Too much personal chatter in forum posts - how about a "happy Hour" forum group?

[Annette33]

Hi all,
I have noticed that more and more lately some participants have taken to expanding posts with a lot of personal chatter, like how someone's dog or spouse is doing, then a lot of bantering back and forth ensues. All that can fill up the pages and makes it hard to follow a thread. I am an advocate of reading all posts in a thread to be well informed and to be able to make a  well thought out contribution, but weeding through all the stuff that isn't related to the subject makes that extra hard.
Please don't get me wrong, I love a relaxed easy going demeanor and a friendly conversation, and some light hearted humor now and then is very refreshing. I would just prefer that a lot of those conversations that have nothing to do with Airbnb stuff would be exchanged via direct messaging, not in the forum. I understand that there are some problems with the direct messaging, hopefully that will get fixed soon to make that feature more reliable to use.
Or perhaps, this is a sign that something like a social chat room here would be most welcome and very popular, so how about having an extra group/choice for posting available here, something like "Happy Hour" ?? I would certainly go there also and enjoy getting to know the other contributors on a more personal level. The popular new Community Spotlight goes a bit in that direction.
would love to get some feedback on this.....

[Rachael26]

@Andrea9

Me also - divided that is.

IF Airbnb could ever provide a real chat room - that was in real time - and with the ability to message others on the side of a thread without it being within the main thread only - then maybe we could be a little more constrained. OR how about making all these rooms more specific - for example really being dedicated to help and advice - instead of a free for all and including views about plants, polls, cleaning tips, wildlife etc....

We can't mix them all up and then ask people to stay on target - the spontaneity of the moment is gone and we don't even know if our colleagues will even pick it up again unless we @ them..... very unsatisfactory.

So how about consolidating all these rooms into - Host Exchange - Host Advice - Dealing with Guests - Admin and Site Usage - How to Manage your Listing - or similar..... and finally a 'private' Host Chat Room for anything BUT advice!

And I do think if the 'thumbs down' is good enough for Facebook - then it should be good enough for Airbnb.

I'm just sayin!

🙂

[Annette33]

point well taken, @Andrea9 , and nobody wants  to become the head police chief here..... but there is just a point when it becomes "too much", and I get it that what might be too much for me is just the starting  point for  someone else to REALLY get going and expand. yeah, and how can one reduce someone else from 5 paragraphs of unrelated stuff to do it in two sentences? I guess we all have different perimeters for when personal stuff starts, and when enough is enough.

The direct messaging being so crappy has understandably lead to this expansion of personal stuff, but when a top contributor like Aussie Robin (sorry can't highlight him)  clearly says that he admires most the people  that go into bantering and off topic, and that it is all about making personal contact, then the whole idea what this forum is all about is getting  turned upside down.

@Rachael26 , haha, I made a typo/omission, never meant my suggestion to read as Happy Chat room, I forgot the happy hour.... btw., i did send you a DM, hope you got it.     but anyhow, your suggestion is so much better anyways, especially your two last paragraphs above. I wish the admins would take that straight to the top and implement. @Lizzie ?

[Andrea9]

@Annette33 @Rachael26

The Happy HOUR forum sounds much better! 

And Annette, I do hope you didn't feel I pointed a finger at you! Not at all! You are one of the hosts on the forum whose views I respect most.

I have to admit I never go to the single discussion rooms to follow what's new and only see things when they appear on the mixed-flavor general feed. Most of the time I don't check which discussion room they were posted in and just jump in the fray...

Real chat room type conversation a la Whatsapp and the like totally freak me out because you can't finish a thought before the next question comes in.  If Airbnb installed one of those, I'd most probably ghost myself out quite fast.

Rachael, you mentioned the thumbs down option on Facebook - I wish they would finally implement that! And it would help on the forum too, esp when wrong advice is given...  ...( and thus opening doors to more strangeness - "Dear X, your last 3 comments were given a thumbs down, on average your fellow hosts achieve a 99% thumbs up ratio.  To improve your performance please read this link about answering: xxxxxxxxx. If there is no betterment on your reply stats we will suspend your account temporarily.")

Apologies if I'm veering off into chatter 😉

[Annette33]

@Andrea9 , nothing to worry about, I'm with you and am always looking forward to your contributions 🙂 and this is chatter about how to chatter, so you're right on!
Ultimately it'll come down to awareness in each of us, what really contributes to a post and what clogs it up. not sure one can reach a consensus on that, one can just gently remind the people who do it to be a bit more mindful. and sure, one doesn't want to sacrifice spontaneity or any kind of humor, that would be counter productive.
Like you, I actually never venture into the different "rooms" , I go straight to the home page and get into "top" and "recent", not even "unanswered". keeps me busy enough. I imagine lots of other peeps do the same, thus it's those highly visible posts that get attention and participation, not the ones that are buried somewhere in a big pile of other stuff.
 So, to make any kind of chat room popular,  the question is how to structure it and how to get people to go there and enjoy participating there. That's up to the programmers at Airbnb to effectively initiate. not sure with all their work that this is anywhere near something they might want to tackle. @ Rachael made some great suggestions above on how that kind of chat room would be most effective and user friendly.
A lot would be trial and error, and observing: I already learned that my new , social, post in "Where in the World" is way to long, people probably just want to banter, not read long stories. no problem, lesson learned. Also, this post here has been seen now by 269 people, the other, though with a link to it above, got only seen by 34 or so. not a good chance to get some lively interaction going on under those circumstances.
o well, I'm not gonna lose sleep over it! It's all fluid, I'm just glad we're raising some awareness here.



[J-Renato0]

@Annette33

Hello Annette

A special social chat room inside this community would be fine !

Alternatively to "Happy hour", I think that "Airbnb Café" would be also an interesting name. But both names would be nice.

Anyway, I think the community sould also tolerate some funny things in the middle of any topic, otherwise the community would be a boring place.

[Annette33]

@J-Renato0 , agree! nobody wants a boring place- it's all in the right mix.

[Lizzie]

Hello @Annette33, @J-Renato0, @Andrea9, @Rachael26, @Cormac0, @Robin4, @Marit-Anne0, @Robin129, 

It is great to see you have started a thread with stories. I hope others will enjoy joining in. 

Just to add my thoughts to your discussion here. 🙂

I agree with many of you that we don't want the threads to be so rigid that we can't for a second move away from the original question posted and if we are thinking about how we would talk face to face, I am sure our conversation would via off track slightly, I do believe in many situations, this can help to add colour into a community conversation.

This being said, too much off-topic can make it hard to follow a thread, especially when the original poster really needs a supportive answer, plus if this happens in every topic it will make it increasingly hard to find anything here in the CC. After all, we would like to make it easier for members to find content and reduce the number of duplicate posts. So it is important that we are mindful of this. 

With this in mind, I do like Annette's suggestion to have a place for off-topic discussion. It doesn't have to have a set format, it could be something like a good morning thread, as we are based all over the world, we could pop into the thread and say hello to each other once we are in the forum or a what are you up today thread? I understand that often whilst in a thread it is at that time that sparks another discussion off, but this could easily be carried on in our off-topic thread and we can carry it on as much as we like there. 

I also think it is nice that the the conversation in a public space as this means that other members can join in as well and it enables us to get to know more people and each other even more and for more private discussions that is what Direct Messaging is for. 

In terms of your points about the board structure and making it easier to know what should go where, I wanted to mention that we are presently looking at the discussion boards with this in mind, so once I have more information on this I will update you all. Do you think this would be helpful? 🙂

Thanks for your time, I look forward to this coming into action and do let me know your thoughts.

Lizzie

[Alice-and-Jeff0]

Okay @Annette33 @Andrea9 @Rachael26 - 

So here's an ENTIRELY DIFFERENT perspective..... Maybe it's because I come from the online world, specifically working in web development or maybe it's because I'm a PITA and just need to provide my 2 cents about this.... you decide.... 

What needs to be implemented is the "FEATURED ANSWER" on every forum, not just the Community Help forum.  This will stop the slog, and, if conversations organically happen, no one seeking answers will need to read them.  Disrupting natural speaking, given that we only have a posting technique here, will likely never happen.  People will stop talking and stop sharing in case they are deamed, by the others in the post during the posting to be "off topic".  Does that make sense?  Right now the exchange happens because we have an active community for a few hours a day together.   Look at me, I wasn't involved in this discussion at the beginning and now I want in, it's like sending emails - not chatting.  If once an answer has been identified, marked as such, then who cares about the rest? Besides, it took me almost a year and half to realize this feature existed because I never post in Help only in Host or Host Circle, never general help.  And now that the new landing page co-mingles the topics, these major forums hardly make sense anymore - just look at the topics that get posted and where.... it's unclear where to go or who to ask.  So I think the problem isn't being off-topic and that we need a place to have people chat - because threads can be started every single day with the topic "Happy Hour:  How's your Thursday?"  and people can post in it - but that we need to have a better culled answering system to support answers.  

And to be a BIG Debbie Downer, getting a chat system for a community this large is never going to happen on Airbnb. They MIGHT be able to integrate or suggest a "chat service" but they're unlikely to ever support it, at least not any time in the near future.  I would suggest, if you really want to chat with one another, that you share Messenger, WhatsApp, or Google Hangouts details to chat 1:1 or in groups outside of the Airbnb system.  All of these are excellent chat systems.  Maybe we could even suggest this as a possible alternative.  But heck, we can't get people to use the Help Center, I'm not sure how we'll get them to use a third-party chat system.  @Lizzie - this information could be easy to enter and get to in the profile sections here in the forums if this ever becomes a "thing".  

That being said, I do believe that more of the Forums should be locked from being run by bots.  I see an awful lot of my posts on the internet these days and not all  of them are flattering toward my guests.  I think this could be a problem since the bots are able to read the forum contents.  @Lizzie - this could be a problem for some of the topics where the conversations have been somewhat political, heated or could be perceived as racist.  Again, JM2C.  

Thank  you for letting me have my say.  You all know I love the forums, spend way too much of my day on them.  

Alice 

[Annette33]

@Alice-and-Jeff0, food for thought - I think it's great you're chiming in, and  I can see how my initial post/complaint can be put in perspective by looking at the larger picture you just outlined for us,  how to effectively streamline the various forum groups here. Did you read @Lizzie's comment that the Airbnb peeps are actively looking at that?   Perhaps our brainstorming here can have some impact 🙂

Your idea about utilizing the "featured answer" option more effectively in order to cut down on repetition, off topic side stepping, etc, is interesting, I'd be all for it! But we get to the same crossroads, that to be effective it requires discipline and a bit of a more nuanced understanding by all participants how the whole process works. As long as the initial poster is the one to mark something as featured answer, I see new problems on the horizon: it happens at times that well meaning contributors simply give the wrong answer, and if that gets highlighted as a featured answer, how many others will just believe it ??  Not so good.... Also, it will not inhibit new contributions, even a year later, and suddenly an old post gets resurrected - funny thing is that the initial poster often enough never comes back to check on the answers. All pretty ineffective....

As to the chat room idea: yes, it doesn't seem realistic to ever get something like that off the ground here in the forum. Your solution to utilize other forms of messenging and chat rooms available is a nice idea, I just wish it were doable: Correct me if I'm wrong, but as the Airbnb system is set up right now, it seems impossible to exchange phone numbers, email addresses, etc, anything to go outside the platform to connect with another host is made impossible, unless I exchange a fake reservation request with someone.  Maybe eventually Airbnb would see fit to lessen those tight reigns a bit. Not sure what their angle is to control that so tightly. 

Anyhow, loved your contribution 🙂

[Rachael26]

@Annette33

Again, thanks for starting a great thread - and it may even lead to some meaningful changes so well done.

Quick point from your last reply to Alice & Jeff - it is possible to exchange addresses, email and even web links.... through the DM or personal message system (yes I was surprised also!). Try it to make sure it hasn't disappeared - but it was good last week.

Best Wishes.

[Boo1]

How can I start up a post? 

[Lizzie]

Hello @Annette33, @Alice-and-Jeff0, @J-Renato0, @Andrea9, @Rachael26, @Robin4, @Cormac0, @Marit-Anne0, @Robin129 and @Boo1, 

I wanted to let you know, I have just started a new thread called 'Good Morning, Good Afternoon, Good Evening!' in the 'Where in the world' discussion board here in the CC. Please do take a look and it would be great to get some discussion started there. I also think we can treat it as a work in process, so we can see how it works for us and go from there. 🙂

In addition to this, I really like hearing your thoughts on how you would like the Community Center to work, after all it is for you to spend time in so you can always share things with me and the team whenever you want, as it really does help us to move forward with the CC. 

Thanks so much,

Lizzie

[Andrea9]

Thanks @Lizzie

... and good night!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4JrizqYAdg

[Lizzie]

Aw @Andrea9 that's what it is off, I thought it sounded familiar when I typed it! 🙂 Haven't seen that film in years! 

We can perhaps rename the post title! hehe

[J-Renato0]

Hi @Lizzie

You said you would like to hear mine´s and other´s member thoughts. Here goes:

First of all, I do not feel completely comfortable in giving my opinion on how I would like the Community Center to work because I am a new member. I think I would be somewhat nosy if I say what is better of not for this community where other regarded members has already put lots of effort to make it vibrant as it is now.

So I am going to give my opinion considering what I think it is good for any community in the internet. I have already been member of other discussion forum and communities, and what I have noticed and experienced is that, if some community becomes very strict regarding regulations and guidelines, it tends to became very boring. People that answer questions do it for fun or as a kind of hobby. If posters feel that, they are entering in a very bureaucratic place, with lots of strict guidelines that remember a work place, it will discourage people to post. So, from my point of view, you had better have a vibrant and cheefull community with some "noise" to manage instead having a boring and stagnated community.

Thanks for asking my opinion !