Status of Community platform issues

[sheila@ebay]

Hi everyone,

First of all, I wanted to say thank you for your patience while we work on resolving platform issues. We’re currently collaborating with many internal folks as well as partnering with our Community provider to resolve these difficult issues.

Here are the list of issues on my radar:

1. Post flooding error. I did change some settings and the post flooding should be better, but I know that this isn’t complete resolved ,and it still happens when text is copied and pasted in a post.   
2. Attaching images in private messaging needs improvement. Right now you can attach an image but it shows a broken image icon. Clicking that icon does nothing.
3. The notification bell isn’t working as intended
4. Reply count delay on member to member board. The number of replies displayed on the member to member support board isn’t displaying the correct number of replies. It appears there’s a noticeable delay for this number to update and accurately reflect the number of replies.
5. Missing email notifications: Some members have reported not receiving email notifications that are in line with their profile preferences.
6. Preview feature in private messaging is returning the error message, “This widget could not be displayed”
7. Loading pages on community can take from 7 to 20 seconds to load
8. The drag and drop feature at the bottom of a reply box will display the link to the file instead of showing the image. Brian just brought this to my attention and we’re going to turn this feature off for now, but we do have it in the queue to fix it.

I would love to have a perfectly working platform where community users never run into issues and have to come up with workarounds or try over and over to sign in. This isn’t an acceptable experience. These issues aren’t easy to resolve and are taking time to resolve, I promise I’m keeping an eye on all these issues and have been and will continue to push our partner to resolve these issues.

Going forward, I’ll start posting a status on these issues on a weekly basis. Even if I have nothing to report, I’ll let you know. If there are more issues that the Community members uncover, I’ll add them to my list.

Thank you for your patience.

[sheila@ebay]

Update as of 11-25

1. Post flooding error: Our partner is having a hard time replicating the post flooding error. They've tried copying and pasting text, but could not replicate the error. If you run across this error, please create a post and share as many details as possible, including steps taken beforehand and what kind of browser you're using.

2. Attaching images in private messaging needs improvement: Our partner is releasing an update next month that should resolve this issue. 

3. The notification bell isn’t working as intended. Previously the 101 error for notifications was showing and now that's disappeared though I did see it out of the corner of my eye when I was switching user profiles. I'm going to try to replicate that and pass on the details to our partner. I've requested documentation on how to properly set up notifications and I'm going to test this out with Brittanie, Tyler and Brian. I'm also wondering if it's a matter of letting everyone know how to set up notifications. Though I'm theorizing here. Lastly, perhaps we need to go into the backend and set up auto notifications for specific boards.

4. Reply count delay on member to member board. Nothing new to report this week

5. Missing email notifications: Nothing new to report this week

6. Preview feature in private messaging is returning the error message, “This widget could not be displayed”: Nothing new to report this week

7.  Loading pages on community can take from 7 to 20 seconds to load: Yesterday we kicked off an audit of the community to get to the root cause of why this is happening. It'll take 4-6 weeks to uncover the findings.

8. The drag and drop feature at the bottom of a reply box will display the link to the file instead of showing the image. I believe an update will be released sometime next month. I'll need to check on this and will provide an update next week.

9. UK members who access the community through the app are sent over to the US Community.  If a user from the UK uses their app to log into eBay and they go to the help center to access the Community through the help pages. Once they fill out the form to submit their question, they are redirected to the US Community. I'm currently asking around to find out the correct point of contact to help us resolve this.

Thank you for your patience while I'm working on fixing these issues. I'll provide another update next week. 

Happy Thanksgiving! 

[sheila@ebay]

Update as of 12-02

I hope everyone had a nice holiday weekend! Here are my updates for this week.

1. Post flooding error: We identified certain HTML tags will show the post flooding error. So we’re looking into whitelisting those tags, but our partner first needs to make sure that this doesn’t break certain security protocols.
2. Attaching images in private messaging needs improvement: Our partner is releasing an update around December 8th that should resolve this issue. 
3. The notification bell isn’t working as intended. I’m going to create a post this week on how to receive notifications. For example, on the M2M board, you need subscribe to the entire board in order to get an update. Say you’re not subscribed to the board, then you have to subscribe to the post. Additionally, you have to make sure your notifications are set up properly in your profile. This isn’t very intuitive and it would be helpful to let new users know. Additionally, there might not be some mentors that aren’t aware. This knowledge might resolve some of the notification issues, but this isn’t end of this case for me. Stay tuned for an update next week!
4. Reply count delay on member to member board: No new movement on this issue
5. Missing email notifications: Still on our radar.
6. Preview feature in private messaging is returning the error message, “This widget could not be displayed”: Nothing new to report this week
7. Loading pages on community can take from 7 to 20 seconds to load: We’re at the start of our audit of the community to get to the root cause of why this is happening. It'll take 3-5 more weeks to uncover the findings.
8. The drag and drop feature at the bottom of a reply box will display the link to the file instead of showing the image. I believe the fix for this will be included with the update that’s coming up around the 8^th. I missed asking about this one when I talked to our vendor yesterday.
9. Page refresh redirects to the home page: I believe this is a non-issue now since we resolved the sign in issue not too long ago. I’ve put this on my radar and if I can build a solid case for this, I’ll bring this up formally to the vendor. When I meet with them next week, I’ll be sure to mention this in our meeting.

Please do tag me if you come across platform issues so I can make sure I keep it on my radar.

[sheila@ebay]

Update as of 12-09

I hope you’re having a nice week so far! Here are my updates for this week.

1. Post flooding error: Last week I mentioned that we identified certain HTML tags will trigger the post flooding error. Our partner whitelisted some of those tags , but as of 12/07, several members have told Tyler that they’re still running into the same issue. From what we can tell, it looks like the ‘bad HTML’ isn’t automatically removed, which is triggering the post flooding error. We were provided some helpful screenshots that were listed here. The ball is now back in our partner’s court again.
2. Attaching images in private messaging needs improvement: Our partner released an update yesterday that should resolve this issue. I was able to drag and drop images into a private message and attach an image as well. Tag me if you’re having issues with this.
3. The notification bell isn’t working as intended: I created a post last week on how to receive notifications. For example, on the M2M board, you need subscribe to the entire board in order to get an update. Say you’re not subscribed to the board, then you have to subscribe to the post. Additionally, you have to make sure your notifications are set up properly in your profile. This isn’t very intuitive and it would be helpful to let new users know. Additionally, some mentors might not be aware. I was hoping that this knowledge might resolve some of the missing and inaccurate notifications. I know that this happens intermittently so we haven’t had much data/use cases to give Khoros so they can reproduce it. Khoros mentioned that they are improving the notification feature, and that might resolve missing notifications, but the release is a few months away. I know, not ideal, but I’ll continue to let Khoros know how important it is to resolve this. Additionally, the Community team will take a closer look at the posts that mention this problem and see if we can find any patterns so we can pass on this information to Khoros.
4. 101 error showing on the notification bell: I just readded this to my list. I previously thought this one was resolved but I noticed that other Community members have mentioned seeing this still.
5. “An unexpected Error has occurred”. This happens intermittently when accessing notifications using the bell: This one is officially on my radar now.
6. Reply count delay on member to member board: No new news on this issue.
7. Missing email notifications: The ball is in our court to resolve an action item. I need to send a friendly reminder to one of our eBay staff members.
8. Preview feature in private messaging is returning the error message, “This widget could not be displayed”: Nothing new to report this week.
9. Loading pages on community can take from 7 to 20 seconds to load: Our community audit is underway. It'll take 2-4 more weeks to uncover findings.
10. The drag and drop feature at the bottom of a reply box will display the link to the file instead of showing the image. Khoros released an update that resolved this issue. I tested it and it was successful for me, but do let me know otherwise.
11. Page refresh redirects to the home page: Khoros just started looking into this issue.
12.  Add the title of the thread to back on each post: I haven’t had an opportunity to start work on this one yet.
13.  Duplicate comments on the M2M board: No new updates this week.
14. UK members who access the community through the app are sent over to the US Community.  If a user from the UK uses their app to log into eBay and they go to the help center to access the Community through the help pages. Once they fill out the form to submit their question, they are redirected to the US Community: I found the correct team that'll able to resolve this. No ETA on the resolution though.

Please do tag me if you come across other platform issues so I can add them to the list. Enjoy the rest of your week!

[sheila@ebay]

Update as of 12-16

Happy hump day! Here are my updates for this week.

Khroros has a code freeze in place until January 5^th, so I won’t have too many updates to provide from now until January 5^th.

1. Post flooding error: A couple of weeks ago, Khoros whitelisted some HTML tags that they believed was causing the post flooding error, but some members reported that they’re still seeing the post flooding error. Khoros is currently investigating this.

2. The notification bell isn’t working as intended and sometimes this error appears: “An unexpected Error has occurred”. This happens intermittently when accessing notifications using the bell: Next update will be in January

3. 101 error showing on the notification bell:  Next update will be in January

4. Reply count delay on member to member board: No news on this issue.

5. Missing email notifications: We were able to provide the information that Khoros was looking for, and will be meeting with them soon to further discuss.

6. Preview feature in private messaging is returning the error message: “This widget could not be displayed”: Khoros is researching this issue

7. Loading pages on community can take from 7 to 20 seconds to load: Our community audit is underway. It'll take 1-3 more weeks to uncover findings.

8. Page refresh redirects to the home page: Khoros is researching this issue

9. Add the title of the thread to back on each post: I haven’t started investigating this yet

10. Duplicate comments are appearing on the M2M board: Khoros is researching this issue

11. Random redirects to the homepage: Khoros is researching this issue

12. Disappearing answers/comments when selecting a post from the notification page or the post will fail to show: I’m researching this and will create a ticket with Khoros soon.

13. Mismatch for an accepted solution: I’m researching this and then will create a ticket with Khoros

Recently resolved issues:
1. We fixed the ability to drag and drop images into a private message.
2. UK members who access the community through the app are now sent over to the UK Community instead of the US Community.  

3. Spam filter isn’t catching all of the spam: Whenever a post is marked as spam, the spam filter learns what’s spam and what’s not. Sometimes, some spam is going to sneak past the filter so we'll have to continue marking spam as spam so the spam filter will get smarter. Additionally, I did ask the moderation team to be sure to keep an eye on the Community platform board as well.

As always, please do tag me if you come across other platform issues so I can add them to the list. Have a great rest of the week!

[sheila@ebay]

Update as of 12-23

Happy day before the start of the holidays! Here are my updates for this week.

I mentioned last week that Khoros has a code freeze in place until January 5^th, so I won’t have too many updates to provide until January 5^th. 

1.  Post flooding error: We’re looking at whitelisting some more HTML tags, but allowing these tags could open up the Community to malicious posts. We need to test this out and we’re looking at options on the best way to test it out. I may ask for some volunteers who would be willing to do a Zoom call with us.

2.  The notification bell isn’t working as intended and sometimes this error appears: “An unexpected Error has occurred”. This happens intermittently when accessing notifications using the bell: Next update will be in January

3.  101 error showing on the notification bell:  Next update will be in January

4.  Reply count delay on member to member board: Khoros has identified a bug that’s causing this issue, but they’ve labeled this issue as a P3. Once I get some of the higher priority issues cleared, I’ll start pushing for this issue to move up the list.

5.  Missing email notifications: No new news this week.

6.  Preview feature in private messaging is returning the error message: “This widget could not be displayed”: Khoros is researching this issue

7.  Loading pages on community can take from 7 to 20 seconds to load: We’re about 2 weeks away from receiving the full findings of the Community audit which is being done by Khoros. The initial findings have found that we have a lot of old code, that’s no longer being used that needs to be removed from the platform. I’ll share more once I know more.

8.  Page refresh redirects to the home page and random redirects to the homepage: No new news this week, Khoros is researching this issue

9.  Add the title of the thread to back on each post: I’ll need to touch base with Tyler and Brittanie to help me understand how we can make this happen and why it was removed in the first place.

10.  Duplicate comments are appearing on the M2M board: Khoros is having a hard time replicating this issue. Brittanie is managing this case and she’ll be reaching out on the M2M board to gather some feedback. Just a heads up, here’s what she’s going to ask: there are two ways to post a reply to this page - one us by clicking on the "Answer" button at the bottom of the initial question, and the other is by typing in the quick reply box which appears when you click on the "Comments" link. Which way is being used when you see the duplicate comments?

Time got away from me this week and I haven't had a chance to look at these issues yet:

11.  Disappearing answers/comments when selecting a post from the notification page or the post will fail to show

12.  Mismatch for an accepted solution

13.  Removing the notification that a member just posted their initial post

Enjoy your holiday!

[sheila@ebay]

Update as of 12/30

Since this week is a holiday week, with many folks out of the office, there are no new updates to report this week.

Happy Holidays!

[sheila@ebay]

Platform issues:

1. Post flooding error: Khros has identified some HTML tags to whitelist and they’re making another adjustment to the flood control.
2. The notification bell isn’t working as intended: We have a few notification issues going on here: 
   1. This error appears intermittently when accessing notifications using the bell: “An unexpected Error has occurred” 
   2. ‘@’ mentions aren’t showing in the notification list. Khroros mentioned that “Fail tagging” might be happening. It’s where a person copies and pastes the ‘@’ mention and it’s not generating a notification. I’ve requested documentation on how to properly tag on the Community and will create a post on that this week. 
   3. Notification feeds are sometimes empty when selected
   4. 101 error showing on the notification bell
   5. Notifications not received on subscribed threads
   6. If a Community member is subscribed to a thread, they get a notification that a solution has been accepted, but the solution was for another Community member. Perhaps this is working as intended or there’s a bug? 
   7. Disappearing answers/comments when selecting a post from the notification page or the post will fail to show
      Status for notifications: Work in progress

3. Reply count delay on member to member board: Khoros has identified a bug that’s causing this issue, but they’ve labeled this issue as a P3. Once I get some of the higher priority issues cleared, I’ll start pushing for this issue to move up the list.
4. Missing email notifications: No new news this week.
5. Preview feature in private messaging is returning an error message: “This widget could not be displayed”: Khoros is researching this issue
6.  Community pages can take 7 to 20 seconds to load: We’re 1 week away from receiving the full findings of an audit that Khoros is doing on the Community platform. The initial findings have found that we have a lot of old code that's no longer being used that needs to be removed from the platform
7. Page refresh redirects to the home page and random redirects to the homepage: I previously mentioned that the technical support folks are having a difficult time replicating this issue. I’ve also provided all of the posts where the Community has offered some insights on what might be going on. They’ve asked for more information and I’ve asked them to provide a list of questions I can ask the Community. Once I get that list, I’ll post a separate thread to get feedback.
8. Redirects from UK board to US board: A few weeks ago, a Community member brought to my attention that UK Community members were getting redirected to the US Community site. We discovered that the eBay Community link app was incorrect and we corrected it. Some UK Community members are still getting redirected to the US Community. I reached out to my UK counterpart and she checked every single link and verified that they are all correct. I’ve asked the Community to let me know which links redirected them to the US Community. Here’s the post. Our Technical Account Manager is looking into trying to identify which links might be the culprit but he also said that they might have to clear their CDN cache data which he’s also looking into. 
9. Exception ID 1C6EADD0:

This case was previously closed by Khoros because they couldn't reproduce it, but I created another ticket to ask them to take a look.

      10. Duplicate comments are appearing on the M2M board: Khroros is having a hard time replicating this issue.
             If you have any insight, please post here.

Platform improvement requests

1. Add page numbers to the top of threads
2. Remove survey reminders
3. Increase the private messaging box
4. Remove the attachment dropbox in the private messaging box. Community members have said that they don’t want to accidentally open a bad file and there’s no reason to share files on the platform. - WIP
5. Provide the ability to report private messages that aren’t appropriate
6. Add the title of the thread to back on each post. 
7. Provide a visual clue to indicate if an email recipient has read a private message or not
8. Remove the notification that a member just posted their initial post

Process improvement requests

1. Is there a way for mods and mentors to communicate with one another? For example, when a post is marked as spam, and the mod reviews and releases it to the community, it would be nice for the mentors to get a notification. Status: I’ll bring this up to the Team Lead to ask how we can communicate better during this situation.

Recently resolved issues:

1. Missing posts are now showing profiles and on the community boards

If I missed any issues or there are new ones to add to the list, please @ mention me in the Community.

[mam98031]

For Item 2 the bell.  It is very hit and miss on having any notifications from the MP Private board.  Some come through and others don't.  It is however more miss than hit.  I realize this becomes moot after the 12th.  But it may be a symptom of a larger issue.

Platform improvement requests

5.  Provide the ability to report private messages that aren’t appropriate

This one is there, just in a spot we just aren't use to.  The option is NOT under the ... next to the delete trashcan icon.  It is under the ... ON the message, upper right side, just below the Trashcan icon.

[sheila@ebay]

@mam98031 thanks for pointing that out 'reporting as spam' option. I'm meeting with Khoros tomorrow and I'm sure they would told me the same thing. 🙂

Noted on the missed notifications comment in general.

[mam98031]

---

sheila@ebay wrote:

@mam98031 thanks for pointing that out 'reporting as spam' option. I'm meeting with Khoros tomorrow and I'm sure they would told me the same thing. 🙂

Noted on the missed notifications comment in general.

---

Just a little clarification.  It is a "report as inappropriate" option.

[sheila@ebay]

Hi all,

What a week so far! 😫So I'm a little behind this week, but I wanted to let you know that I'll post new platform updates by this Friday.

Thank you for your understand!

[sheila@ebay]

Update as of 01-14

Hello everyone. Hope your week is going well! Here are my updates for this week, marked in purple.

Platform issues:

1. Post flooding error: Khros has identified some HTML tags to whitelist and they’re making another adjustment to the flood control. Brittanie and a Khoros rep is also meeting with a Community member on Zoom so they can see the post flooding error live and gather additional information.
2. The notification bell isn’t working as intended: We have a few notification issues going on here: 
   1. This error appears intermittently when accessing notifications using the bell: “An unexpected Error has occurred” 
   2. ‘@’ mentions aren’t showing in the notification list. Khroros mentioned that “Fail tagging” might be happening. It’s where a person copies and pastes the ‘@’ mentions  and it’s not generating a notification. I’ve requested documentation on how to properly tag on the Community and will create a post on that this week. Additionally, I’ve been tagged on Community posts but I wasn't getting Sheila@ebay notifications. It turns out that my handle was on a bounce list. I have no idea how that happened, but it’s all fixed now. I do also have a theory if our handles are copied and pasted into a post, aka fail tagging, then that might not trigger the notification bell. I'm going to wait for the new notification update, that's rolling out in a month or two before bringing this up to Khoros.
   3. Notification feeds are sometimes empty when selected
   4. 101 error showing on the notification bell
   5. Notifications not received on subscribed threads
   6. If a Community member is subscribed to a thread, they get a notification that solution has been accepted, but the solution was for another Community member. Perhaps this is working as intended or there’s a bug? I haven't had an opportunity to bring this one up to Khoros yet.
   7. Disappearing answers/comments when selecting a post from the notification page or the post will fail to show
      Status for notifications: Khoros is working on improving notifications for all their clients and the update will release in the next month or two. Though I am working on trying to get some of these smaller issues resolved.

3. Reply count delay on member to member board: Khoros has identified a bug that’s causing this issue, but they’ve labeled this issue as a P3. Once I get some of the higher priority issues cleared, I’ll start pushing for this issue to move up the list.

4. Missing email notifications: No new news this week. This is a high priority.

5. Preview feature in private messaging is returning an error message: “This widget could not be displayed”: Khoros is researching this issue

6. Community pages can take 7 to 20 seconds to load: Khoros agreed to do an audit on the Community which took about 7 weeks to do. In a nutshell, we have a lot of old code on the Community that's causing the pages to run slow. Some of the code isn't needed, some of the code needs updating and some of the code wasn't inputted correctly. We're currently coming up with a plan to clean the code, which will improve the speed of the pages. Some of the changes are low hanging fruit and some of it's beyond the Community team's technical expertise.

7. Page refresh redirects to the home page and random redirects to the homepage: I previously mentioned that the technical support folks are having a difficult time replicating this issue. I’ve also provided all of the posts where the Community has offered some insights on what might be going on. They’ve asked for more information and I’ve asked them to provide a list of questions I can ask the Community. Once I get that list, I’ll post a separate thread to get feedback. Khoros didn't provide me with those questions again, so I sent another note to the person who is handling my case

8. Redirects from UK board to US board: A few weeks ago, a Community member brought to my attention that UK Community members were getting redirected to the US Community site. We discovered that the eBay Community link app was incorrect and we corrected it. Some UK Community members are still getting redirected to the US Community. I reached out to my UK counterpart and she checked every single link and verified that they are all correct. I’ve asked the Community to let me know which links redirected them to the US Community. Here’s the post. Our Technical Account Manager is looking into trying to identify which links might be the culprit but he also said that they might have to clear their CDN cache data which he’s also looking into. After a bit of detective work, in combination with the help of the Community, we found the errant links. For the UK page, for the iOS app, there's a link that says "report this issue" and somehow the US Community link was placed there. It'll take use a few days to rectify this. Thanks for your help!

9. Exception ID 1C6EADD0:

This case was previously closed by Khroros because they couldn't reproduce it, but I created another ticket to ask them to take a look. Khoros believes it's showing because of the 'kudos event' notification.

10. Duplicate comments are appearing on the M2M board: Khroros is having a hard time replicating this issue. If you have any insight, please post here.

11. Error logging out of the community: The page not found error is popping up when logging out of the Community

Platform improvement requests

1. Add page numbers to the top of threads
2. Remove survey reminders
3. Increase the private messaging box
4. Remove the attachment dropbox in the private messaging box. Community members have said that they don’t want to accidentally open a bad file and there’s no reason to share files on the platform. - WIP
5. Provide the ability to report private messages that aren’t appropriate
6. Add the title of the thread to back on each post. 
7. Provide a visual clue as to if an email recipient has read a private message or not, but also give the option to opt of this.
8. Removing the notification that a member just posted their initial post

Process improvement requests

1. Is there a way for mods and mentors to communicate with one another? For example, when a post is marked as spam, and the mod reviews and releases it to the community, it would be nice for the mentors to get a notification. Status: I’ll bring this up to the Team Lead to ask how we can communicate better for this situation.

Recently resolved issues:

1. Sheila@ebay handle was on a blocked list and that's why I wasn't getting @ mention notifications. I was removed from that list
2. Found the errant UK link that was directing UK users to the US Community site

If I missed any issues or there are new ones to add to the list, please @ mention me in the Community.

[prbpk0]

Thank you for the updates😊

[sheila@ebay]

Hello everyone,

I'm a bit behind on updating this board. I have tickets open for all the issues I've listed and plan on opening tickets for the rest of the issues that were flagged since the 14th. I will try to get back on schedule and update this post before the end of the week.

Thank you for your patience.