No longer fixing bugs with the Feed
Hi everyone! Ece from the 7 Cups Product team here with a tough announcement to make. Here goes:
As of this week, we will no longer be fixing bugs with the feed.
This was a tough decision & not one we made lightly so I want to share with you the full reasoning that went into it:
1) The feed is hard for us to fix: The code that powers the feed is now some of the oldest on our site, which means the engineering effort it would take to fix the update bugs, hashtag bugs & other feed inconsistencies being reported is really high
2) It is hard for us to keep fixed: Because it's so old, the feed content actually lives on totally different servers than the rest of the site. Some of the bugs are due to this separate server set-up & it takes ongoing maintenance & additional time to keep them from regressing
3) It is expensive: That separate server set up is more expensive than all the rest of our servers. There have been months where server costs for the feed are as high as 1/3rd of our total server cost for the entire product!
4) Most people arent using it: Over the past 6 months, less than 2.5% of active users on the site have engaged with their feed (posting, following, hearting, etc). Even if we look at only engaged Members & Listeners, that number is still just 10%.
We're a small team with limited resources & in considering all of this we came to the conclusion that we just can not afford the engineering time it would take to fix the feed when it does not benefit > 90% of our engaged Members & Listeners.
Next steps:
We know some of you really like & regularly use the feed and it's frustrating to be hit with the no updates bug or have hashtags not work. We want to take this opportunity to gather feedback from you directly as we think about how to proceed in the future.
Comment below with your thoughts:
- If you use the feed, what do you value about it? How would you complete the sentence "The feed lets me.....?"
- If you don't use the feed, why not? What about this feature didnt work for you?
Thanks so much for your understanding & your feedback!
@Ece7Cups thanks for posting and letting the community know!
One of our values is to grow through the path of problems, I see this as an opportunity to share feedback on what would make a new feed better and more popular.
I have several ideas but look forward to hear what everyone else comes up with!
@Ece7Cups
thnx for posting.
The feeds lets me to connect with the followers or members of 7cups.
feeds is good option to connect with members. If it is use a separate parts mean if any one post a feed then it will show in the new section like "Feed " for today like whats app or facebook . it is very complicated due to duffrent hastag and many users but unfortunately it cant reached to many other members who is not follower.
So make a separate part like communities and connect every feed with that part. Then everyone will see feed posts.
Wow, this is some really hard news to hear. Out of all the updates this site has gone through since the start, this update will hit everyone the hardest. The feed is where so many of us teens connected with the adults who didnt have teen access but we wanted to keep up with. My feed holds the most memories for me, because through thick and thin, its easy to access and find. Birthday wishes, silly memories, inspirational posts, etc all housed via feed. The subcommunities rely heavily on the feed too— to promote hashtags. I know, all good things must come to an end, but this is one thing that isnt over yet for so many. I know the feed right now wasnt very fun to use because I couldnt see anything recent but during my long break, I always came and checked out the feed as its always been easier to follow compared to the forums. Moving forward, whats the plan? Is it possible to design something similar? A lot of other mental health sites use feed as the main part of the site so I was just curious if its possible to keep the concept of the feed and make something greater and better? I know theres many other things right now that are more of a concern to the site and growth, but the feed for a lot of people is their home.
Thank you for your constant hard work to improve the site and keep us in the loop with the updates. I look forward to the future.
@Erica what would you like to see? Anything you'd want to see if there was an updated version down the road?
@Erica - yes, we really do hope to figure out ways to bring out what the feed was going for and weaving that into the more stable aspects of our codebase, around things like communities, forums, and group chats.
The code that powers the feed is now some of the oldest on our site -
I find this a bit odd, as 1-1s, group chat, forums, Q&A, growth path all existed before the feed. I can't think of an actual part of the site that's newer than the feed unless we consider the community page to be a component on it's own of the site. Why was such an old code choosen for the feed?
WIthout the feed I would like to see the search feature on the forums be improved. One of the nice things about the feed was the hashtags allowed previous things to be found easily (when the hasthtag worked properly and feed posts weren't lost completelu).
I did also the feed to be a way to find listeners or learn more about them. I think the forums could serve a similar purpose, but a better search feature is needed for it to serve this purpose just as easily. Ie. let me see all the posts started by a listener, let me be able to search titles, when doing a search of multiple words that should show less posts than just one word. Ie. Searching Growth Path currently results in more results than just Growth, as Growth Path will bring up all threads with just the term growth, just the term path and both.
@AffyAvo I also think one of the things where other options will not be a replacement is being able to communicate with others (teens & adults, members with members). There are times I will use the feed to do this, when it's intended for one person, wouldn't pertain to others, and wouldn't have enough back and forth to make a forum thread worthwhile.
If the feed is scrapped, I would like that to be replaced at least with a simple messaging system, could be text only similar to what exists in group chat that goes to each others profiles.
@AffyAvo - the issue is that the feed required a different database model to handle distributing ("fanning out") posts to followers, much like the way email servers deliver messages. Almost all the legacy code of the rest of the site has been touched or improved or even refactored in the meantime while sadly the cumbersome feed code has rusted in place. :(
@KrinkTheMellowUnicorn Thanks for explaning.
I would like to see a bit more thought going forward with new ideas. I'm not sure where the feed falls into this, but it does seem like there were lots of issues with it (ie. I don't think any forum posts went missing due to a server issue, only if deleted or caught in the spam filter). I actually think the feed was fairly successful, but it does sound like the resources to go along with it weren't there to start with or for some reason it ended up neglected.
The wiki (actually something I didn't think of with my first post in this thread, that's a new component added in after the feed) is something that currently I see as a failure, it was confusing from the start, when asking around no one seems to be aware of who is in charge, content I have written for members was moved to the listeners only section and I still cannot access it despite asking multiple times for it to be moved back, editting access was changed with little information, and information is already quite out of date. The growth path I also feel has been a bit neglected too - although I consider it successful too and it's not too buggy as far as I can tell from a user experience - new content would be appreciated. I often ignore it for long periods as I find it has lost it's appeal and often times I don't notice steps like I used to from doing things like a 1-1 chat or discussion.
@AffyAvo - sorry for the late reply.
Yes, I agree that the wiki -- like the feed -- hasn't lived up to its potential, is buggy and difficult to maintain, and also was never completely rolled out successfully.
The growth path is long overdue for attention, fresh content, and technical improvement and we feel this is a much more "core" service to focus on and improve in the near term.
@Ece7Cups I personally do not use it. my question would wonder if it would be possible to decommisions the feed?
Gee, I had no idea that the feed was buggy. I seldom used the feed, and when I have, I've since deleted the few posts. I [have] noticed though, that a rather strange bug, which appeared at the same time as the now resolved emoji bug, still persists, at least when using a computer, in which, when you first put a message through in a 1-on-1 chat, there is no spacing between paragraphs (as visible to me after sending) unless you refresh the chat and then the spacing appears as it normally should.
@Ece7Cups Ece 💖 Thank you for this!
If you use the feed, what do you value about it? How would you complete the sentence "The feed lets me.....?"
Ece, the feeds help me go through the day, as a listener and a member. My bug is that I cannot see other's feed, I gotta open their profile to see them. So what's the point following them? I want to see their feeds without having to click on their profile. The 'My Feed' Feature in Cups is the best thing ever for me. 🌹
@Ece7Cups
the feed is very important to me.. i can vent, i can express myself, i can get in touch with another members who think alike .. i can feel im not alone in a broader way than by listening a listener tell me so.. i like to talk to my listeners very much but i also really like the feed. The feed keeps me company when no one does.. the chat groups are full or pre established groups and its hard for me to use it because of the dialogues speed and the times people log in.. theres a lot of arguing and i usually dont feel comfortable, maybe another time it will work for me.. i didnt quit the chat rooms yet. Thank you for listening.. I understand the reasons you numbered, and I also understand it is a free service. So I appreciate the effort to put it together.
@Ece7Cups
I don't use it regularly. This will not impact me much.
@Ece7Cups I need this feature to complete part of my internship requirements, which is one reason I would like it to work. But, I think it's also helpful to see more about the people I talk to on this site, like a personal blog. I like posting on my feed even though few people see it.
It's a little bugged, but I've not been using it long so I don't know how bad it has been before.
Thanks for the work you guys do on the site!!
