Upcoming Community Structure Changes
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Hello everyone,
There will be some great changes coming to the community! With these changes it will be much easier for you to find answers to questions that may already exist in the community, and to offer help on specific topics that you may be knowledgeable about. I wanted to let you in on them so you know what to look forward to.
What’s changing?
We’re moving away from country-specific communities, and changing instead to language-based communities. This consolidates a few existing communities into one powerhouse of information! With the community now having a much larger audience, any post made will have significantly higher visibility and reach. There will be boards for all types of questions about your account, and there will also be dedicated categories for Merchant-specific topics and Merchant Integration Technical Support subjects.
We’re removing boards that don’t get much traffic, and adding boards for topics that see a lot of posts. We will have the ability to re-evaluate and modify as needed. Keeping the structure as neat as possible makes it easier to find what you’re looking for!
We’re also adding the Labels feature. This is similar to tags, but much more useful. There will be pre-defined labels for each area of the community to help filter specific boards and topics, and the option to subscribe to a specific label. For instance, if you’re interested in helping with fraud/scam-related questions, you can subscribe to the Security & Protections label. If your expertise lies in modifying button code, you can subscribe to PayPal Buttons.
There will be two live Community Chats every week! Moderators will be available to answer questions in real time twice a week. Watch for banners at the top of the community for information about the new schedule for Community Chat!
What about all the posts I’ve made in the past?
We’ll be moving the majority of the posts that are currently in the community to an archive. They’ll be locked once they’re in the archive so new replies can’t be added, but new posts can always be created in the community about the same subjects if the need arises. Some of the highest traffic posts will be retained in the new structure and will remain open to replies.
Additionally, all your kudos and accepted solutions will remain intact. Your hard work will continue to be recognized!
Will there be an interruption to service?
Once we begin the migration, posts you’ve made will likely move to a different board or category. You’ll still be able to access your posts from your profile. At some point, you’ll find that new posts will have the option for Labels.
What can I do to prepare?
If you haven’t opted in to it already, you can turn on the setting that allows others to see what country your account is registered in. This will help people tailor their responses to include information for your specific region. Since the community will be international, this feature will be very helpful! You can toggle this setting by going to Preferences > Privacy.
I’m really excited about these changes. I hope you are too. Please let me know if you have any questions or comments related to this change.
David.
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@PayPal_david wrote:Hello everyone,
There will be some great changes coming to the community! With these changes it will be much easier for you to find answers to questions that may already exist in the community, and to offer help on specific topics that you may be knowledgeable about. I wanted to let you in on them so you know what to look forward to.
What’s changing?
We’re moving away from country-specific communities, and changing instead to language-based communities. This consolidates a few existing communities into one powerhouse of information! With the community now having a much larger audience, any post made will have significantly higher visibility and reach. There will be boards for all types of questions about your account, and there will also be dedicated categories for Merchant-specific topics and Merchant Integration Technical Support subjects.
We’re removing boards that don’t get much traffic, and adding boards for topics that see a lot of posts. We will have the ability to re-evaluate and modify as needed. Keeping the structure as neat as possible makes it easier to find what you’re looking for!
We’re also adding the Labels feature. This is similar to tags, but much more useful. There will be pre-defined labels for each area of the community to help filter specific boards and topics, and the option to subscribe to a specific label. For instance, if you’re interested in helping with fraud/scam-related questions, you can subscribe to the Security & Protections label. If your expertise lies in modifying button code, you can subscribe to PayPal Buttons.
There will be two live Community Chats every week! Moderators will be available to answer questions in real time twice a week. Watch for banners at the top of the community for information about the new schedule for Community Chat!
What about all the posts I’ve made in the past?
We’ll be moving the majority of the posts that are currently in the community to an archive. They’ll be locked once they’re in the archive so new replies can’t be added, but new posts can always be created in the community about the same subjects if the need arises. Some of the highest traffic posts will be retained in the new structure and will remain open to replies.
Additionally, all your kudos and accepted solutions will remain intact. Your hard work will continue to be recognized!
Will there be an interruption to service?
Once we begin the migration, posts you’ve made will likely move to a different board or category. You’ll still be able to access your posts from your profile. At some point, you’ll find that new posts will have the option for Labels.
What can I do to prepare?
If you haven’t opted in to it already, you can turn on the setting that allows others to see what country your account is registered in. This will help people tailor their responses to include information for your specific region. Since the community will be international, this feature will be very helpful! You can toggle this setting by going to Preferences > Privacy.
I’m really excited about these changes. I hope you are too. Please let me know if you have any questions or comments related to this change.
David.
Hi @PayPal_david,
Will each post indicate the account holder's country next to them? Otherwise, it will be much more extensive to indvidually check posts for their country. My experties are limited to PayPal UK, inc. Know Your Customer requirements etc. therefore I would be not be in a position to answer questions and concerns from people in the USA, for example, as my advice could be considered inaccurate for their version of the service.
If communities are consolidated, it would be handy to have a massive emphasis on country identification, so volunteer advisers are able to focus their time and efforts on the country their expertise are based on.
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If you highlight the user i.d. of the person you are replying to then they already do show their country if they have added it to their profile.
'Advisors' are already aware of this option as we were informed a few months back and already check the country the poster is from if they have added it.
Advice is voluntary.
Kudos / Solution appreciated.
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@kernowlass wrote:
If you highlight the user i.d. of the person you are replying to then they already do show their country if they have added it to their profile.
'Advisors' are already aware of this option as we were informed a few months back and already check the country the poster is from if they have added it.
Hi @kernowlass,
Thanks for this information.
On the current layout, the post has to be opened, before the blue interface will load, when the username is hovered. It would be fantastic, once the communities are consolidated, if the forum handlers could replicate this on the main list of threads, especially on the unanswered / recent section, to quickly differentiate between countries.
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Doubt that will happen, I actually suggested adding the country option when on a conference call to the U.S a few months back, so am glad we at least got that to happen.
Paypal contacted 'advisors' for opinions on the community format and some of those ideas got through....so they did listen.
Mind you i was not so keen on the language forum idea
Advice is voluntary.
Kudos / Solution appreciated.
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@kernowlass wrote:Doubt that will happen, I actually suggested adding the country option when on a conference call to the U.S a few months back, so am glad we at least got that to happen.
Paypal contacted 'advisors' for opinions on the community format and some of those ideas got through....so they did listen.
Mind you i was not so keen on the language forum idea
Hi @kernowlass,
It is fantastic to know that the team consult established forum members, for their input on future adaptions. I also doubt it will be implemented, but since the main audience is UK & USA, it shouldn't be too different for you.
You are also extremely helpful and established on the current USA site from what I've seen.
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I already post on the U.S and Canadian forums so no it won't make a lot of difference, but it was still easier to know which forum it was as 'most' post on their own.
I'm just a dinosaur and every time they change the board I spend hours trying to locate everything.
Advice is voluntary.
Kudos / Solution appreciated.
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Thanks for the feedback @kernowlass @Brandon-P. 🙂 The main goal here is to simplify the structure while promoting the Community Forum as an option for more customers globally.
Right now we're focusing on making sure we have one place for customers to interact with each other where they are using the same product that's offered globally. For example the basic functionality of sending someone money is not significantly different between countries. We believe there are more things in common with our products between countries than there are differences. But we'll still have the option to create dedicated areas of the new English community for specific countries in the future if we identify a need for that based on post volumes. 😄
Encouraging community users to share their country and account types is definitely part of this new strategy and we'll be asking advisors and contributors to help support this by encouraging other members to share if they have not done so. We're also looking into making the country more visible when users have chosen to share that information. That should help with being able to quickly identify topics you may want to assist with.
For advisors that already move between the various communities today, they will no longer need to do this and can stay in one community. We're also adding labels so that advisors can quickly identify topics they may be most interested in helping. For example: managing fraud or avoiding scams.
Always happy to hear your thoughts on this as this is a big change and we'll work through any pain points. Our hope is that you'll also feel that helping users in other countries is very rewarding too. 🙂
Thanks,
Frank
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@PayPal_Frank wrote:Thanks for the feedback @kernowlass @Brandon-P. 🙂 The main goal here is to simplify the structure while promoting the Community Forum as an option for more customers globally.
Right now we're focusing on making sure we have one place for customers to interact with each other where they are using the same product that's offered globally. For example the basic functionality of sending someone money is not significantly different between countries. We believe there are more things in common with our products between countries than there are differences. But we'll still have the option to create dedicated areas of the new English community for specific countries in the future if we identify a need for that based on post volumes. 😄
Encouraging community users to share their country and account types is definitely part of this new strategy and we'll be asking advisors and contributors to help support this by encouraging other members to share if they have not done so. We're also looking into making the country more visible when users have chosen to share that information. That should help with being able to quickly identify topics you may want to assist with.
For advisors that already move between the various communities today, they will no longer need to do this and can stay in one community. We're also adding labels so that advisors can quickly identify topics they may be most interested in helping. For example: managing fraud or avoiding scams.
Always happy to hear your thoughts on this as this is a big change and we'll work through any pain points. Our hope is that you'll also feel that helping users in other countries is very rewarding too. 🙂
Thanks,
Frank
Hi @PayPal_Frank,
I appreciate your in-depth comments on our feedback.
I have not looked into the data protection side of this idea, but perhaps all board members, as standard, should have their country visible. This will allow for contributors and advisers to tailor their expertise to customers in their preferred countries.
Whilst I appreciate the aims of this new approach, I feel there will be some impact on how effectively our assistance can be provided to customers. Aside from compliance in each country, such as KYC in the EU and 1099K tax reporting in the US - there are also fundamental differences in service structure which could result in inaccurate advice.
I do understand that PayPal has the same services internationally, however the framework can differ, from policy to interface. Much of the concerns I raised can be resolved with either enforcement of country identification for all members or increased measures to allow advisers & contributors to tailor assistance to countries they are specialized in.
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Hi everyone,
Thank you for your patience! We're in the process of making the changes to the forum today. Please bear with us if there are any hiccups.
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