Board Thread:New Features/@comment-5275700-20170113210410

As part of the ongoing development of Discussions, we are happy to introduce Discussions Insights on January 17. This is a statistics area, accessible to moderators and admins, which can help identify the most active and productive users in the Discussions feature. There are three lists in this area, and all three can show information for the last 30 and 90 days.

Active users
This is a simple list showing who has made the most contributions in Discussions. Identifying the most active users is key, especially over the 90-day time span. If someone is sticking around and and staying active for several months, they’re more likely to be around for the long term and continue to play an active role in your community. If you are impressed with their style and conduct, they might be a user who you approach about contributing to the wiki or taking on a leadership role.

This “leaderboard” view is a primary reason why this data is only visible to admins and moderators. Insights is meant to inform the leaders of a community, not motivate users to get to the top of the list for its own sake.

Reports
This lists users according to the amount of posts and replies they have reported. It also details what has happened to those reports. Were the reported posts deleted, or deemed acceptable? This is a tool to help admins identify potential moderator candidates. If the majority of posts reported by a user are getting deleted, it means they likely have a good eye for things that don’t meet the community’s standards. The lists can also help identify users who report posts to simply be irritating, or for no reason at all, since most things reported by them would be approved and left visible. Promoting or reprimanding a user should take many things into account of course, but this data can be a great starting point when making an assessment.

Moderator actions
It’s helpful to know how much moderating is actually happening and who’s doing it. So this list is a straightforward tally of how many moderation actions have been taken by users with those privileges. Actions counting toward this total are: deleting a post, approving a reported post, editing a post, locking a post and changing the category of a post.

We hope that this information makes it easier to manage Discussions and assess the newer users that might be first joining your communities by posting there. Let us know what you think, and let us know if any other data would be helpful!  