Community Connection 👋🏻

[Kamran]

The roadmap thing, specially for bug-fixes and feature requests, I believe even if we as users should have the visualization about what the team is working on.

It is beneficial because, if I report a bug and after it being confirmed, if I can see that my bug is at number 14 of the total bug reports and will probably be cleared in the upcoming update. Or if the reported bug will be taken care of in a very long time, so that we as users can have discussion of work-arounds for the time being (workarounds prove to be hints for great features)

Same with the feature request.

I know that these visualizations can be made if we go through the forum, but what we here mean is a list of such that have been acknowledged by the team and is being worked on, Visuals can be powerful

[Badjer]

Agreed
When I used Evernote for years & a request/ report was made the response would be thank you for your time. We will look into it & take it into consideration. However, you had no idea if they were really going to look into it or do anything about it.

When you compare to Roam Research (I know there are many haters here for some reason but it is my current app) if I make a feature request it is taken care of within hrs, sometimes days. Even when it is not the communication is very open, not behind closed doors. If there is a delay you are at least kept in the loop.

Here we are not given that response but if there is not any feedback, if you have no idea if they are actually going to work on it, then you may get discouraged

The app is nice as it is depending upon a user’s use case. However, there are some features for some users where they need it for their workflow, not just want it. If they see app as it is they may just move on. If they see it is on roadmap they may look at things differently as they realize it is in the cross hairs

Same thing can be said with bugs. Some users might find a given bug annoying but easily live with since they don’t rely on that feature. Other users might need that feature & if there is no communication, if they see new features rolling out but no working being done on their bug, shows that a team really doesn’t care. Might not be that way but that is how someone looking outside in might feel if they can’t see a roadmap. If they can see behind the closed doors & see that it has been logged down & when it will be tackled then they can realize they have been listened to. Depending how important this is they may even be able to open a conversation about the priority level.

[Badjer]

@Kamran

people who are from a background that is non-tech, I feel like it is difficult for them to understand the app. There are very few Tutorials on Youtube, but I believe there should be active creation of such content in specific disciplines

I agree here. I have used many apps before, including Roam, & have never had such issues trying to get an app to work the way the features are advertised to do so. The way the tutorials are set up you get a surface level but can’t dive deeper. When they dive deeper it is made so technical you don’t really understand what is being said. I realize some of the team has a coding background but it can’t be explained to the users in the tutorials like you are one. Need to ask when making a tutorial how can we set it up so that it is easy for people to understand. I am still not sure if they can do certain things or if it is the way the interface is set up that makes it cumbersome.

It is difficult trying to use the tutorials as I find they are based on the previous idea. The issue with such an approach is you almost need to read the tutorial front to back vs jumping to pt looking for.

It would also be helpful if can find what looking for without knowing what that feature is. Example if I want to to be able to view & edit content while staying inline with my content it does not help me if you have a section listed as portals if I don’t know that is what they do. That setup is more like a table of contents where you are using it as a reference to topic x. Helpful if we ask what would the user be looking for & how can we list it so they know it is in this section vs well portals are listed

Just some things to ponder

[Karthikk]

@Badjer

I have seen many users in Discord not bother reporting issues since they have to go to Github as they say they don’t have the time. I feel some also don’t want to make a Github account just so they can report something for RemNote if the only time they use Github is for RN which is understandable. As a result it is quite possible there are more issues than the team is aware of. This, in turn, can be a killer since word of mouth can be quite powerful

thanks for highlighting this. We are coming up with a way that could probably help tackle this dilution of bug reporting/discussing happening across various platforms.

@Badjer

If you want to get it out there then it needs to be more than just forums. Just some thoughts

Good point. Noted.

@Badjer

I think there needs to be more engagement with the team in the community. Right now it seems they are a shadow, there but not. Often you will see them on Discord but no one engages. Often users are asking for help & it is great if we can help. However, the team should monitor & jump in when no else has

Yes, this is something that we are definitely trying to fix asap.

@Badjer

It is a nice community, don’t get me wrong. Hope this is not coming across negative. Just some things that perhaps could help some things

Not at all, thank you for sharing

@Badjer

Here we are not given that response but if there is not any feedback, if you have no idea if they are actually going to work on it, then you may get discouraged

Completely agree with you there and apologies for the trouble earlier.

@Badjer

It is difficult trying to use the tutorials as I find they are based on the previous idea. The issue with such an approach is you almost need to read the tutorial front to back vs jumping to pt looking for.

It would also be helpful if can find what looking for without knowing what that feature is.

We have identified the trouble with current onboarding and are working heavily for making a revamp The goal is to have the floor as low as possible, while leaving the ceiling high for power users to grow into.

[Karthikk]

Hey @Kamran! Thank you for sharing your experience and I think that’s a great idea, to start using discord’s voice and video channels to help the users. This is certainly in our upcoming community program plan and I am happy to hear that it resonates with your thoughts as well.

The 24*7 helpline sounds like a great idea. Thanks again for sharing.

[Impyrean]

Could you improve upon the dark mode for RemNote?

It’s basically inverted colors, and I understand if it’s not a necessary task right now. But, with me being a night-owl and the current inverted color "dark mode being uncomfortable and unsettling to look at, it’s bothersome to use light mode at night.

[Kamran]

I see you are a new user. Welcome to the community.

as this thread not being specifically for the feature requests, I’ll post this on feature requests and mention you there. @Impyrean

[Karthikk]

@Kamran

It is beneficial because, if I report a bug and after it being confirmed, if I can see that my bug is at number 14 of the total bug reports and will probably be cleared in the upcoming update. Or if the reported bug will be taken care of in a very long time, so that we as users can have discussion of work-arounds for the time being (workarounds prove to be hints for great features)

Yes we are in the process of designing a system that would notify the respective users regarding the status of the bug and also ping them once it has been fixed
Thank you for suggesting this.

@Kamran

Same with the feature request.

This might be more trickier to achieve than the bug fixes, nevertheless will note this down

[marcothesis]

@Badjer

When you compare to Roam Research (I know there are many haters here for some reason but it is my current app) if I make a feature request it is taken care of within hrs, sometimes days. Even when it is not the communication is very open, not behind closed doors. If there is a delay you are at least kept in the loop.

Here we are not given that response but if there is not any feedback, if you have no idea if they are actually going to work on it, then you may get discouraged

One thing to consider is that, Roam, by default have users already paying for it so they should be expected to a certain degree, be responsive to your level of support needed.

RemNote, on the other hand is still bootstrapping. While the community is important and all, can’t really expect the founders to hand hold every single free user out there when they run into problems. Any correspondence one get from the team is a bonus and to my knowledge, Martin still reply personally to free users even today. So I guess sometimes, it’s about managing our own expectations as well.

@Badjer

When I used Evernote for years & a request/ report was made the response would be thank you for your time. We will look into it & take it into consideration. However, you had no idea if they were really going to look into it or do anything about it.

And yes, Evernote is a really bad example of customer support, company direction gone astray when they were under Phil Libin. I probably used Evernote for about 10 years already, and their support are just people trying to clear support tickets.

[Badjer]

Was not suggesting anyone to be hand holding

Just supporting the idea of having a roadmap, of keeping things open. Letting users know where things are helps with the community.

I don’t believe helping each other should be considered hand holding. If that is felt in any way when helping people then that in itself is not very community based & would make users, whether free plan or not, hesitate is getting involved with such a community

[Karthikk]

@marcothesis

Martin still reply personally to free users even today. So I guess sometimes, it’s about managing our own expectations as well.

True that, he single handedly tries to maintain inbox zero for the support emails. Thank you for your kind words, nevertheless we do strive to respond to the community as much as we can

[Karthikk]

@Badjer

I don’t believe helping each other should be considered hand holding. If that is felt in any way when helping people then that in itself is not very community based & would make users, whether free plan or not, hesitate is getting involved with such a community

I think no one here feels that helping each other is similar to hand-holding. The community here is one of the friendliest and we only hope to nourish it as much as possible

[marcothesis]

@Badjer

Just supporting the idea of having a roadmap, of keeping things open. Letting users know where things are helps with the community.

Yes, yes, and yes. I support this view too.

@Badjer

I don’t believe helping each other should be considered hand holding. If that is felt in any way when helping people then that in itself is not very community based & would make users, whether free plan or not, hesitate is getting involved with such a community

Yes too. To be clear, hand holding is not a bad thing. It’s a matter of who is available to help hand hold someone new and clear their doubts. When the community is strong and active, anyone available stepping in to hand hold a lost sheep is great. But for the founder to hand hold / address each email would be a misuse of his time, IMHO. People still can schedule 1:1 demo with them, I mean who else does this??

Hopefully our tutorials and guides get better with time, taking all the great suggestions the community has already provided and less hand holding is needed for new users.

[marcothesis]

@Karthikk I am sure you have seen this.

I just want to capture this from discord as I felt the gist is what I and ‘many’ users align with in terms of RemNote’s direction and next steps to continue building the community. I think this is from the same @MAB941009 I’m tagging.

Only want to add: we are really underutilizing the strength of Discord, the voice channel!! Just using that for office hours biweekly with the founders in rotation will improve the community experience greatly. It helps us know the people behind RemNote better and in turn, them knowing us, the community better.

[Karthikk]

Yes I have noted this done already and goes perfectly with the plans that I have laid down for the near future as well.
I will be hosting these community calls regularly (hoping to start from the coming week) and will definitely try to pull in the others from time to time as well

I completely agree that we are not using discord to the fullest at all, it definitely needs some icebreaking asap.

Apart from Q&As and AMAs, what kind of community calls do you think will benefit the most immediately?
I can think of a few:

1. Workflow sharing between users
2. Study together channels
3. Brainstorm sessions to build workflows/ templates together

Quick tease :
Book clubs and journal reading clubs are in the plans especially great to have once the shared knowledge bases are out

[Finn_Lobsien]

All three of those would be fantastic! Maybe there’s even space for all three?

1. Workflow sharing could be a sub-forum, especially if it’s incentivized to share things and if users can request workflows to see if others have already built them.

2. Coworking/studying channels could just be a public Zoom room with intervals (e.g. 60 minutes of work, 10 minute breaks). Moderation is an issue, but perhaps community leaders or RN team members could lead the rooms.

3. These could be regular Zoom calls led by RN team members.

I’d love all three! But if you have to prioritize one, I’d love to see organized and incentivized workflow sharing!

[Finn_Lobsien]

There have been a lot of requests in terms of customer support, public roadmap and what RemNote can learn from Roam.

I think one thing which would really move the community forward (and grow it at the same time) would be highlighting and/or interviewing notable users and how they use RemNote on social media, a Blog, YouTube channel etc.

That would help the current community see how to use RemNote productively (which isn’t a given for most new users). It would also incentivize what you’ve created for/in RemNote and make the most passionate community members feel valued by the team and community.

Plus, if someone is featured as an expert somewhere in public, they’re likely to tell others and share it with their friends, which could help the app grow without a giant marketing offensive.

[Badjer]

@marcothesis

To be clear, hand holding is not a bad thing. It’s a matter of who is available to help hand hold someone new and clear their doubts

Helping is more than acceptable. Calling it hand holding has negative connotations & would not be the best way to describe such an approach in a thread that is supposed to help with community building. It does not come across as building but TY for the clarification

Helping out is needed for sure. In an app that is the main reason in having a community. I firmly believe in the power of a community as I don’t normally waste time with locked in apps that have no care for community spirit

@marcothesis

But for the founder to hand hold / address each email would be a misuse of his time, IMHO

Not trying to suggest that the founder/ co-founders address each email personally & realize they do provide 1 on 1 support when requested. I am all for the community jumping in. I find this as a most important factor in building a community.

The context in which I mentioned this, in the vein of community building, is that in the Discord there are often Team Members logged in. Often users are asking questions. The community helps out often but there are times when no one knows the answer or at least don’t reply.

At this point in time a team member should help out/ guide them in the right direction. This might not be something they need to do but in the vein of community building this would be one possible factor to help build a community

If a new user dives into the tutorials, cannot find an answer, asks questions & receives no help even when team members are around this does not provide a community feel. I am not saying that the team needs to answer instead of the community but rather if the community has no replies on the given question. Leave no open loops so to speak. Allow community to help out first but ensure they have some kind of help if none was provided by the community. As a community we want to build all users up. They do not need to email personally so long as help is provided even if this help is passed onto someone else.

Often I try helping out when no one is around on this basis so that they feel the community spirit. I do not have the most experience in this app but due to my experience with bi-directional apps & various approaches to PKM I have been able to help out on certain topics within Discord. I am not obligated but want to help build a better community.

I was also referring to the team just chatting some times on no specific topic. Lounge talk if you will.
I have talked to Martin before & find him quite a solid & well intentioned person though I doubt he recalls who I am. Building a community requires both the users & team getting to know each other, not just the users.

These are not should be doing items but some thoughts to help build the community spirit

I should point out when I first posted this the Team had just barely started to shift their focus more to the community as well as other things so if a reader is reading this be aware these things are being worked on. Not sure if there is a solution yet but the fact that it is being worked on is something

@marcothesis

People still can schedule 1:1 demo with them, I mean who else does this??

Agree with this. Some claim this but in actuality I don’t find it so. Martin does for sure. Not sure if other Team members offer this but I can verify Martin does. On top of that he will go beyond the 15 min time slot if there is not a scheduling conflict

Kudos on that end
I think this is a great team that is learning their way around & will get there

@Karthikk

I think no one here feels that helping each other is similar to hand-holding

It was actually in regards to a reply so was actually the case. They have expanded on their idea which is appreciated but this is why I don’t think that is the best way to describe it

Thanks for your comment, though

@Karthikk

The community here is one of the friendliest and we only hope to nourish it as much as possible

Agree community is friendly & helpful
Nourishing as much as possible is still a work in progress IMHO
However, the fact that the team is aware this is something that needs to be worked on & have said so means a lot. Willing to admit short comings is a huge step

To wrap things up let me say I think this is a great community that is willing to evolve & learn. That in itself is great. Although I was requested to look at RN at the bequest of others I do find that there are many good things, the evolving community spirit & willingness to learn/ build on it being one of those good things.

Hopefully this clears things up & I leave you all in a space of positivity which was my original intention. Seems I missed that mark some how & apologize if I did. My intention was only to provide some thoughts for community building not how the app should operate behind the scenes

[waynelin]

@Badjer

The app is nice as it is depending upon a user’s use case. However, there are some features for some users where they need it for their workflow, not just want it. If they see app as it is they may just move on. If they see it is on roadmap they may look at things differently as they realize it is in the cross hairs

Right.
Because there’s no roadmap and no other type of workflow examples, I always presume RemNote would only care about the spaced-repetition users.
(looking for alt options since the promoted workflow isn’t mine)

[Karthikk]

Hey Finn I see this is your first post here, welcome to the community!

@Finn_Lobsien

Workflow sharing could be a sub-forum,

Good point, I agree having a separate category/sub category to document user workflows will be very helpful.

@Finn_Lobsien

Coworking/studying channels could just be a public Zoom room with intervals (e.g. 60 minutes of work, 10 minute breaks).

I think we could use our existing Discord community for this, they have really good audio and video channels for this.

@Finn_Lobsien

1. These could be regular Zoom calls led by RN team members.

The problem with team members sharing workflows is that, it could end up being prescribed workflows. Users could easily get influenced by certain limited workflows that the team members practise and it could limit the creativity of users coming up with just theirs.
Moreover, it is always the case with many tools that power users have better workflows in place than the team members themselves
My idea is to help bring such powerful/creative workflows out to the public by encouraging and incentivising users to share them with others. Our role as a team would be at best, to facilitate, moderate, reward and empower such behaviours.
Any thoughts on that?

Also, I think we can definitely start with all of those, no reason to limit other than just wanting to build up slowly, wouldn’t want to spread ourselves and the users thin too much.

@Finn_Lobsien

I think one thing which would really move the community forward (and grow it at the same time) would be highlighting and/or interviewing notable users and how they use RemNote on social media, a Blog, YouTube channel etc

Good point, thanks for the suggestion.