H.P. Academy platform feedback from users & how it can drive change, progress & popularity (WHAT DO WE WANT AS USERS?)

Hello, I want to first preface that today is my first day using the platform & I have a few observations that might be resolved by further use & familiarity with the platform, so my apologies if there are things I have mossed or yet to discover.

Please don't perceive this as a list of demands, this is a request for features & content to be added to the platform to enhance the user experience & draw more users to the platform.

PLATFORM FORUM SECTIONS:

User Feedback/ suggestion forum, for continuous customer feedback

User polls pertaining to user feedback/ suggestions, to take data samples for the useqbase & drive the curiculm towards the user base interests.

Platform associate introductions/ Bio's & a tree graph of who is who & what their credentials/ responsibilities are (who are our administrators, tutor, moderators, etc.)

User progression/ trajectory plans to attain the status of moderator (tutorials or course work for users wanting to learn how to further their presence on the platform)

Administrative engagement with users, acknowledging requests & polls are being made & taken into administrative consideration.

FORUM FEATURES:

The ability to directly QUOTE another user's forum entry, so relevance of response is coherent/ comprehensive.

PROFILE FEATURES:

The "Unresolved Threads" feature is not working & gives an Error 404 "Page Not Found" prompt.

The ability for users to directly message one another (this will greatly aid in the buy/ sell aspect of the forum/ platform/ community)

The ability for users to "friend" one another. (this helps for making user connections)

An "AS SEEN BY OTHERS" feature, so users can tailor their privacy settings.

User biography feature (helps users connect with one another)

User social networking features (LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Etc.)

User module progression (see what courses someone has completed, so user engagement can benefit)

User signatures (helps users connect to the community through expression)

The "New posts since your last visit" feature also does not work on my dashboard.

Most of that I personally never use on other platforms/forums, while I recognize some others do, however I find it's a small minority that uses any sort of connections type settings (friends, seen by others, biography, etc.), and see that people seem to like and/or care about that type of stuff. I am pretty private so I don't typically fill out any bio information on sites, unless it's absolutely required and I will sometimes not even join if it is or keep the information very basic. I don't know what you mean by "social media features", like links to our social media pages? I would only link my business page, again, since I'm a pretty private person, but I'm more than willing to share information on technical subjects and past work I've done along with current projects.

I do see some of the admins and people who run HPA comment from time to time acknowledging requests and ideas, I don't think there needs to be an official way to do that. On that topic, most of the people presenting, which to be fair is like 99% Andre (lol) share their credentials usually in the introductions to the courses. The "About us" page, specifically under the "Meet the Team" section does have a brief part about Andre and Ben, the two founders.

The "user module progression" is already there for each person in your dashboard, however, if you're talking about the ability for others to see that, like you to see what courses I have and have not completed or how far I've gone through each, which is what I think you're suggesting, since your suggestions are pertaining to the forum itself, I'm sorry, but that's none of your f&^%ing business what courses I have bought or how far through each I have gone. The course completion doesn't indicate one's level of knowledge. There are many people who have all of the knowledge in the courses without watching them (because experience), and others who have watched them, but don't grasp the content, so no, that shouldn't be a thing.

Your "attaining status of moderator" thing seems odd to me, are you suggesting that we all should be working towards being moderators on the forum? That wouldn't work out well. Moderators are typically chosen by admins/forum owners that see that 1) there's a need and 2) that the person chosen seems to be fair and level headed in their interactions with others, and knowledge being a good third qualification, but not the the most important qualification. I admin and moderate on several forums and there are many people who shouldn't be admins or moderators. I left some very informative forums over the years because the admins and/or moderators created hostile environments. One forum owner even had the audacity to come onto several Facebook pages of EXTREMELY related content (many users were either or very likely could have been on both the forum and the Facebook pages), to ask for money to support the forum, and while I would hate to see the knowledge go away, it's hard to support a forum that is so toxic and adversarial, and a vast majority of people replied with the same. Most people even said get rid of the few people and they would gladly go back to the forum. I say this last part to point out that just because one has knowledge doesn't make them a nice person, or should be given any sort of power.

The only parts that would be nice would be the ability to easily quote someone, like every other forum allows (even messaging services have this), and the ability to PM each other, I haven't noticed a lack of ability to PM each honestly, because I haven't needed to in this forum. *shrug*. Signatures can be both good and bad, and you can manually add one to each post, if it's really that important, I see some people on other forums do that, even when there's an signature option in the forum. *shrug*

This very forum you are posting in "off topic" is a perfect spot for forum feedback, I don't see a need for another forum for that specifically.

I would suggest that maybe you should have taken some more time to get to know the forum and how it's used before making some of these suggestions.

Absolutely report broken features, but coming in guns blazing as a self admittedly new member and making suggestions like you have isn't a good look. Admittedly I don't have a bunch of posts, but I have lurked for a long time, and most other members seem to reply with good information before I have a chance to do so, so there's no need to post the same information again. If you had used the forum for some time and then had suggestions that's something different entirely. Remember, not every community (or forum) is the same and some features needed in one community (or forum) are not needed in another, because the owners of each might want them to be used differently. This forum for HPA, from how I see it, isn't meant to be a social platform, like some other forums, but to discuss course details, and maybe a bit of related help outside of that, as it relates to the course for better understanding of the course content, and tools used in the industry.