What can be done to clean up Roll Calls

[just_dont]

Is there a proper place to go to get help cleaning up a Roll Call forum?

I have been monitoring Roll Calls for the Viking Jupiter, and lately there have been quite a few people creating new "topics" within the Viking Jupiter Roll Calls that are clearly not an actual roll call for a new cruise.  On some occasions there has been a reply advising the OP that they were posting in the wrong place, but other times it just begins a whole discussion with people either not realizing or not caring that continuing the thread is not appropriate.  I don't know whether people are confused thinking they are creating a new post within some specific Roll Call, or whether they think they're creating the post in the general Viking Ocean forum.  But the result is that this Roll Call forum is getting littered with non Roll Calls.

What can be done to clean this up?  I don't know whether the proper solution would be to merge the thread into an actual Roll Call (in most cases, it's not possible to tell which one would be appropriate), or to just move the thread into Viking Ocean.  And I don't know whether moderators here should perhaps contact these threads' OPs to provide 'guidance.'

I know the mods can't possibly police all the forums, but it would be useful (to me, at least) to know what the right way is for a simple user of the forums to get the moderators' attention for some potential clean-up.

 

Anyway, here are some examples of "misplaced threads" just within the Viking Jupiter Roll Calls forum, all within the last two months:

 

 

 

[CC Help Jenn]

Hi There!  Anytime you see a post in the wrong forum,  you can report the posts if you choose 🙂  A host will see and take care of

 

I will check out the posts you linked above

 

Thank you

[LHT28]

seems people have trouble  finding the roll call  or do not understand that when they click on START  NEW TOPIC   is not the same as REPLY TO THIS TOPIC 

posts do not actually go in their roll call when they START NEW TOPIC

All are a  mess

JMO

 

[Turtles06]

On 2/20/2019 at 6:27 PM, LHT28 said:

seems people have trouble  finding the roll call  or do not understand that when they click on START  NEW TOPIC   is not the same as REPLY TO THIS TOPIC 

posts do not actually go in their roll call when they START NEW TOPIC

All are a  mess

JMO

 

 

I totally agree with you that the existence of the “start new topic” option in a Roll Call thread is confusing people; they are clicking on it and mistakenly thinking that they are posting IN their Roll Call, when in fact their post then appears in the general home page forum for all Roll Calls for that ship.   I think this is one reason why so many Roll Call main forums are cluttered with non Roll Calls.  

 

I don’t even understand the purpose of having “start new topic” as an option in a Roll Call.

 

@CC Help Jenn It’s clear that non-Roll Calls cluttering up the Roll Call forums is a continuing problem, especially with the Finder tool not working.   Is there any purpose for keeping the “start new topic” option in a Roll Call (especially since it’s confusing people)? Also, as you suggested above, I do use the “report post” feature to alert the Hosts to non-Roll Calls in the Roll Call forums, but sometimes many days go by after the reports and those errant posts are still there.  Thanks for any help!

[Essiesmom]

Unfortunately, it's a template.  It would be better if on the roll call boards it said 'Start New Roll Call instead of topic.  I am far from a techie and don't know if you can change that within the program.  EM

[Turtles06]

21 minutes ago, Essiesmom said:

Unfortunately, it's a template.  It would be better if on the roll call boards it said 'Start New Roll Call instead of topic.  I am far from a techie and don't know if you can change that within the program.  EM

 

I agree with you, the word “topic” is imprecise and confusing when what a person wants to do is start a Roll Call.  

 

To be clear, the troublesome “start new topic” button to which LHT and I were referring is the one that appears in actual Roll Calls that have already been started.  There’s no reason for that option there that I can see. All that’s needed there is the Reply button. 

[CC Help Jenn]

1 hour ago, Turtles06 said:

 

I agree with you, the word “topic” is imprecise and confusing when what a person wants to do is start a Roll Call.  

 

To be clear, the troublesome “start new topic” button to which LHT and I were referring is the one that appears in actual Roll Calls that have already been started.  There’s no reason for that option there that I can see. All that’s needed there is the Reply button. 

 

I agree that this is the cause of all of the one-off posts on the roll call forums.  I have brought it up and will continue to do so.  We have been brainstorming options but at the end of the day I believe it is hard coded into the software.  It is likely something the developers will need to look into tackling for us.  I don't think there is anything I can do to remove it.  If I do find out a way to do so I will certainly do it 🙂  

[Turtles06]

3 minutes ago, CC Help Jenn said:

 

I agree that this is the cause of all of the one-off posts on the roll call forums.  I have brought it up and will continue to do so.  We have been brainstorming options but at the end of the day I believe it is hard coded into the software.  It is likely something the developers will need to look into tackling for us.  I don't think there is anything I can do to remove it.  If I do find out a way to do so I will certainly do it 🙂  

 

Thanks Jenn, I appreciate your looking into this. In the meantime, if the  “reported” posts could be removed promptly, that would go a long way to help. Thanks!

[broberts]

Would it be possible to disable the Start New Topic, or whatever it is labelled and use a custom form that would create a new thread in the right place, with a correctly formatted title and date? The form could perhaps be another tab.

[Aulanis]

On 3/16/2019 at 3:36 AM, broberts said:

Would it be possible to disable the Start New Topic, or whatever it is labelled and use a custom form that would create a new thread in the right place, with a correctly formatted title and date? The form could perhaps be another tab.

 

I suggested that around 2 years ago when the roll call finder started to fall apart.  Presumably they are still looking into it LOL!

It shouldnt be too difficult something along the lines of the countdown clock maker  to make the header. But you have to enter it correctly for it to be accepted.

Enter cruise line    Dropdown     Enter Cruise ship    Dropdown   Enter Day   Dropdown  Enter Month Dropdown  Enter Year Dropdown

Dont allow random entries  like "yippee were off cruising again" or "all the way to Amarillo "

 

Edited April 1, 2019 by Aulanis

[Turtles06]

On 3/15/2019 at 1:43 PM, CC Help Jenn said:

 

I agree that this is the cause of all of the one-off posts on the roll call forums.  I have brought it up and will continue to do so.  We have been brainstorming options but at the end of the day I believe it is hard coded into the software.  It is likely something the developers will need to look into tackling for us.  I don't think there is anything I can do to remove it.  If I do find out a way to do so I will certainly do it 🙂  

 

Jenn, this really is an on-going problem in the Roll Call forums.  Every day, the Roll Call forums become cluttered with non-Roll Call posts.  I felt awful over the weekend for the excited poster who announced that she and her husband had booked "this cruise" for her milestone birthday  -- she had posted in the main Roll Call forum for that ship, and not in the Roll Call for her cruise.  The list goes on.   

 

As was asked above, is there any way to disable the Start new Topic button in the Roll Call forums?

 

 

[just_dont]

 
Jenn, this really is an on-going problem in the Roll Call forums.  Every day, the Roll Call forums become cluttered with non-Roll Call posts.  I felt awful over the weekend for the excited poster who announced that she and her husband had booked "this cruise" for her milestone birthday  -- she had posted in the main Roll Call forum for that ship, and not in the Roll Call for her cruise.  The list goes on.   
 
As was asked above, is there any way to disable the Start new Topic button in the Roll Call forums?
 
 

Or at least change the wording in Roll Calls to "Start New Roll Call"?

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

[CC Help Jenn]

I am working right now to have that button removed.  That in addition to the work being done on the roll call tool (I do promise it is being worked on!! just not quickly) should alleviate many of these roll call issues.

[Turtles06]

Thanks Jenn!

[CC Help Jenn]

Just now, Turtles06 said:

Thanks Jenn!

 

No problem, lets hope it is as easy for the developers to remove that button as I hope 🙂 

[Organized Chaos]

I'm coming from the Carnival forums. In my experience, this seems to be much less of a problem in the Carnival Roll Calls. I wonder why that is?  It seems odd that so many people in the Viking Roll Calls would do this, yet hardly any in Carnival's. For example, looking at the Horizon Roll Call page (since that's our next cruise), there's only four non-roll call posts within the first two pages and they don't really get any traction. I did answer the question one OP asked, then directed them to the main Carnival forum and simply told them they would get more people responding there. The four that did post these non-roll calls have been CC members for a while (anywhere from 2-7 years) but going off their post contributions, it's obvious they hardly participate. So I think it's simply a lack of awareness on how to use different sections of the forum.

 

Or it could simply be, as some of you have surmised, that the "Start a new topic" button within the actual Roll Call is the primary culprit. But again, that button also exists within the Carnival Roll Calls and isn't much of an issue. So that brings me back to it being more of an educational issue on proper forum usage. Do you guys notice this problem coming from those who don't participate on CC much? Whether it's someone who recently joined or, like I saw, people who have had accounts for a long time, but barely post.

[Turtles06]

45 minutes ago, Organized Chaos said:

I'm coming from the Carnival forums. In my experience, this seems to be much less of a problem in the Carnival Roll Calls.

 

Interesting.  And in my experience, it's less of a problem in the NCL Roll Calls than in the Celebrity and HAL Roll Calls.  I'm not sure what this tells us!  🤣   

 

But without a doubt, there are many folks who just don't understand how to use the message boards.   And buttons like "Start new Topic" that have no place on a Roll Call unfortunately just confuse them.

[gnome12]

I have one comment that might affect Viking particularly. People may be coming from river cruising and river cruising roll calls which are something of a mishmash due to the size of ships.

[Turtles06]

@CC Help Jenn  Hi Jenn, just reporting that the "Start New Topic" button is still alive and well and contributing to needless clutter on some of the Roll Calls, making it harder for folks to find their actual Roll Call.  Just today, 7 of the 25 threads on the first screen of the Roll Call forum for one of the HAL ships were not Roll Calls, but "new topics" clearly intended for the posters' Roll Calls.

 

So, e.g., some poor person started a thread in the home page of the ship's Roll Call forum and asked, "Anyone here have extra room on any shore excursions for two?"  (I've reported these threads as you requested above, but also have replied to these folks to explain to them how to post in their own Roll Calls, so hopefully they'll get answers to their questions.) 

 

Thanks for all the help on the "Start New Topic" button.

 

 

[Globaliser]

16 hours ago, Turtles06 said:

Hi Jenn, just reporting that the "Start New Topic" button is still alive and well and contributing to needless clutter on some of the Roll Calls ...

 

Why couldn't the software manufacturer have just stuck to the tried and tested terminology of "Start New Thread"? 

[Turtles06]

28 minutes ago, Globaliser said:

 

Why couldn't the software manufacturer have just stuck to the tried and tested terminology of "Start New Thread"? 

That would be a good title in a main forum, but there shouldn’t be any option like that in a Roll Call itself — that’s what’s creating the problem being discussed here. The only thing people should be doing in a Roll Call is posting a Reply. 

[Essiesmom]

45 minutes ago, Turtles06 said:

That would be a good title in a main forum, but there shouldn’t be any option like that in a Roll Call itself — that’s what’s creating the problem being discussed here. The only thing people should be doing in a Roll Call is posting a Reply. 

 

Or starting a (new) roll call.  EM

[gnome12]

11 minutes ago, Essiesmom said:

 

Or starting a (new) roll call.  EM

Yes, but that shouldn't be done from within a roll call, rather from the ship name.

[Essiesmom]

All you CAN DO within a roll call is post a reply.  The problem is within the forum for a particular ship's roll calls.  EM

[Turtles06]

20 minutes ago, Essiesmom said:

All you CAN DO within a roll call is post a reply.  The problem is within the forum for a particular ship's roll calls.  EM

 

That's not correct, and that's exactly the problem.  On every Roll Call for a specific sailing, there are two options at the top right of the screen:  "Start new Topic" and "Reply to this Topic."  (See screen shot below.) This is confusing many people on their Roll Calls.  Say they are on the Roll Call for the Celebrity Silhouette May 7, 2019 sailing, and they want to share a tour, for example; they think that's a "new topic."  So they click "Start new Topic," create a post that says "Looking for four people to share X, Y, Z tour on May 12.." and then they click "submit reply," and that puts their post NOT in the Roll Call where they really want it and it should be, but into the home page forum for ALL Silhouette Roll Calls.  That's the problem. 

 

@CC Help Jenn understands this and is trying to do something to remove or disable the "Start new Topic" button from individual Roll Calls.   

 

Edited April 19, 2019 by Turtles06