Community Tracker Quickstart Guide

The Community Tracker is designed by Sam to function as a bug and feature tracking system for the Media Browser application. Both developers and users can keep track of everything related to Media Browser. Since it was launched it has evolved to what it is today. The Community Tracker is often abbreviated to CT or MBCT.

Because this system is slightly different then a traditional forum like the Media Browser forum we've created this Knowledge Base topic so you can read up on the main aspects of the Tracker and how it all fits together.

There are a lot of functions and ways you can view information or interact with others on various topics. By going through the most important parts of the Tracker you will get a better understanding in what you can do.

Etiquettes

Before going into any aspects of the Community Tracker we would like to point out some basic unwritten rules, also called etiquettes.

  • If you post a question, check back regularly to see if it has been answered. We want to resolve topics as quickly as possible, but in case of questions you have to stay involved until it has been resolved.
  • If a question is resolved, please accept the answer that was most helpful. That way the topic doesn’t remain “open” but is marked as “resolved”.
  • Upvote a post if it was helpful. To find out why this is important, please have a look at the “Reputation, Upvotes, Wishes and Badges” section below.
  • Do your best to make proper use of the responses and comments. More information about these response types can be found in it’s own section below.
  • Please refrain from using ALL CAPS. Doing so makes your post difficult to read and is generally considered the equivalent of shouting or yelling.
  • Be polite. Treat people how you would want to be treated. Refrain from non-constructive criticism and personal insults.

Topics

You can create a new topic on the Tracker after you've created an account and logged in to the tracker.

There is a “New Topic” button on the right side of the top menu. If you click this button you are presented with a form that you need to fill out.

Before posting a topic on the tracker, it is expected of you to do a search. Chances are that someone else already posted the same or a similar topic in the past. If so, respond or comment on that topic instead of creating a new topic. Topics that are created while there already is a similar topic will get marked as duplicate.

Type of topic
The first thing you need to do is select what kind of topic you want to create. You can select the type by clicking the tab.

There are several different topic types that can be created by users. We will list them here with a basic description.

  • Feature Requests
    A topic of this type will typically ask for a new feature that isn’t available right now or an extension to an existing feature.
  • Bug Report
    If there is something consistently going wrong with a certain feature or function then a bug is the appropriate topic type.
  • Question
    Is something not working for you or do you want to set something up in a particular way and cannot find the answer to it, then create a question topic.
  • Discussion
    Less focussed topics that are intended to actually start a discussion without asking for a specific feature, report a bug or ask a question should be of this type.
  • Knowledge Base Article
    This type of topic is not available by default. A group of community members have permission to create new KB topics. The Knowledge Base contains information about almost all aspects of Media Browser which is divided into sections. If you have permission to create Knowledge Base Articles, you're probably well informed on how the CT works.
  • Praise
    Do you like Media Browser or any of the plugins and want to say thank you, then Praise is the topic type you would want to use.
  • Fan Art
    The graphics artists within the community can use this topic type to share their work with the community.
  • Tools and Plugins
    Members of the community can use this topic to share their work on plugins, tools or scripts that can help enhance the overall Media Browser experience or help in accomplishing maintenance-like tasks on you Media Collections.

Title
Each topic you create should have an appropriate title. Use a descriptive title that summarizes the content in a single sentence. A good title really helps others to find your topic and respond to it. Descriptive titles are especially helpful for searching.

Titles such as “MB Problem” are not helpful, whereas “ImageByNameLocation in XML contains whitespace” or “HQT Plugin: no thumbnails for media shorter than 1 minute” provides a good overview of the topic. In the case of topics concerning a specific plugin it’s wise to include the plugin name in the title, either in front or after the title.

Content
In the content window, explain the situation and include as much relevant information as possible. Based on the topic type this can vary from:

  • The reason for a new feature request
  • Why something is a bug
  • Troubleshooting steps already undertaken to solve a problem
  • Installed Media Browser and plugin versions
  • Screenshots and relevant log files

Note: It is almost always helpful to include version information for your OS, Media Browser and any plugin you may be inquiring about.

Additional information about how you can format your post properly can be found here:

Tags
For searching and viewing topics by tag it is required to include a few tags. These tags help to better identify a topic and allows for filtering.

In the case of topics concerning a specific plugin, at least include the plug-in name in the tags field in order for the Developer of the plug-in to more easily notice your new topic

Examples for those plugin tags are “coverart, diamond, harmony, subtitleprovider, music, etc.”. You can do a quick search on the Tags page if you're unsure what tag to use. That page will filter dynamically once you start typing in a few characters. If there are tags that match, then use those.

Don’t use tags like “problem”, “help”. Also don’t use the tags field to write down an entire sentence or repeat the title since each word will be a tag.

Topic Status

Each topic type has a subset of statuses. These indicate at what point a topic is. You can filter on these statuses.

A complete list of all topic status can be found on the “Home” screen of the Community Tracker. You can see exactly how many topics are in every category and their current status.

The workflow of a topic is basically from new > approved/confirmed > in-progress > complete. Depending on the type of topic the names of the current status may vary, but this gives you a general idea.

Responses and Comments

The CT offers 2 ways you can respond in a topic. A response or a comment.

Responses
Responses are used to give detailed information and on-topic communication. Responses typically come from other users and not the topic owner. The exception to this is if you are also contributing in the discussion for a feature request, troubleshooting steps to the problem or answer your own question. You can format your responses and include pictures. When you have new information to add to the topic, please update your original post instead of adding a new response as much as possible.

By keeping as much input from a user in a single post will clarify what you mean to others. Doing so keeps all relevant information with the original and prevents information fragmentation when topics are sorted by “Popular” or “Votes”. Additional information about Edits and Improvements can be found below.

There are some exceptions, like when there have been multiple responses with feedback concerning your post. Based on that feedback there may be new insights. Those insights are more suitable in a new post so that the chronological order of the discussion is maintained. (By editing and completely rewriting your original post it would look odd to other users reading through the responses after you've updated your original post.)

In a Question topic you created, it is made more difficult to post a response. Questions aren’t intended to be discussions, but simply a Question that needs an answer. Sometimes it’s required though to discuss things like troubleshooting steps etc. You can always post a response, but you have to click some extra buttons for it to work.

Comments
Comments are typically added to a response of a topic but can also be added to the topic itself. When you need to reply to a response someone has added to a topic, please use a comment instead of an additional response. An example of this is if someone adds a response that explains how to fix something, but you don’t quite understand some of the content, add a comment to that response asking for clarification. Comments can also contain short notes, tips or links that are relevant to a particular response.

Although it’s easy to do, please try not to start full blown discussions within the comment sections of responses. One or two comments back and forth are ok, but after that it’s better to post a response and work from there.

Another example of when to use a comment is if you agree with someone and simply want to give them a so-called +1, then commenting is the best way to show your support (along with an upvote of course).

In some circumstances it is necessary or desirable to delete a comment. Apart from admins nobody can delete another user’s comment. You can only do this yourself.

To delete a comment you made in the past, hover over it with your mouse. It will highlight and a small X will appear at the right side of the comment. Clicking this X will remove the comment.

The main reason why comments would have to be deleted is because they are no longer relevant. This applies mainly to the Knowledge Base. People often suggest an improvement using a comment. Once that’s done the comment no longer applies, but only the person that made the comment can delete it.

Edits and Improvements

Edits
Any response (not comment) you make can be edited. There is an “edit” link at the bottom of the response. Clicking it will present you with the form you used to make the post in the first place. In case of a response you can update the response to include more information or fix spelling, grammar or other formatting. In case of a topic post you will also see the topic type, title and tag input fields. You can edit all these fields.

  • When someone adds a comment that asks you to include additional information, you should edit your post.
  • When there have been responses to perform certain steps or if they're part of the discussion it is more appropriate to create a new response so the chronological order of the discussion remains intact.

If there have been several other responses from other users it’s not always desirable to update your own response, but sometimes it is.

Improvements
Anyone that has an account on the tracker can suggest an improvement to a post. The goal of making improvements to a post is to correct or expand it. This can vary from fixing typo’s or formatting to extending an answer with more accurate information or additional reference links like a knowledge base topic.

Every improvement that is made will show up in the inbox of the user that owns the post. That user will be presented with the suggested improvement and can look at both the before and after text that will be shown.

At the bottom of the suggested improvement in the inbox there are 2 buttons. An accept and decline button. Accepting the improvement will result in it being published. As a reward for the improvement, the person that suggested it will gain reputation. If the improvement is declined, the post will remain unchanged. The person that suggested the improvement will not be informed about this decline.

History
Every edit or improvement is logged. You can view the history of a post by clicking on the “history” link at the bottom of it. This will present you with a screen that contains detailed information about what has been changed in relation to what it was originally. This includes who made the change and a summary reason.

Reputation, Upvotes, Wishes and Badges

The Community Tracker revolves around reputation. By gaining reputation you will receive additional wishes and get more abilities on the tracker.

Up & downvotes are important. Using the thumbs up or down you can show how you feel about another user’s post. If you like it, upvote it. This is especially important for answers to questions, design proposals, steps-to-reproduce and workarounds. In the end a post on those tabs will be accepted. The more votes a post gets, the more likely that post is going to be accepted.

An upvote is worth a specific amount of points, depending on what kind of post it is. More detailed information about those points can be found in the topics linked below.

Down-votes are rare, they should be used when you find that a topic is not helpful or you do not agree with the response. Keep in mind that any downvote you make will result in a 1 point reputation penalty.

Wishes are an important indicator about the desirability of feature requests or bugs that need fixed. That doesn’t mean it is the next thing on the todo list for the developers, but does give them an insight in what the community wants. You should always give your available wishes to a topic while you have them.

To quickly gain a second wish after your registration, there is a way to get it. You can find more details in this topic.

There are more detailed topics about this in these Knowledge Base articles below:

Private Messages

Besides the public communication on the Tracker it is also possible to receive and send Private Messages. You can always receive PM’s, but you can only send them if you have reached the minimum required reputation.

Private Messages are limited to a certain amount of characters. The reason for this is to limit this kind of communication. It is important that as much information as possible is available to the public. Sending PM’s back and forth about a topic or PM'ing a question directly to another user limits input from others and is undesirable on the CT.

Tags and Milestones

Tags
Each topic is required to contain at least one tag, but having more is usually valuable for search purposes. These tags can also be used to filter for topics that are related. Developers use tags to track topics that relate to their plugin or area of expertise.

For example if you are posting a topic regarding the “Vanilla” theme, you would need to make sure and add the tags Vanilla and Theme to your topic.

If your topic is a feature request to add an option to be able to disable background transitions, you might add the tags Theme UI Background Transitions.

Milestones
Developers have additional options to assign topics to themselves. If topics that relate to the core Media Browser product are fixed or completed they will be given an extra tag called the Milestone.

This milestone tag helps us keep track of what was fixed in which version of Media Browser. Again this allows for filtering.

Inbox and User Control Panel

Inbox
The inbox is an important part of the Tracker. It will show you various information about things that happened since your last visit. This includes:

  • Notifications of new responses/comments to a topic that is on the notification list
  • New Private Messages you received
  • Reputation changes

From these inbox notifications you can go directly to the topic to which they apply. By visiting the topic it is considered that you've read what has happened and the notification will be cleared from the inbox.

User Control Panel
The User Control Panel (or UCP for short) is your personal profile page. It includes both public information and private configuration options.

You can see stuff like:

  • Badges you've earned
  • All topics you've initiated in the past
  • All responses you've made in the past
  • A reputation graph
  • Settings that you can configure to make the Community Tracker experience better for your personal needs.
  • If you have enough reputation you can upload files

You can create an “about me” text using the “edit” button beside your user name when in the UCP. If you want to customize your Avatar you can do so my setting up a gravatar account.

Improvements or issues related to the Media Browser Community Tracker

If you feel there is something missing on the Community Tracker or you encounter problems while using it, there is a place where you can give your feedback. We strongly encourage anyone to get involved in improving the Tracker as well as the Media Browser product.

For keeping track of feature requests and bugs for the CT, Sam has created a seperate tracker Called the “Meta Community Tracker”. That’s the place to respond on anything you feel is missing or incorrect about this system.

Please don’t post topics about the Media Browser Community Tracker here unless instructed to do so.

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