Comments time and date stamp

[daraconn3460]

Hi, I notice that the comments on the lessons only have the day and time. For example:
Tuesday at 6:30 pm

Looking at the comments for a lesson from a few weeks ago, it's impossible to know when the most recent comment was posted, and whether the comment thread is still current.

Would it be possible to change it so it says:
Tuesday 5th April 2011 at 6:30 pm?

Also, how long are the comments monitored for a given lesson? If I post a comment with a question on a lesson from last week or last month (or last year!) will one of the website staff still reply?

Thanks,

Dara

[Jessi]

Hello Dara,
Thanks for posting!
We get notifications of comments posted on any lesson, no matter how old, so feel free to leave comments/questions on any lesson!

[dominicashmole1350]

Hi Jessi,

I was about to post the same question, then I found Dara had got there before me. But I notice you only answered the second part of her question.

Why don't you include the full date for comments? It's weird. It's great listening to the podcasts, even though some were recorded years ago - they feel fresh and fun. Then on visiting the comments, one enters a strange world where one feels perhaps nothing's happened since the week the podcast was originally broadcast. That creates an "abandoned" feeling around the lesson that's totally unnecessary given how active JapanesePod101 is in reality.

Then.... on visiting some of your other language sites (e.g. Arabic) which have so few comments on the lessons and such inactive forums, the absence of dates to the comments almost comes across as if you're trying to hide the fact that nothing much is happening. This creates a bit of an air of suspicion which seems totally out of keeping with your company culture, which from the Japanese side has totally impressed me.

Add to that the fact that few of the forum posts on e.g. Arabic get a reply - even from Jpod staff - and it's all a bit sad. I guess what I'm saying in a rambling way is:

1. Absolutely, put the dates on posts! It's basic stuff!
2. Please don't devalue your fantastic brand - and that means learning while having a laugh - fun, chatty, friendly hosts, great voice actors, madcap banter etc. Make sure those other language sites "catch" it rather than being pale shadows of what you have going here.

Ok, probably way off topic, but that's what's been on my mind while trying to take up Arabic also....

[natsukoy9313]

dominicashmole1350-san,
Correct me if I were wrong, but you can see the full information about date and time above the title you post ("Posted: 06 Jul 2012 20:38 GMT Post subject: " on your last post)
Is this what you mean?

Thank you very much for your valuable feedback!! It really helps us. I'll inform my team (in fact, hopefully I'd try to share this with entire pod101 staff) about your post!
Thank you very much!

Natsuko/JapanesePod101.com

[dominicashmole1350]

Hello Natsuko-san,

I really appreciate you replying.

There's a misunderstanding though: Yes, in this forum the full date and time are displayed for posts. But the problem relates to comments made on the Lessons themselves - not in these forums. On the Lesson pages, only the day and time are displayed - not the full date. So there's no way of telling if the lessons are actively in use, or died years ago. This is the point that Dara was concerned about - and also something that bothers me.

Best wishes,

Dominic

[natsukoy9313]

Dominic-san,
Oh! Sorry about my misunderstandings!!
Like Jessi replied, even if the thread is old, as soon as we get a new comment, we get a message alert.
So it's not really dead anyway.
Let me make sure about this issue with my team. Thank you very much for your patience!!

Natsuko/JapanesePod101.com

[dominicashmole1350]

Hi Natsuko-san,

It's good to know that you get alerts about new messages. I guess the other half of this is that users (not Jpod staff) who look at the Lesson comments have no idea when the last user commented. That's not good, because:

1. It looks like maybe nobody's used the lesson for years.
2. It feels like there's no point responding to other users because they may have gone away years ago.

Sorry for being so persistent - I mean well.

Best regards,

Dominic

[team.relationships]

Hello Dominic,

thank you again for your message.
As for your feedback, I also think that we should work on finding a better system for the time stamps of the comments. It would improve things a lot, I will consider your suggestion on this and forward your thoughts to the management team!

JapanesePod101.com is probably the most busy language Pod website we have. Arabic pod is not as busy, so that's why you see less comments there.
However as Jessi mentioned, we do get the notifications everyday and I can say with confidence that the lesson comment areas are not exactly "dead", at least not for years! They are actually pretty busy! Sometimes it might take a couple of days to answer a comment because of weekend for example or because of some periodic delays we noticed on our rss feed delivery system, but we do get back to our listeners. Currently we are trying to improve our quality of the commenting process in all aspects, so we hope we can achieve better results soon!

Thank you again,

Stefania/JapanesePod101.com

[govindagross4542]

Hello everyone,

just wanted to open a new thread with the exact same request.
I have to say that the lack of an unambiguous timestamp in the comments was the main reason why I didn't subscribe already 3 years ago - when I first encountered the site.
Unfortunately it hasn't changed yet, so although I'm a member now, I usually don't look at the comments at all.

It's such a small thing, I'm surprised myself how uncomfortable it is making me feel.

It's not just about getting a fast response from a team-member, but also putting the already existing comments to the right spot in my mental time-frame.

Can't see any disadvantage on your side to show the full date.

BTW: The lessons are great =)

Thank you,
Greetings from Austria

[choneb9359]

Hi everyone,

This was also my thought when I saw the comments. Having the proper time stamp on there will definitely encourage more people to participate in commenting about each lesson.

Personally, after becoming a member, I stopped looking at the comments on each lesson, because I thought they must be old. Hence, I spend more time trolling around here

[jason6843]

I just wanted to follow up on this and say that the lack of a date on the comments bothers me a lot too. It's made me not read the comments because I don't know if the one on the top or the bottom of the page is newer. Which way do I read them?

Even if I want to I can't read them and I don't feel like commenting makes any sense just because I don't know when they were posted. "Monday at 6:30 pm" Does not count as letting us know when the comment is from. I don't care what day of the week it was, but I would like to know the month and the year. Unless the comment is actually from 4 days ago on a podcast that was posted in 2007....

[chris666]

Obviously JapanesePod101 is a closed topic now. For most of us there are no new lessons this year. So to make this site look not completely dead it is essential to revive the comment sections of the old lessons. People have to get the feeling that there is still someone out there who cares about the questions. So it would really be nice to see postings (and answers), which are obviously less than a few years old. Otherwise I can download the remaining lessons and go away.

[community.japanese]

Thank you very much for your feedbacks, everyone!

> govindagross4542-san, choneb9359-san,
We're very sorry for late reply.
You're both right; not knowing when exactly comments are posted, you'll be very reluctant to continue the thread
or post a new comment there... Thank you very much for your opinions; I'll definitely share your opinions with my
team and discuss about it.

> jason6843-san,
Thank you very much for letting us know your thoughts. On the lesson comment pages, the top one is the oldest and
we add the new ones at the bottom.
Even knowing that, I completely understand that you'd wonder if the "newest" is really recently posted or not.
I'll share your thoughts with my team. Thank you very much for taking time for this comment!

> chris666-san,
Thank you very much for your opinion!
We all acknowledge now that proper time stamp is a very important issue. I'll share all your opinions and thoughts with
my team to discuss about this. Thank you for your patience!
By the way, new lessons have been coming up all the time, so it's not a "closed deal" or "dead".
We're working on new lessons, but it just might come more slowly than you actually expected...?
We're very sorry for that. We also try to reply to all the comments as soon as possible.
Because of the system, sometimes we reply a bit late, but definitely we'll try harder and harder.
Hope you can find new lessons and continue enjoying them, as well as communication on comment boards!

Natsuko(奈津子),
Team JapanesePod101.com

[mmmason8967]

... not knowing when exactly comments are posted, you'll be very reluctant to continue the thread
or post a new comment there... Thank you very much for your opinions; I'll definitely share your opinions with my
team and discuss about it.

I see that this has been done and the comments below the lessons now have full timestamps!



ありがとうございました。

マイケル

[dominicashmole1350]