Is this tip misplaced?

[yoder1]

I would expect this message to show in the top right corner of the screen next to the share and follow buttons.  It's showing up in other places -- I'm not sure why:

[James · Accepted solution]

 @yoder1  

This question looks like it's about the software we're using for the Community, not Canvas itself. There is a community group for discussing the community software: Meta Community Group‌. I wouldn't expect you to know that as a new user to Canvas and the Community, it comes from being in the Community a lot and by reading guides like the Community Guide. 

The current software (Jive) doesn't have the level of support that it once did and we're switching community software (last announcement was for an August 6 date) and things will be different at that point. I do not expect that the issue will get resolved in the next five days, but I also suspect it won't matter in a few days.

Here are some threads about that transition.

• Platform Update  (October 2017)
• Canvas Community is Moving (Going Places).  (April 2020)
• New Community Almost Here (June 2020)
• Community Migration Update and FAQ, July 7th (July 2020)

[yoder1]

Does that mean my previous question (https://community.canvaslms.com/thread/55525-why-cant-i-comment-on-a-blog-post ) was off-topic as well?

Thank you!

[James]

I don't think so, but even if it is, I don't think anyone is too worried about it. Questions about using the community are generally different than questions about fixing the community. The meta community is more than just about the software, it's all things about the Canvas community, but they try to keep discussions about the software in one spot to make it easier to find and to keep people from finding those messages in a search when they're looking for information about how to use Canvas. There are other groups -- technical questions will often get shared with the Canvas Developer's group if they weren't asked there first. That helps the developers find the questions to answer it because they may not be following the non-technical discussions. The same applies with the meta community and other groups.

We're pretty laid back here, which is why I said you wouldn't be expected to know about it. Stack Overflow has a different mentality. I often see a lot of "this has already been answered" messages at the top, which is nice when you're being brief and trying to consolidate responses into one single thread, but can be off-putting to a newbie just trying to find an answer to their particular answer as opposed to a similar problem asked somewhere else. I often find the right answer in the discussion that follows the message about the answer being somewhere else.

We realize that even if you did a search, you might not find the answer you're looking for because you may not be using the same words we're using. We may direct you to a previous response or to the guides, but because we're more verbose, it's usually a longer response. In education, the answers are often more nuanced than on S.O., and a lot of us are teachers at heart (if not by profession), so we tend to want to educate in our responses for those more challenging questions, not just give an answer.

[Stef_retired]

 @yoder1  Welcome to the Canvas Community! As James said, in light of our impending move to a brand-new software platform, it's not something we are particularly worried about right now, but thanks for pointing it out: for good order's sake, we moved the post to which you linked to the Meta Community Group‌ as well.