Feedback needed: Community Center Board Structure

[Lizzie]

Hello hello,

Over the past three years, we have had an incredible array of conversations created and shared by you all. We’ve realised that although we have eight different discussion boards, the majority of discussions take place in just two of them (Hosting and Help).

With all the discussions in two areas, this can make the CC harder to navigate and essentially find what you are looking for.

With this in mind, we are thinking about refreshing the CC board layout and we want to get you involved to hear your thoughts and help shape this together.

To get you thinking, here are a few questions (feel free to expand outside of these):

• What do you currently like about the current board layout?
• Do you use all of the boards? How do you currently find your way there?
• Do you have any ideas on how we should split the current boards (Hosting and Help) and potential names?
• Are there any additional boards that you would like introducing? Why?

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts and ideas.

Lizzie

[Sehyun0]

Hi! My poor idea is as follow.

How about making a question saying that what is your strong point in running an accommodation?

As you know, there are lots of accommodation like hotel, motel, lodge and so on.

This means that we(hosts) have a sharp competition.

To overcome these difficulties, we should have strong points(merits) to enjoy good business results.

So you (Community Centre ) had better ask every host to reply this question.

For example,

My house merit is

1. Wide parking lot.

2. Free light meal.

3. Free pick up.

4. Speaking foreign languages.

5. Help when shopping.

Many other merits are available.

My strong points are speaking foreign language and giving help when guests go shopping if guests want to.

Thanks!

[Ann72]

@Lizzie I had noticed that, too, so I'm glad you guys are looking at this!

I think it would help us to know how people find the forum.  When a guest has a question or wants to talk about a problem, what do they click and where does it bring them?  I notice that many people end up posting questions that should be directed to Customer Service, not to the forum, so I wonder how they end up here.  (And then, once here, how they miss the first three posts under "Help" that give so much useful information. 🙂 )

Also, tagging seems to be too broad.  (Some tags are entire sentences!)  Perhaps posters could be given 15 or 20 specific tags from which to choose.  And then be required to choose one before posting?  That might make searching easier.  (Perhaps one tag could be "host-to-host" for those of us who want to chat with or vent to or get advice from our host friends on the forum.)

Also, replying to people is frustrating when their names don't appear in the drop-downs.  I had hoped that by adding many of the regulars as friends I'd be able to tag them when their names don't appear, but that's not the case.  

As to boards...

"Community Center Updates," "Host Newsletter," and "Airbnb Open" could all be combined.  "News and Notes From Airbnb" or some such.

"Interests" and "Tips & Tutorials" might be combined?  They're both kind of lonely.

"Help" does indeed seem unwieldy and large.  I think two categories - "Help for Hosts" and "Help for Guests" - would be very useful.

Which brings us back to "Hosting" and "Host Circle."  Should they be combined?  Or is Hosting so large it needs to be split up into a few categories?  I very much like the idea of a board that's exclusive to hosts, but "Host Circle" posts don't seem to get much traction, and many of us simply post in "Hosting."  

Just brainstorming here!

[Lizzie]

Hello @Ann72,

Thanks so much for your ideas and feedback here, it's great to read. 

Since posting, some of the first part of your message has been updated with the introduction of unique usersnames (although I do just want to say that the product team are still working on a few areas with this, to make sure it's working as well as possible). 

It is Interesting to hear your thoughts on the boards, I'm always a fan of a good brainstorm! 🙂 

There are certainly a couple that don't get used as much. The Tips & Tricks board, was first created to showcase great guides by community members and at the same time make it easier for other hosts to find all this useful information. We haven't had many guides created recently, so this isn't as active, but I would love to hear your thoughts on how we can highlight great guide content / and other content created by CC members, if you have any on this.

Hosting is our largest board, if you were to split it, how would you like to see this work?

[Ann72]

@Lizzie I had no idea the Tips & Tricks board was created by the community!  I think it would get more attention if that was clear.  Not to diss anyone (or any company), but I bet most users think they've seen all of Airbnb's tips and simply don't search around in there.

After making that more evident, perhaps there could be a way to elect certain posts or answers to that board.  You know, the way users or you three can choose something as the featured answer.  The post or answer could then be moved over and given a kind of "how-to" title.

How to split up hosting - gah!  First, I do think it could be reduced if you created two Help boards - one for hosts and one for guests.  Then Hosting would be less of a catch-all.  But I have to say I like the random nature of the Hosting board!  🙂

Some very random ideas:

Hosting for Beginners

Hosting Vents & Rants (lol - but call a spade a spade!)

Hosting Remotely

Hosting At Home

Host Pricing Strategies

Hosting Costs

Hosts & Guests

Guests & Hosts

Hosting & Bears (JK - but I spent the morning dealing with this, so there you go)

This is hard!

[Sandra126]

I must say I don't ever get in that way, as it is too confusing. Hosting? Host Circle? I do the same thing every time, and that is to look at everything (I think that's whay I am doing). Then I do the ''recent posts'' and see what's happening. That way, if it's a newsletter, a changed rule, a discussion about colour or a guest gripe it is all there.

If you are looking at wanting to find something specific (newsletters, tips, updates or whatever) I guess it could be useful like that. But I like my tips thrown in with the problems, all higgledy-piggledy. Maybe I am a chaos kind of girl?

[Ann72]

@Sandra126 I've only recently started entering through the Community in general the way you do so I can see Recent, Top, Unanswered, and everything.  That's probably how I found @Lizzie's post!

[J-Renato0]

Hello @Lizzie 

I like the saying "less is more"

In the internet of nowadays when one wants to find something, one uses the "search bar".

My idea is - Airbnb should invest time and efforts to make the search engine (of the community) more powerful, efficient and precise.

Maybe Airbnb does not need to develop a search engine. They can buy or hire some outsourced search engine, such us from the G_oogle or from B_ing.  

When someone want to know about something, all they have to do is to type the "key words combinations"  and the search engine will return a list with the topics that has to do with the user´s  search.

The amount of information in the internet of nowadays, in any community (forum) is huge. So it is important that the search engine can deal successfuly with "long tail key words" to find what the user is looking for. Meaning, to return more precise search results.

The search engine can be sensitive to what the user is typing and present in real time part of the search result information the user is searching. Then the user can can change the words combination and see if he is on the right way to get what he/she wants.

From my point of view, the old days where communities and forum were organized based on directories and menus are gone.

However, the main topics and highlights can be displayed on the top of the pages.

e.g - Updates, most visited topics, spotlights, etc

[Beth80]

@Lizzie  I don't use any of the sections. Like @Sandra126  I just look at the top stories then the recent and if I have time I read through the unanswered. When I first started visiting the CC I looked through the tips board and it was helpful. I agree with @Ann72  that separating help host and help guest would be helpful. Being able to actually find a discussion based on the subject would be handy also. 

[Helen427]

Lizzie

@

I tend to think that Hosting & Help belong in the same topic board as they do tend to cross over & belong together.

Maybe have a separate topic board for Hotels, Motels, Hostels & businesses where they tend to be "commercial" as opposed to "residential".

[Helen427]

Whilst Top, recent and Unanswered come up easily on Mobile ph version of the CC, they are not easy to find when on a computer.

Unfortunately it appears that many Unanswered questions remain just that and those people must at times feel frustrated or perhaps not as welcome as they should be in our Community.

Would it be possible to have translate option on posts like I notice it does now for some Profile Reviews?

Would it be possible please to also have a board tile with "International languages" & which ones they are, so those who want to read and participate with those who have English as a second Language?

Thanks in advance

Central to All Home & Location

[Beth80]

Excellent ideas @Helen427 .  Finding the correct language for your questions isn't easy. Making the options bigger and closer to  the top would help.

A translation option would allow those with the most experience, who often speak English, to answer other languages. 

[Gordon0]

Like many, I only look at the 'Top', 'Recent' and, if I'm feeling particularily charitable, the 'Unanswered' tabs. The others are a bit of a jungle imo and hard to wade through. 

[Ian-And-Anne-Marie0]

@Lizzie 

The categories are fine. The less used ones are specific for other purposes and useful if needed.

What needs fixing is the fact that when you hit the reply button your message doesn't attach to the post you're replying to. You will find a random post attached to an end post stating "Great Point" replying to a post 15 posts previous - Or guessing "Where does that relate?" When you get 5 like that, even worse.

What needs fixing is that you can't navigate to conversations you're involved with easily, or find ones where you have commented and the same information would be beneficial to another post.

What needs fixing is the search facility. It is sophisticated but next to useless.

What needs fixing is the fact that that you cannot tag all people participating in a conversation because their avatar isn't available. Compounded by the lack of ability to reply directly to their post.

What needs fixing is the tendancy for your CC programme to delete reply's ready to post when attempting to tag another person who has already commented. Trying to copy the reply before the reply gets posted and accidently including part of a tagged persons ID - the @Lizzie bit deletes the entire reply.

More important... your main website and App coding needs to work 100%. They don't. Yesterday, after notifying a guest to 'add guests to a booking' as advised by Airbnb so that I could see guest names and them registered on their arrival - could I see who was supposed to be arriving - NOT A CHANCE ! The information was not being provided. Today, it works! Theres something amiss with your server hosting and it's not helpful at all.

[Ian-And-Anne-Marie0]

@Lizzie 

Further to this:

What needs fixing is the fact that when you hit the reply button your message doesn't attach to the post you're replying to. You will find a random post attached to an end post stating "Great Point" replying to a post 15 posts previous - Or guessing "Where does that relate?" When you get 5 like that, even worse.

A working Reply button would inform the post author being replied to that their post has had a reply either by email or in the Notification (Bell) tab.