Agree- please make it optional.
To give a quick postmortem:
- There was some confusion on our side about how the Kai feature should be presented on the site and we had a few bugs. The result was a feature nobody was really happy with. We started the process to revert Kai early last week and our hosting company completed the process today.
- We also changed the way Kai is presented to users. You can still see him on [other pages on the site](https://www.collegeconfidential.com/). It looks a little less like your ISP's customer support chat. It's also less in-your-face. We think it'll help students with some of their basic questions.
- Despite the problems, the bot had many conversations about college admissions with students. We think it provides real value. As helpful as the CC community is, it can be intimidating to ask a question. And it's just as well that basic questions are answered by a bot rather than taking your time. It's a useful feature for some people. If nothing else, we have a lot of new information about visitors that we can use to make the site better.
- That said, it can be confusing to people who have found the forums to know whether they should ask the bot or on the site. We (meaning, I) didn't put thought into that before Kai was introduced on the forums. Before we reintroduce Kai to the forums again, I'm going to create some guidance (with your input if you are interested) so that everyone knows how the bot fits in. I apologize for failing to do this work beforehand.
- One hard requirement for bringing the bot back to the site is to **let experienced users opt out of the bot**. We know that the page is already too busy. Active contributors should have more control over their experience and we understand if many of you aren't interested in the bot. For the moment we aren't working on Kai, but when we get back to it, we'll make sure it doesn't get in your way.
Appreciate your openness, Jon.
And as one user, at one keyboard, I appreciate the savvy of others posting on this particular thread.
Make it opt in /out. This would be a good marker of how many people have the interest. I would like to try any new technology. If it isn’t useful to me then I can opt out and be done. Better then being aggravated then going elsewhere, right?
@CCadmin_Jon, has there been a recognition of the need for beta testinng interface changes? I mean, I’d argue that this is just the latest problematic-rollout own goal over the past several months.
Is the real purpose of the bot the latter rather than the former?
I wouldn’t be concerned about taking our time. Most of the experienced members are happy to help new members.
There is more of a problem with a new person posting a question where multiple experienced members reply only to have the new person never come back again.
Ah yes. I forgot to mention this. There are technical challenges to doing beta testing right at the moment, but we are dipping our toes into beta testing the features we are currently working on. (More information coming soon!) I hope to be reaching out to users to do some [usability tests](How to conduct hallway usability tests without any hallways. | Jon Quixote) in the coming weeks. Even the limited testing we’ve done so far has been eye-opening.
I’ve been working with our product managers to put community feedback into our development process. Kai was unusual because it was a feature we brought in from other parts of our organization. We sorta assumed it was already tested since it’s being used by many other people. But we hadn’t fully understood the technical and social differences between other platforms and the CC forums.
Well…Kai is back on my iPad. I’ve chosen “skip forever” for the last two days. Forever means I never want to see this again. I don’t want to see it again 24 hours later.
Which URL are you on? It should be disabled on any page that starts http://talk.collegeconfidential.com. If you are seeing Kai on this page, for instance, it’s possible parts of the page are in your cache. You might try clearing it: https://refreshyourcache.com/en/safari-mobile/
Let me know if that doesn’t help.
Pop quiz - how many times will I need to tell Kai that I want to skip “forever”? So far, I think it’s five times in the last week.
I understand what you are saying…but if I’m given the option of “skip forever” and I choose that, why do I see Kai again…day after day after day. That shouldn’t happen on any platform!
LOL…that is why they are attempting to get Beta testers…
@thumper1, @RichInPitt, I confirmed with the Kai team that what you reported should not happen. They’ll be looking into this, but can you please confirm on which page(s) you see the popup (after you have previously dismissed it)? Thanks!
Here is one that always gives me the popup @CC_Sorin
https://www.collegeconfidential.com/policies/terms-of-service/
@CCadmin_Sorin I get the Kai pop up on the open screen…at least once a day. I do “skip forever” but apparently forever is only 24 hours.