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 17:36:04 GMT

It bugs me that I have no idea if I've given a helpful to a review or left a comment. In the interest of time I'd like not to have to scroll down to see if I already commented or rated the review. Any way to say "you've rated this" or some such thing? Jo

Have ideas for new features on the site?

Meredith — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 15:20:37 GMT

Hey guys and gals! Just wanted to let you know we're still listening. I'm tracking all your suggestions for us to discuss as we continue to make changes, adjustments and upgrades to the site. Your feedback is golden!!

Have ideas for new features on the site?

Nikro — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 12:58:16 GMT

Buggheart said…
OK I have a new one. Is there any way the sound bite (byte) could be a bit longer? I noticed that there is a little balloon next to it that says we should try to include the name of the product in the byte but when I do that it doesn't leave me enough space for a good sound byte.

Big ditto!

Have ideas for new features on the site?

Buggheart — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 12:39:50 GMT

OK I have a new one. Is there any way the sound bite (byte) could be a bit longer? I noticed that there is a little balloon next to it that says we should try to include the name of the product in the byte but when I do that it doesn't leave me enough space for a good sound byte.

Have ideas for new features on the site?

Katrena — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 21:18:49 GMT

As a new writer, I wasn't quite sure how to deal with the additional "tags" for the product. I wasn't sure if those would appear in my review or not. I hadn't thought of putting in ways people might misspell the product or slang words or other words people might use to search for the product.

Maybe some sort of explanation (perhaps something to click for additional info) in the area would be helpful for new people like me. I like the way I could look at explanations about adding photos, etc.

I'm thinking back to some of my earlier reviews and see how many more people could probably read them if I had put in more tags. I'd love to be able to go in and edit and add tags after publishing, so that might be something you guys might want to consider giving writers the ability to do in the future.

Have ideas for new features on the site?

Jo — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 14:04:44 GMT

Well since my computer is really weird lately - no bugs I'm sure of that - but something's not right like my D drive is invisible - I'll skip looking at this for now! Jo

Have ideas for new features on the site?

PattyTherre — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 21:54:22 GMT

kevin said…
(snip)

Also, a feature that probably nobody has seen (since it's been intentionally buried!) is the Community Explorer. We launched a page called Viewpoints Labs a while back, but it's only found in the footer links. On this page you will see the Explorer, which is a flash based app that lets you navigate all the friendships within our community, starting at your profile (if you are logged in).

Cavaet: this is based on Flash technology, which is not our strong suit, so we don't guarantee that it is bug free or supported on all browsers and operating systems. Also due to memory constraints, if you have more than 150 friends/fans, they won't all be loaded, so you might notice some connections as missing. That's why it's relegated to the Labs section and not part of the mainstream site. By all means check it out and enjoy it if you are interested.

OMG! That is the coolest thing. I just played with it and am going back. I can see who is friends with my friends and all kinds of cool stuff!! Why hide it? It's amazing! And I jump around like I do in real life on the page. I encourage everyone to check out Viewpoint Labs as linked above. It's really cool!

Have ideas for new features on the site?

kevin — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 13:02:08 GMT

In regards to being able to sort your friends...it's great to hear this feedback and you I'm going to let slip, that we'll be working on a revamp of the profile page in the coming months. Being able to order or at least call out your top friends is on the plan.

Also, a feature that probably nobody has seen (since it's been intentionally buried!) is the Community Explorer. We launched a page called Viewpoints Labs a while back, but it's only found in the footer links. On this page you will see the Explorer, which is a flash based app that lets you navigate all the friendships within our community, starting at your profile (if you are logged in).

Cavaet: this is based on Flash technology, which is not our strong suit, so we don't guarantee that it is bug free or supported on all browsers and operating systems. Also due to memory constraints, if you have more than 150 friends/fans, they won't all be loaded, so you might notice some connections as missing. That's why it's relegated to the Labs section and not part of the mainstream site. By all means check it out and enjoy it if you are interested.

Have ideas for new features on the site?

lilsquibb — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 17:12:11 GMT

Jo said…
Hi all you techies behind the screen - now take this with a grain of salt from someone who has been doing 7 hour shifts at an Assisted Living Facility and only 1/2 here - though that will change...So the Recent Activity list is FABULOUS. I just found out it was here. It's more than amazing. My problem is people finding it. I knew where it was and had a hard time finding it on the community page so if the goal is for people to get to it then I'd make it easier to find. Just my 2 cents. Jo

I agree... it took me a while to find it after I knew we had it as well. The page is busy and that link gets lost even though it's in the middle of the screen.

Have ideas for new features on the site?

Jo — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 14:35:12 GMT

Hi all you techies behind the screen - now take this with a grain of salt from someone who has been doing 7 hour shifts at an Assisted Living Facility and only 1/2 here - though that will change...So the Recent Activity list is FABULOUS. I just found out it was here. It's more than amazing. My problem is people finding it. I knew where it was and had a hard time finding it on the community page so if the goal is for people to get to it then I'd make it easier to find. Just my 2 cents. Jo

Have ideas for new features on the site?

PattyTherre — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 05:21:57 GMT

CyndiA said…
ROF Patty! I never thought about that. It would be my luck that my bestest bud or relative would hit it when they had been un-friended for a few seconds and be mad, mad, mad at me.

LOL. Well, every time you remove and add someone, they get a new fan notice which seems odd when they KNOW they have been on your friends list for ages. But the only people I do that with know what the notice means and they do or did the same thing. I think my son still has me as #1 on his list but my sister and I gave up trying to keep each other on the top. It only takes a minute to remove and add a person but it's a hassle every time you add a new friend to go back and do that.

Have ideas for new features on the site?

CyndiA — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 21:52:43 GMT

ROF Patty! I never thought about that. It would be my luck that my bestest bud or relative would hit it when they had been un-friended for a few seconds and be mad, mad, mad at me.

Have ideas for new features on the site?

PattyTherre — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 20:12:39 GMT

Katrena said…
Yep--understood you 100%, Patty!
Got another idea to run by you. I know on the home page I can view friends and fans. I think the last one added is the first one seen. Is there a way to choose to order them differently (say by frequency of visiting their sites, or to choose to reverse the order by placing the first one added to the top)?
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
When I was actively trying to keep my sister and son at the top of my list, I would just remove them from my friends list then add them again. They would end up as the top two people every time. Now, I am not as concerned with that but it does work. Just remove someone and readd them and they will jump to the top of your list where you can see what they are up to at a glance.
HTH!

Have ideas for new features on the site?

CyndiA — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 20:10:21 GMT

I don't know of any way to sort them, and when the list gets longer, it's hard to find folks. There is a click to see a photo collage. Sometimes I find people with that. If I don't see a photo I'm looking for I refresh and sometimes I see the person or their family and then click on the photo.

Have ideas for new features on the site?

Katrena — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 13:04:42 GMT

Yep--understood you 100%, Patty!

Got another idea to run by you. I know on the home page I can view friends and fans. I think the last one added is the first one seen. Is there a way to choose to order them differently (say by frequency of visiting their sites, or to choose to reverse the order by placing the first one added to the top)?

Have ideas for new features on the site?

PattyTherre — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 07:34:06 GMT

I like the idea of two colors of links - blue for adding a friend and red for removing a friend or something. I think I have taken people off my friends list inadvertently. I have a good number of friends and sometimes forget who is and isn't on my list. And I am soooooooooo sleep deprived too that I can see myself removing someone but meaning to add them and they were already added but I forgot.

If you understood that paragraph, you too are sleep deprived! lol.

Have ideas for new features on the site?

Katrena — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 19:15:17 GMT

As a new writer here, I've found this site pretty user friendly and full of useful information--thanks! Here are a couple of my suggestions:

--Have a different color for adding/removing a friend from your list. "I am sleep deprived" is a pretty accurate description of me and I may have carelessly removed someone from my friends list when I thought I was adding them. If I removed any of you from my list inadvertantly, please send me a message and I'll be glad to add you back!

I enjoy searching pictures from other VP writers. I know you have writer's pictures to scroll through under community. but have you considered having two scroll bars of pictures on the home page (one labeled as "products" and one labeled as "writers")?

Also, is there a way to view the top 10, 100, 500 reviews? If so, I guess I need a tutoring session!

Have ideas for new features on the site?

vivasuzi — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 19:03:30 GMT

Hi Ron, to Meredith's point, I use dozen's of sites with the linkage thing and they do the same thing with the leading http://. For most people, it works as a good hint for what they have to put in there so they don't just open it and write "viewpoints.com/..." and that's it.

Have ideas for new features on the site?

kid-kansas — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 01:53:41 GMT

I have never seen one like ours before but one that had the "http://" as an example below it. I do see what your saying though and since I have been doing it for better than 20 years I do know what is needed and a novice might not understand it..

Ron

Have ideas for new features on the site?

LisaCarey — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 04:45:47 GMT

Maybe a slideshow feature, especially for those like Steve who have wonderful photos and travel reviews. . . but any of us may be able to use it and connect it to the review. Why not have slide show of video of how we used a product if we want to include it.

Functions to find people according to location, but hey, I have mentioned this before.

I think the reason there is no way to do "links" to sites within the review itself is because the site should not become a link pimping site for whatever we are reviewing. the side likes (google ads etc) are helpful and at least on topic if not EXACTLY what we review. It would be nice if it could be configured to pick up the topic or brand name mentioned.

Have ideas for new features on the site?

Meredith — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 18:15:08 GMT

kid-kansas said…
Okay I looked and didn't see this so here is my suggestion on a tweak I feel would be very helpful.

When you link to another page in your review you get the popup where you enter the link. The problem is repetition.......The link space contains http:// already......but when you copy a url you are also copying that http:// as part of the address you are linking. Wouldn't it be better to leave that popup line blank?? I think this may be causing problems for some people, especially someone that is not computer savvy. I just erase it before I paste my link but for those that don't know better they are pasting a link which look like this:

http://http://someplace.com/review87658654 (Which will never work)

Instead of having one that is correct like this:

http://someplace.com/review87658654 (which would work)

I am not nit picking I just feel it may be giving some people a hard time and should be a very easy fix.

Thanks,
Ron

Hey Ron,

The upload a link box is actually a standard, formatted tool used across the web for this type of action. The pre-seeded http:// can be an annoyance to the web savvy but helpful to the less knowledgeable user because it displays what URL information is needed to complete the link. We'd like to leave as is for now.

Thanks for sharing your idea. We're always glad to hear what you guys like and don't like as we develop and revise features.

Have ideas for new features on the site?

kid-kansas — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 17:56:09 GMT

bumping this up because it got lost.....read my last post and let me know if my idea is feasible and if it could be a good fix...

Ron

Have ideas for new features on the site?

kid-kansas — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 17:46:57 GMT

Okay I looked and didn't see this so here is my suggestion on a tweak I feel would be very helpful.

When you link to another page in your review you get the popup where you enter the link. The problem is repetition.......The link space contains http:// already......but when you copy a url you are also copying that http:// as part of the address you are linking. Wouldn't it be better to leave that popup line blank?? I think this may be causing problems for some people, especially someone that is not computer savvy. I just erase it before I paste my link but for those that don't know better they are pasting a link which look like this:

http://http://someplace.com/review87658654 (Which will never work)

Instead of having one that is correct like this:

http://someplace.com/review87658654 (which would work)

I am not nit picking I just feel it may be giving some people a hard time and should be a very easy fix.

Thanks,
Ron

Have ideas for new features on the site?

vivasuzi — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 16:19:06 GMT

Here's an idea for those of us with Many I Am tags. It would be cool if we could categorize our own I Am tags so that, for example, I could put anything that has to do with Movies into my "movies" I Am category. This would just make it easier to find them.

Or, if when writing a review, it would be nice if every tag you ever used in that category would show up in a list. A lot of times I'm reviewing a movie, for example, but not all my movie tags show up and a lot of the ones that do have nothing to do with movies. I go to my profile to see my list and pick the tags I want, but I wish that all the I Am tags that I ever used in "movies" would show on the review page (either as checkboxes or a list that pops up, whatever).

I try my best to reuse tags so that I don't have a million, but sometimes I forget if I already made one and end up making another that is really the same thing but phrased different.

Have ideas for new features on the site?

Meredith — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 18:31:03 GMT

JazzSinger said…
I get an e-mail every time someone leaves me a comment, but I also get an e-mail if I leave a comment within a review as a response to someone else's comment. I don't need to get an e-mail saying that I left a comment. Can something be done about this?

Hey there! So you get an email each time you post and receive a comment? That's not how we've set things up. Could you possibly forward me an example of an email notification you've received from us alerting you that YOU posting a comment to someone else? My email is meredith@viewpoints.com. Thanks so much.

Have ideas for new features on the site?

Meredith — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 18:28:34 GMT

PattyTherre said…
I am still just hoping to leave private messages. I came across a review where the person misspelled the name of the product throughout the review. It made me crazy but I didn't want to say anything publicly. If I could have sent a private message saying that the product spelling was wrong, I think the person would have appreciated it and not have felt criticized or embarrassed as s/he would have if I made a comment publicly.

Private messaging is absolutely on our list of features we'd like to add. No estimated date yet but it's coming.

Have ideas for new features on the site?

Meredith — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 18:25:19 GMT

joyjoy said…
I would like to be able to edit my title without having to ask the VP staff. Sometimes I realize I made a mistake afterwards.

I know several of you have requested the capability to edit your own product titles without having to email Jolie or I for corrections. We all know mistakes happen, no one is perfect. We have no problem making title corrections for you at all! At this time, because the product title effects so many factors (e.g. database of products on both Viewpoints and Shopping.com, searchability, etc.) we will not make them editable. Here's a good example of a reason why we shouldn't... Say you write a review for the Apple 4GB iPod. Then another person reviews that same iPod attaching it to your review but then they realize their iPod actually has 6GB. They go in to edit the product name to say 6GB instead of 4GB. Now, the review title is deceiving because one review is for the 4GB and the other for a 6GB iPod. Allowing product titles to be editable could open a whole new can of worms by creating more room for error.

Have ideas for new features on the site?

joyjoy — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 23:09:22 GMT

I would like to be able to edit my title without having to ask the VP staff. Sometimes I realize I made a mistake afterwards.

Have ideas for new features on the site?

RudiXeno — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 02:27:58 GMT

PattyTherre said…
I am still just hoping to leave private messages. I came across a review where the person misspelled the name of the product throughout the review. It made me crazy but I didn't want to say anything publicly. If I could have sent a private message saying that the product spelling was wrong, I think the person would have appreciated it and not have felt criticized or embarrassed as s/he would have if I made a comment publicly.

I agree totally. I've ased for this feature before. There are many situations where a private message feature would be very helpful.

Rudi

Have ideas for new features on the site?

RudiXeno — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 02:25:30 GMT

PattyTherre said…
I am still just hoping to leave private messages. I came across a review where the person misspelled the name of the product throughout the review. It made me crazy but I didn't want to say anything publicly. If I could have sent a private message saying that the product spelling was wrong, I think the person would have appreciated it and not have felt criticized or embarrassed as s/he would have if I made a comment publicly.

I agree 100%. I've asked for this before. It would be very helpful in so many situations to be able to send a private message.

Rudi

Have ideas for new features on the site?

JazzSinger — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 22:54:27 GMT

I get an e-mail every time someone leaves me a comment, but I also get an e-mail if I leave a comment within a review as a response to someone else's comment. I don't need to get an e-mail saying that I left a comment. Can something be done about this?

Have ideas for new features on the site?

steve9631 — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 21:08:40 GMT

That would be cool, and would make perfect sense! I imagine the reason why that link isn't there, is there is a financial issue for inserting a link that has yet to be obtained from the linkor. Just my guess.

Have ideas for new features on the site?

JovialCougar — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 00:21:01 GMT

I wish you could click through to the specific website on travel reviews. For exmaple, I was reading a Southwest Airlines review and there was no click-through to their website. On the right-hand column was a Google ad with travel-related websites, but not Southwest's own site.

Have ideas for new features on the site?

steve9631 — Fri, 30 May 2008 22:40:55 GMT

PattyTherre said…
I am still just hoping to leave private messages. I came across a review where the person misspelled the name of the product throughout the review. It made me crazy but I didn't want to say anything publicly. If I could have sent a private message saying that the product spelling was wrong, I think the person would have appreciated it and not have felt criticized or embarrassed as s/he would have if I made a comment publicly.

Ditto

Have ideas for new features on the site?

PattyTherre — Fri, 30 May 2008 22:16:08 GMT

I am still just hoping to leave private messages. I came across a review where the person misspelled the name of the product throughout the review. It made me crazy but I didn't want to say anything publicly. If I could have sent a private message saying that the product spelling was wrong, I think the person would have appreciated it and not have felt criticized or embarrassed as s/he would have if I made a comment publicly.

Have ideas for new features on the site?

steve9631 — Fri, 30 May 2008 21:06:42 GMT

I have several suggestions:

1.) The ability to add video footage when appropriate. Not a link, but footage. I don't do video now, but if a find something that I like when I'm traveling, doing a car show, etc., it might be a nice feature.

2.) Altering the photo addition aspect to the reviews would be helpful. Currently, the limit of 3 pictures at times seem to be quite limiting, not always, but sometimes. Since the ability to add more pictures is possible within saving and revisiting of review efforts, why not streamline the process and just make it simpler?

3.) The ability to alter the title header for additional information or spelling corrections would be quite helpful, and alleviate the necessity of writing an email to the office.

Just my thoughts, but I'd be quite interested to hear your views.

Steve

Have ideas for new features on the site?

Jo — Wed, 21 May 2008 13:22:00 GMT

Yes, it makes perfect sense and to make a point I already made the fact I found this post from you was just because I'm going through each block! Jo

Have ideas for new features on the site?

GeorgeChabot — Tue, 20 May 2008 18:50:28 GMT

I thought the stats would be cooler if they showed next to each review title on my profile page. They count up so slowly I guess nobody stops by but when I see I've gotten one (by the total GP count) I wish I could find which one was rated.

Have ideas for new features on the site?

LisaCarey — Mon, 12 May 2008 16:12:22 GMT

Actually Jo, that's is one of two reasons I am posting today, I was out of town and came back to try to catch up and it is taking so much time to go through the list of reviews and my comments. My main concern right now is greeting people and trying to then keep track of them to revisit .. . as I run through my quotes and try to go back to see if they have posted anything new then I return to my main comments page and have to page through it to get back to the page of comments that I was working on. (Does any of this make sense) For example, I am on page 5 of my comments, I am going back to check on a new greeting I made, see how they are doing and such and then want to go back to my comments. I go back to page 1 and then have to go over to page 5 then start the process all over again. ...

Maybe a comments from freinds and fans ... section could be helpful or a way to simply return to the page that I was on either would be incredibly helpful to those that welcome and encourage new members. It would also help me as I try to make more friends and fans... just a thought.

Have ideas for new features on the site?

Jo — Sun, 11 May 2008 13:48:45 GMT

I feel as if I have a list of ways to change the site and it's not meant to be a list of complaints just stuff I find along the way.

Am I the only one who doesn't feel that the list we get of "reviews by friends" is as easy to click and read as other sites. I can't put my finger on it. I'm not sure if it's the layout or what but those of you who write elsewhere and get notifications do you feel as if there is a difference in user friendliness? Jo

Have ideas for new features on the site?

Jo — Sun, 11 May 2008 13:46:23 GMT

PattyTherre said…
Must be many people write comments before voting because I often get six comments and five votes and I go crazy wondering why someone would comment (nicely) and yet not give me a GP, er, HV. I suppose that could be the reason. I always vote first then comment. If I forget if I voted or not, I do it again for good measure knowing that my vote only counts once.

I'll have to start doing that but I know just now I forget to click helpful. I'll try the reverse. Of course that would solve my problem! Jo

Have ideas for new features on the site?

PattyTherre — Sat, 10 May 2008 18:05:48 GMT

Must be many people write comments before voting because I often get six comments and five votes and I go crazy wondering why someone would comment (nicely) and yet not give me a GP, er, HV. I suppose that could be the reason. I always vote first then comment. If I forget if I voted or not, I do it again for good measure knowing that my vote only counts once.

Have ideas for new features on the site?

Jo — Sat, 10 May 2008 14:16:20 GMT

Ok, another comment related to the yes and no. I usually leave a comment if I'm going to before I vote. It's just what I got in the habit of doing. Then after I hit send the page doesn't bring my back to the line that says "was this helpful"? If it did I think we'd be more likely to vote. Just a thought. Jo

Have ideas for new features on the site?

Jolie — Sat, 10 May 2008 03:58:23 GMT

bkovacs said…
Some thoughts about the new Yes/No voting on reviews...

Yes and no... I like the idea of being able to give a thumbs up or down to a review. However, the two buttons are too close together and easy to get wrong. And once you click on one, you can never change your selection. What if the reviewer edits the review and fixes it? I can't change my vote!

I'm respectfully suggesting two things:

1. Make "Yes" and "No" more distinctive and separate them a little.
2. Let the opposite selection stay available after I vote, just in case I change my mind.

Thanks for the changes and improvements so far... I really appreciate the effort.

--Bob

Here's a little secret. If you accidentally vote NO, then you can go back in and mark YES and we will fix it. (the inverse works too!) However, if you vote NO, NO or YES, YES it will only count as once.

Have ideas for new features on the site?

kevin — Fri, 09 May 2008 13:14:42 GMT

bkovacs said…
Edit: I just DID use the "Quote" feature on this existing post, which was written before the quote function existed. Kewl

Wow. That just boggles my mind. :) Glad to know it didn't blow up on you though!

Have ideas for new features on the site?

kevin — Fri, 09 May 2008 03:58:44 GMT

kevin said…
@Bob/Patty: quoting is coming to the forums soon!

Quoting is now live. Enjoy!

Have ideas for new features on the site?

kevin — Tue, 06 May 2008 17:53:05 GMT

@Bob/Patty: quoting is coming to the forums soon!

@Jo: email alerts to forum replies is on the list, but I don't have an ETA on how soon.

There's lots of other great feedback here from everyone. One thing that might help us is if you start separate topics per feature idea or bug report. That way we can track each idea without them all being jumbled in a single topic and maybe missing something.

Have ideas for new features on the site?

AmyA — Tue, 06 May 2008 16:34:27 GMT

I agree with Jo. I feel bad having to bug the VP peeps is I messed something up I can fix. I think I have the right product and look and look again after I hit publish and OH darn it...wrong color, wrong type.

Have ideas for new features on the site?

Jo — Mon, 05 May 2008 13:56:08 GMT

Patty, I would like to be able to edit the picture's caption without deleting the picture also so I'm waving my hand on that one.

I don't see my pictures when I do my review. I've had that happen to me before and it drives me nuts.

Also please please let us be able to edit the title somehow. I know we can just e-mail Jolie and maybe there's a risk that a new product will be added and then some weird product name will be substituted but it sure would be nice.

Ok any chance we can be alerted to replies here?? Jo typing as the packers move boxes around me!

Have ideas for new features on the site?

bkovacs — Mon, 05 May 2008 12:56:08 GMT

PattyTherre said...

But the reason I came here was to suggest that these boards have a QUOTE feature so we can follow conversations better. I did mention this to Jolie but wondered what you guys thought. I would like to quote people and respond to them and not confuse everyone. I think we all know how to use the quote feature and it would enhance the discussions.

Thoughts?

I would definitely like a quote feature here in the discussion boards. In fact, I would have used it now to quote Patty's post!

Edit: I just DID use the "Quote" feature on this existing post, which was written before the quote function existed. Kewl!

--Bob

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PattyTherre — Sun, 04 May 2008 03:05:30 GMT

Bob said: "1. Make "Yes" and "No" more distinctive and separate them a little.
2. Let the opposite selection stay available after I vote, just in case I change my mind.

I didn't know we couldn't change our vote once we locked it in. We could always go with green yes and yellow or red no so people don't get mixed up. I do think we should be able to change a review's rating if someone comes along and edits it for the better - or worse.

But the reason I came here was to suggest that these boards have a QUOTE feature so we can follow conversations better. I did mention this to Jolie but wondered what you guys thought. I would like to quote people and respond to them and not confuse everyone. I think we all know how to use the quote feature and it would enhance the discussions.

Thoughts?

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CyndiA — Fri, 02 May 2008 04:06:25 GMT

There was some indication before if we'd press "good point" that's now "helpful." I'm not sure what's changed. I can't tell now. I may read a review again and then not see that I gave a thumbs up/good point, so I press again. It does not seem to hurt anything though. It just does not add a number, so then I know I did that already. Is this maybe the hamster trick to see how many of us will press it over and over? Count me guilty (-: I just keep reading those frozen pizza reviews.

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bkovacs — Fri, 02 May 2008 01:56:43 GMT

Some thoughts about the new Yes/No voting on reviews...

Yes and no... I like the idea of being able to give a thumbs up or down to a review. However, the two buttons are too close together and easy to get wrong. And once you click on one, you can never change your selection. What if the reviewer edits the review and fixes it? I can't change my vote!

I'm respectfully suggesting two things:

1. Make "Yes" and "No" more distinctive and separate them a little.
2. Let the opposite selection stay available after I vote, just in case I change my mind.

Thanks for the changes and improvements so far... I really appreciate the effort.

--Bob

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CyndiA — Fri, 02 May 2008 00:36:46 GMT

Someone sent me a note here that they looked for something under "home cook" or something like that. They found what they were looking for in my collection. I use a lot of "I am" tags. I am a lot of stuff. If you want my biker stuff, then click biker tag. If you want my "mom to boys" stuff, click that. Very different. Same with the "eating healthy." If tags are used to match right to products, they do help sort collections.

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vivasuzi — Thu, 01 May 2008 20:20:29 GMT

I get nit picky too and even if a suggested tag is very close to what I want, I won't choose it if it doesn't make sense

"I am movie watcher"

Instead I add/change my own. I made it a habit to open the I Am tags on my profile whenever I am writing a new review so that I can use the same ones over and over. Maybe there are some I can merge so it's not all over the place but I'll deal with that later :)

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PattyTherre — Thu, 01 May 2008 17:56:11 GMT

Speaking of I AM tags, every time I edit a review, at least one of the tags is dropped. Then I have to remember what I used and retick it again. Sometimes two are gone and nowhere to be found. It happens every time I edit a review. I did mention this before. It's not a huge deal but it can be time consuming when I just want to edit a review for a typo to go through the I AM tags and find the ones I used before.

Also ... Is there any way we can edit pic subtitles without deleting the pic? Again, a small thing but, if I make a little typo, I have to delete the photo and reupload it then recaption it. It would be great to just be able to edit the caption. And Bob, I agree, people really should take a minute to write a little caption rather than leave the photo name up. It takes a second and make a difference!

Patty - who will never use am I AM tag that doesn't fit the I AM structure of the sentence.

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bkovacs — Thu, 01 May 2008 17:30:39 GMT

I don't really like the "I am" tags but always try to make them grammatical. I used to think a lot about them but now have a handful that are mostly used over and over. In a grammatical way, of course.

--Bob

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RudiXeno — Thu, 01 May 2008 15:29:43 GMT

Jo,

Funny you bring up the issue with the "I am tags", but sometimes I have the same problem. I don't know if anyone cares about it being grammatically correct or not, but I find that I care. For some reason I get nit-picky there. Not with anyone else, just myself.

Rudi

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Jo — Thu, 01 May 2008 14:39:33 GMT

I have a couple of thoughts. Since some of us are doing comparison reviews, there should be a place where we don't have to rate the review. It's weird to review two things - one you love and one you don't - and have to rate it.

I still think the tags could be cleaner. Perhaps we can clean them up on our own i.e. the duplicate or almost duplicate tags without erasing them from our previous reviews (maybe this is impossible to do!)

Also in the name of the English language I am "prefer organic food" doesn't read correctly. Is that ok? Should we strike to make it correct i.e. I am "a lover of organic food" or is this petty? Love the board. Will close the Yahoo one. Jo

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vytas — Thu, 01 May 2008 14:13:10 GMT

Since this site was built by people and not deities, there's always room for improvement. Share your ideas for making Viewpoints better - be it some tweak to what's already here or a completely new feature. We're listening!