Question
Exploder Rules, Round Deux
Gee, I go out of town for a couple days, and see what happens?? 🙂
Thanks for everyone who responded on the rules topic. I am reading
through the responses but I think the gist of the discussion is:
1. People agree that everyone ought to follow the rules. My main
concern in making the posting was to remind people to not post the
off-topic messages--these really get annoying, even if they are
well-intentioned.
2. We have differing thoughts on the posting guidelines. Personally,
I don't mind if everything gets posted to the exploder because everyone
gets a copy of the discussion that way. As I stated, item four in my
original posting is more of a suggestion rather than a hard rule.
However, I also understand that people get frustrated when they get a
full inbox of exploder messages. I have a filter setup on my account
to route all of the discussions into a folder so I don't lose them. I
highly recommend using filters with your Outlook (or other client)
software--this is a really useful technique for screening exploder
messages, important messages from your co-workers/supervisors, junk
mail, etc.
Thanks also for the various suggestions on improving the existing rules
to make message identification/sorting easier for everyone, especially
me 🙂
3. If a change to rules is needed, it ought to be voted on by the
entire exploder community. I am open to this idea and with the portal,
we now have the means to conduct such a vote fairly.
4. Perhaps we could look at a different technology to manage the
discussions. I would prefer to use a web-based interface that would
allow people to see the original question and the follow-up responses.
The major difficulty I've had in implementing this has been cultural,
not technological. There are still quite a few people that do not have
web access at work. Consequently, we would exclude those people from
participation with such a system.
Perhaps it's time to take a survey on this issue to find out if this is
really still a problem for a significant number of members. BTW, if
anyone knows of a bulletin board/discussion software that supports BOTH
reading AND posting of messages, please let me know.
I'm getting on another plane now, so I'll check my e-mail again once I
land. Thanks again for your feedback!
Regards,
Rick
==
Rick Snider
Executive Director, PTC/USER
Thanks for everyone who responded on the rules topic. I am reading
through the responses but I think the gist of the discussion is:
1. People agree that everyone ought to follow the rules. My main
concern in making the posting was to remind people to not post the
off-topic messages--these really get annoying, even if they are
well-intentioned.
2. We have differing thoughts on the posting guidelines. Personally,
I don't mind if everything gets posted to the exploder because everyone
gets a copy of the discussion that way. As I stated, item four in my
original posting is more of a suggestion rather than a hard rule.
However, I also understand that people get frustrated when they get a
full inbox of exploder messages. I have a filter setup on my account
to route all of the discussions into a folder so I don't lose them. I
highly recommend using filters with your Outlook (or other client)
software--this is a really useful technique for screening exploder
messages, important messages from your co-workers/supervisors, junk
mail, etc.
Thanks also for the various suggestions on improving the existing rules
to make message identification/sorting easier for everyone, especially
me 🙂
3. If a change to rules is needed, it ought to be voted on by the
entire exploder community. I am open to this idea and with the portal,
we now have the means to conduct such a vote fairly.
4. Perhaps we could look at a different technology to manage the
discussions. I would prefer to use a web-based interface that would
allow people to see the original question and the follow-up responses.
The major difficulty I've had in implementing this has been cultural,
not technological. There are still quite a few people that do not have
web access at work. Consequently, we would exclude those people from
participation with such a system.
Perhaps it's time to take a survey on this issue to find out if this is
really still a problem for a significant number of members. BTW, if
anyone knows of a bulletin board/discussion software that supports BOTH
reading AND posting of messages, please let me know.
I'm getting on another plane now, so I'll check my e-mail again once I
land. Thanks again for your feedback!
Regards,
Rick
==
Rick Snider
Executive Director, PTC/USER