[Theforum] Design (was: Demographics)

Madhu Menon webguru at vsnl.net
Wed Nov 7 09:41:23 CST 2001


At 07:45 PM 11/7/2001, you wrote:
>That's an interesting idea.  I don't know how we would enforce it
>though.  With people coming and going it would be a constant
>re-education of our members on the correct format.  Might work though.

I strongly suggest we don't try and "enforce" anything, apart from general 
mailing list etiquette. We could publicise the format on thelist, and maybe 
add it to the list guidelines as well as the intro mail one gets when one 
subscribes to thelist.

Let's say we're both subscribers (which we are). You post a message for a 
critique using the prescribed format. If I read your post, I've then made a 
mental note of this format. If three or four others also use this, the 
format is reinforced in my mind. When I decide to post a critique request, 
I'll probably remember it.


>Awhile back, admin considered doing a monthly/weekly site critique of
>a major public site on thelist and then create an article out of it.

Sounds like a good idea. Why aren't we doing this already? Of course, it 
comes down to:

a) Who would do the critiques
b) A standard format for the critique so there aren't differences in 
methodology, which can distort results


>A variant of this was also considered on admin in an adhoc manner.
>Usually it would be admin people suggesting to thelist members to post
>their question and responses received in an article on the site.  It
>usually turned out that no one had the time to followup.  The hardest
>part is getting the volunteers with enough time to consistently cull
>the data.  It's a good idea though.

Nah, people have jobs to do and at any given time, a person may not be free 
for this. He may perhaps be free to do it the following week. That's why 
I'm suggesting that we not make *one* person responsible, but a team of 4 
or 5 people in each section. That way, the probability of *all* of them 
being choked with work gets reduced. I'm sure we have enough members with 
expertise to make this small number. Plus it works well as a marketing tool 
when you say something like "XYZ is one of the guides to HTML on evolt.org, 
a community of web developers." And lastly, unlike membership to, say, the 
admin group, this does not need extraordinary privileges and hence 
screening for acceptance to the guides group need not be as strict. If a 
person is inactive for a month or more, he/she gets dropped. Simple.

Thoughts?

Madhu

<<<   *   >>>
Madhu Menon
User Experience Consultant
e-mail: webguru at vsnl.net





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