Way to propose improvments not directly tied to the builder but to the product's "surroundings" (academy, forums, website, mailing etc.)

1

Lately I was stumbling on some ‘errors’ (not the software/coding definition) and ideas of improvements (not for the builder itself) that I list later in this post. I wanted to share info about them somewhere, but couldn’t figure out, where to do it. The whole forum is intended for builder-related stuff like bugs, UI improvements, even showcases of the pages built with it.

But there is so much more to the product than the product itself. The easiest example is the Academy and articles it holds. Another is bricksbuilder.io website. Their well-being, fixing and development are also important for the future of the builder.

So I would love to know @thomas , if you ever even thought about a ‘place’ for those things to be mentioned or maybe it was supposed to be this ‘Miscellaneous’ category that I’m using right now. Still I think I would be great to add another category or maybe more categories that would fit that purpose.

Examples of ‘errors’ and ‘ideas’ that I found/had lately and that, in my opinion, would fit this category:

  1. Improvements for the Academy, these can be:
    • Ideas for new articles in the Academy
    • Ideas for improving/extending the existing articles (there is no way to comment them)
    • Pointing out the typos, cut-off sentences, illogical information, outdated information etc. in the articles
  2. Typos, cut-off sentences, buttons/links not working etc. on the bricksbuilder.io website. This is something I found while looking at HappyFiles page, but I know this is/was your project, so I hope you don’t mind it being an example even though I’m talking about Bricks here. Example is a phrase broken into two parts with an info about ‘The selected folder has no items.’ on the HF main page, section ‘Create Galleries From Folders’.
  3. Ideas for the forum itself, like the post I’m writing right now.
  4. Ideas for the mailing/newsletter or other promotional stuff that is done around Bricks.

And more that I couldn’t think of, but as always others in this great community will.

Once again, I know this could be done with this category or simply by sending them to you via e-email, but:

  • this category is quite broad as ‘Topics that don’t need a category, or don’t fit into any other existing category.’ can mean anything really.
  • sending it via e-mail creates two problems for you and your team: 1) You get more ‘SPAM’ that could intertwine with other, more important stuff like builder bugs; 2) You are the only one knowing, what’s being sent/mentioned

That’s why I think a separate forum space, that can be accessed by the whole community is a better solution as we can discuss it together and even give you ready solutions that, if you agree with them, would only need to be implemented saving a lot of time. This would also strengthen the community bonds and spark some great discussions that would help Bricks grow even more.

I know you guys have a lot of things going on right now with 1.5 beta, but I hope you will find my post at least worth the time it took you to read it.

Best regards
Matthew

2

Bro, please note that there are only 2 people on their team!

3

I know that quite well, what is your point precisely?

4

I think that is a very good idea. It would serve as a location for environment findings which Thomas can refer to when his team takes on a task to revise the website or academy, etc. When a community member stumbles on an error or has an idea, it is best to capture it somewhere and evaluate when the time is appropriate.

5

Great question. Everything that’s not directly related to the builder itself (e.g. Academy, website typos, etc.) is best reported via email. No problem. We then categorise those non-software tasks that needs fixing internally anyway. No worries.

6

Sure, I just thought it would clutter your inbox.

Would you at least consider creating Academy category so that both your team and the community can see what is being discussed and which possible new topics get the most attention? My point is that I sometimes I wouldn’t know that I need some kind of feature until I stumble upon it on idea board. So in case of Academy articles people can’t voice their need for something that they don’t know could possible exist (because it is ‘hidden’ in your internal files) :slight_smile: