Participate Live Feedback - Improve References Functionality
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This is a draft currently being worked on by Sirius and Geva
Contents |
Summary
Streamline and clarify the use of the intersecting areas:
- Friend links
- References
- Connections
- Contacts
Bugs 2b Fixed
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Improving existing Features
Adding new Features
References
Group Posts
Bug Reports in Mantis
Bug 0 Status: Feature request, accepted, open Info: Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua.
Interested/assigned developers
Draft:
Pending Friends
Pending Friends, under My Personal Connections, shows friend requests (from them) that are awaiting an answer. Friend requests awaiting an answer from you to them show up in My Friends with status of Pending. Why not put all the unconfirmed friend requests in the Pending Requests section? Would make more sense, as well as allow you to easily track outstanding sent/received requests.
Pending Friends page should show all the information about the friend link that the user who initiated it has entered. For example.. days travelled/hosted/surfed, reference they left you, etc. Currently you need to go look at your references, or profile to find out all of this information, and this is time consuming for what could be a quick glance over, and then clicking accept. Just show the picture and connection info as it would be shown on your profile! It's clean, informative, and already has code to it!
What does "My Other Connections" show? BSIRIUS has a user in there whom has left him a reference, but is not a friend. I have two users that I sent e-mail invitations to, and who signed up. Although they show up in my friends list, they do not show up in "My Friends", but instead in "My Other Connections". Not sure if this is a bug, as the purpose of this section is unclear. Has been reported as: http://bugs.couchsurfing.com/view.php?id=368
Friend Links
There should be a method to create a friend link summary. When a friend link is initiated, there is no quick and easy way to see what the other person has chosen and written. Why not have a short textual summary of a friend link stating: friend type, have met?, where'd meet, date met, number of days travelled/hosted/surfed, reference, etc. Include this summary in the e-mail of the new friend request.
Notify by e-mail of changes to a friend link. For example, if someone changes a reference, you should be notified. The notification e-mail should show what was updated. Due to deletion possiblities, most likely the best way to do this would be to use the friend link summary as mentioned above, and put a BEFORE and AFTER in a two column table side by each in the "friend link updated" e-mail. Then, bold, or colour the specific information in the before and after columns which has been changed.
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The page/form to update a friend link is accessed from many entry points, however always exits to the same page: the My Friends page. As the engine to update the connection is the same, the results are very counter-intuitive. You go to references, click on Edit, change someones reference, submit, and then you're back at the "My Friends" page.. not the "My References" page. This is the same for any change to the friend link.
Why not have an URL in the "Friend link awaiting approval" that will approve a friend without needing to go to connections, select that user, and say approve?
A one page "friend overview" would be VERY nice. If you want to see who your connections are, and what they have said about you, you need to look at a number of pages. Eg: "how you know this person" shows up on their profile, as well as the other friend link details like travelled together, hosted, friend type, etc. The references page is good as it shows references received as well as sent. Can there not be a page that incorporates all of this (even if it isn't for modification purposes)? An opportunity to easily see what they have written about you, and also what you have written about them (perhaps another page). Here is an idea of layout:
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Friend Link Creation Process
The form used to create a friend link also contains the reference area. Although it states that it is optional, leaving a reference comes across as being the norm, perhaps not required, but expected. Why not have a button before the reference section allowing the user to submit the form and create the friend link without having to go futher on the page. You could then have a couple buttons on the page: "Create Fiend Link", "Create Friend Link & Save Reference", "Save Reference Only".
Selecting "No" to not add to list of friends should disable the friend info boxes, like days travelled/hosted/surfed.
In noticable font, above the section where a reference is left, describe what a reference is for, and a guideline of what they should write. This way, people know what they are filling in, where it will show up, and "ettiquette" for leaving references for people.
Remove the reference that you left for someone in "My Friends". You're most likely not looking here to see what you said about someone, and this reference is already covered in the "My References" section. Seems redundant, and takes up much space if the references are lengthy.
Some Other Ideas...
All friend link changes need to be authorized. All information about the friend link must match, and should be tied together, so if you say you travelled with them for 4 days, this will be linked to the number of days they say they travelled with you. Same for date met, have met in person, etc. Change "Personal Connections" to "Friends & Contacts", and do-away with "Other Connections". Have negative references show first.
