What I think is missing in OEP

bymhamilt

1.9K followers

Updated 12 years ago

Since I have so many ideas for this exciting new iteration of Wealthy Affiliate, I thought I'd create a blog post to detail them all. In any case, the Report a Bug tool is not working for me today. In no particular order:

1. Notifications. I like having notifications and I don't believe that it is currently implemented in a fantastic way. I would prefer notifications to be more of a 'global' variety. For example if someone were to reply to a comment I made on a blog or a training tutorial I would like to be notified. Same thing if anyone posts a comment on something I created, and it would be great if I could quickly respond. Something similar to the Facebook notifications would be brilliant. There is so much potential here and having quick access to areas of WA one has contributed to is a must. (note: I haven't used the system enough to know if these things are already implemented. They could well be, and that's fine).
2. A 'Global' WA news blog. It's not clear where notifications about the state of WA are. Are they in the Forum? Are they on Kyle's Blog? On Carson's Blog? On the external WA blog? WA needs a blog or a news section that is perhaps linked to in the sidebar which lets people know exactly what is happening and what is new in the system. It feels disconnected at the moment.
3. Search Improved. I like the new search bar, it's great. However it seems to only search training resources, and not blogs. A 'global' search bar which searches all of WA needs to be added. It's very strange to be reading a blog, do a search for something else and have it search the training centre. In addition, blog tags seem to be also useless as clicking one searches the training centre, not the blogs! There is still a lot that could be done with the search bar.
4. Greater access to blogs. I'd like a section which is blog specific. I'd like to be able to see when anyone has blogged, not just those that I'm following. How many people are writing good stuff that I'm not aware of??
5. Q&A. One of the main things that the forum is used for is answering single, specific questions. How do I do this, do that etc. This clutters up the forum and makes the insightful posts harder to find. A 'Yahoo Answers' style ask a question get answers section to WA would be very beneficial. It could also be searchable. I don't believe an entire training resource needs to be created in order to answer a simple question, or if someone wants someone to look over a website or article. A Q&A section could be a great way to get answers. Live Chat is good, but often the people that can answer stuff aren't there when you want them to be. Having them archivable would also mean answers aren't lost into the depths of the forum or lost to live chat.
6. Training Centre. I get the new switch to tags and switch to searching rather then categorizing. I really do. BUT, Internet Marketing does have a few 'main' areas (article marketing, seo, ppc etc) in addition to all the smaller ones (Wordpress development etc). It would be good if those categories were easily findable. I seem to remember there were 'getting started' courses in each of those areas, they now seem to be buried.
7. More Training Centre. I'd like to be able to update some of my resources but I don't see why I need to have my changes reviewed - I created the resource, surely my updates don't need to be checked?? They weren't when they were initially published. This is an unwanted hangover from Platinum.
8. Keyword Tool. It used to be possible to rank results in the keyword tool - that feature is not there anymore. Please add this feature!
9. Greater clarity about changes. While I think the OEP updates are good, it would be fantastic if they were mentioned before the changes happened? I know it's been said to be a beta system, but you do not just throw a beta system at everyone and expect things to go smoothly. I always get the feeling that WA is a 'work in progress', and that's not entirely fair to those who are paying money for this service. Jobs don't work. Many tools and services were removed. Bookmarks are gone. Site Rubix links are gone. There are many bugs in training creation. I don't care about a lot of this, but other people do. I think it's good to give WA a spring clean, it certainly needed it. But even a little more communication with the customers would be good. Addressing stuff 'afterwards' is always a bad thing. This ties into a need for a 'global' news feed where this stuff could be addressed, not in blog posts which the majority of people won't read. I think if WA can master that, these rollouts will be more exciting then shocking.

Overall the OEP is a big improvement over the old system. I make this blog post not because I don't like the system, but because I love it. There is so much more room for growth then in the old system, and that's fantastic. Hopefully some of these changes will be implemented quickly, and WA will really take off.

Mark