What should appear on the news feed?

I do agree with an earlier (closed) thread that the news feed is getting swamped (not spammed) by posts which are for the most part completely irrelevant. As such, this pushes other posts which may be more relevant off the page.

The question in my humble opinion is "What should appear on the news page?".

I am sure that my suggestions which will follow will not be the best for all and so I invite suggestions from all!

1: O/D and Company "Journeys" do not need to appear on the news feed! Most companies who need a driver to cover a job will not waste time looking at the news feed. They will simply post the job and see what quotes come in.

2: O/D "Empty at home" posts do not need to appear on the news feed as this information can be gleaned from the "Courier Directory", if indeed a courier company can not get a quote for a job and REALLY need someone so badly that they feel the need to search for someone that they can phone.

3: Notifications of forum posts should definitely not appear on the news feed. Any one who posts, reads or otherwise has any interest in the forum posts can access them from the Courier Forum link.

4: People who are offering Courier Recovery Services photographed whilst dressed in a TA uniform holding an airsoft 80 should not be allowed on the news feed (or any other part of the website for that matter)!.

In short, I believe that the only two things that should appear on the news feed are jobs which are 'currently available' and important announcements from admin.

Anything else that anyone wishes to know can pretty much be accessed from one of the other links provided to the other areas of this website.

I would also like to see the demise of the "Courier Work" link as this usually tends to only show jobs which are already a few days old. The most recent jobs and up to date available work is on the news feed and can be accessed by anyone with a smart phone (which there is no reason not to have!).

As stated at the beginning, this is my own opinion. You will have yours and your opinion is as important and valid as the opinion of anyone else. However, please do not use this thread to throw "blame" about "who" is swamping the news feed as it is not their fault but just simply how the current system of this website functions.

I'm happy to let this thread run and just read peoples thoughts, however just to correct you; the work on the courier work page does show new stuff too (It will show anything depending on your settings) but it's removed when it is deleted or allocated.

Admin...maybe its my settings (although i have checked them)but i have not seen a new job posted on there for days i am now getting them again by sms/email. Peter the original thread was not apportioning blame but merely an observation on what was happening and i agree with most of what you have just posted.

Hi Fastback, I do understand that you were not intentionally apportioning blame. I do however think that perhaps the mention of a specific company in your post may well have contributed to the closing of your topic.

Admin, I understand that the Courier Work page does show recent work as well. However the most up to date available work appears on the news feed instantly and the news feed is the possibly the most viewed page of all on this website.

If all the other bumph was not reflected on the news feed then the news feed would be full of current, in the moment jobs (not extraneous irrelevant bumph). I believe that if the news feed reflected exactly what the pro members would receive via txt then it would ultimately be much more useful and I would like to hear the opinions of the members.

This is an excellent site (yellow hurts my eyes)! I just genuinely believe that the News Page is an issue which is important to the future of this site.

A contribution from a duplicate thread...

Thyeson Light Haulage Ltd said (in another thread):

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If someone 'runs their invoicing on MTVAN', (Why does this need to be reported as news?) the time is always 1+ hrs in the future for some reason, so all subsequent feed appears behind this. A job for Mr Admin.

Add in "Ran his invoicing", "XXX joined", "XXX updated details" and all the rest surely it is obvious that the most important posts ie: Work, are getting lost.

Any chance of this being changed admin?

agree entirely Peter, come on admin take a look.

With regard to the antics the other day and me getting my wrist slapped, I still think something needs to be done here...

The news feed is getting swamped with 'journeys' every day. Whilst I would agree to an extent the information is relevant and saves you searching for someone that may be looking for a backload. That would only be relevant if a few people here and there were posting such info.

I would disagree with some points above. It is relevant to see if a new member joins, in the news feed. It may be someone you know but don't keep in regular contact with, or just a new member in an area where you have a lack of contacts.

As for the 'Courier Work' page, maybe we could suggest a few tweaks rather than dump it. To a point I think it works ok. Maybe if the job vendor had regular email reminders sent to ask them to close the job if it is older than a few days, it would help to clear out the rubbish.

I'm not interested if 'Joe Bloggs ran his invoicing'

The fact that 'Joe Bloggs has updated his details' may not be particularly exciting news but it could still be relevant and useful, if 'Joe' has changed his vehicle size, expanded his fleet or increased his GiT to a level that is more use to you. Perhaps, this alert could be made more useful by actually announcing what has changed rather than just 'updated details'.

Don't shoot me if these ideas are impossible from a site programming point of view, I don't know as I've never run a site. They are merely suggestions.

We're with you on this, definitely, and it helps to know what helps and annoys different people.

For the NewsFeed, there are some good ideas on Facebook which we're working on. e.g. Facebook says things like "Bloggs and 25 other people" to prevent swamping. So rather than listing every journey, for example, we may be able to say "Bloggs posted a journey from x to y, and 50 other journeys" with a link to a list.

We're also hoping to do stuff like linking to the actual change made, eg to the document, when (returning soon) "Bloggs has uploaded a document" or other Profile changes, so you can go and look if it's relevant to you.

The courier work page will soon start working slightly differently, with the emphasis being on the urgency of a lot of the work. More to follow on that.

The feedback helps, thanks. All this stuff takes time to do, there's loads of it, and it has to be tested properly to stop the site falling over when new stuff is rushed in, which is good for no-one. So we're working on it.

I agree with all of the above BUT these "journeys" and "empty at homes"?

If they disappear then how are we to know there's a chap heading back home from wherever, or that fred is empty at home and ready to play

By putting a job on here, the idea is to bypass the need for this information BUT all too often you get no quotes so have to ring around. By knowing who is "at home" or "returning from" you can avoid wasted calls and/or get a keener price so it needs to be somewhere so where do you suggest (no rude comments please)

So getting it right will involve the right balance between only good useable information being on there, without so much info being there that it becomes overloaded.

And of course with the site growing its active users, the problem will only get worse.

So that's partly about removing some stuff that doesn't help much (eg the invoicing/control screen stuff which was just there from the early days as a shameless advert for some of the stuff the site offers), and abbreviating other stuff that's useful but that has a swamping effect. We won't remove stuff that's useful.

There is an "empty" tab on the Directory, of course, to help you see who has posted empty.

There's also the new map (which some of you have seen so we can get useful feedback) which plots journeys in yellow, tracking in blue, and home bases in red. So that may help.

Rob, there's a new, and much needed, version of the directory coming soon which will cover all of your points. Its still in test stage.

Hi

Speed Couriers (Stansted) said:

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I agree with all of the above BUT these "journeys" and "empty at homes"?

If they disappear then how are we to know there's a chap heading back home from wherever, or that fred is empty at home and ready to play

By putting a job on here, the idea is to bypass the need for this information BUT all too often you get no quotes so have to ring around. By knowing who is "at home" or "returning from" you can avoid wasted calls and/or get a keener price so it needs to be somewhere so where do you suggest (no rude comments please)

Hi Speed,

O/D's who have posted empty can be found by simply entering the postcode area where you are looking for an available driver in the "Courier Directory" section.

Perhaps a separate "Journey" and "Return" page(s) section is an option.

Whilst in the middle of typing this reply, I can not off the top of my mind remember how far back the News feed shows but perhaps reducing the amount displayed there and extending the length of time span displayed would be beneficial.

Possibly a "News search" section for historical reference?

Best regards to all.

Scott.

Nice to know that ecotrans ran his invoicing 14 times today alone!