The new website - A failure or success.

I also agree with the other posts that the use of the site has died down considerably.

The topic notifications by email in the past were great as you knew exactly what was being discussed. Now you have to go into each individual section to see what the new topics are.

BRING BACK EMAIL NOTIFICATIONS

A few points before I start:
1. My knowledge behind the programming of the website is very limited.
2. I think it is good that we are discussing ways at improving the website.

There are a few issues to be fixed still, such as notification of new topics in the IFAS Council section, but this one only affects IFAS Reps. I hope the web team can resolve this quickly please.

In terms of the remainder of the site, it was my understanding at least that most users did not use the e-mail notification system. However, that's not to say it should not be available. Initially, when the new website went live, there was a "subscribe" button which defaulted to "ON". So, whenever one posted a new thread, you would receive an e-mail notification of all new responses to that thread. Many people complained that their e-mail box was getting swamped and so the "auto-on" featurte of this was disabled.

In terms of e-mail, which of the following would people like to see?:

1. Receive e-mails when a new thread is started;
2. Receive emails when a new post is made;
3. Receive no e-mails.

Whether the first two features are immediately available in the website software right now, I don't know for sure. I will have to check with the web team.

However, I have looked at the administrator tools for the site and see there is a "subscribe" function in there. It can be adjusted on a per-user basis. As a trial, I have "subscribed" John Murphy to the site. I would like to get your feedback on it John over the coming days. If it worrks, I don't see any reason, pending discussion with the web team, why other people cannot have their profile amended accordingly.


Michael.

Seems like those of us still left on the boards agree.
Without e-mail notification posts are becoming very disjointed or else totally stagnate. There are quite a few users who I have talked to who also agree with this but have not yet commented on this post, probably because they are not visiting the site as regularly (because of lack of e-mail notification) and have therefore not seen this post yet. Bring back the old boards software please or else enable e-mail notification.

Regards,
John

Sorry posts must have crossed.

Michael,

The offerings you made:

1. Receive e-mails when a new thread is started;
2. Receive emails when a new post is made;
3. Receive no e-mails.

What about the old way where we just got notifications to posts we were contributing to? I would not necessarily like any of the above choices, that could indeed fill your mailbox, but the option to just receive mails in posts you are contributing is, I would have thought, vital.
Thanks for looking in to this by the way.

I really enjoy the IFAS forum, but I miss the old notification of topic feature.
The council members never get notice of updates in that zone, therefore
action on those issues are sometimes very slow to engage.

The photo uploading method I have sussed out now but lots of other people
cannot figure it out.

I have no idea if fixing these things is a lot of work or an easy thing to achieve???

Perhaps somebody out there could offer their time and skill to help sort it out.

I wonder if the IFAS forum had a Twitter it might be a good way to connect everyone ??
Lots of organizations have Twitter. I am only using it for a short while and I find it very useful to get information out in short bursts to large groups without having to send e mails.
Its a social messaging thing, but huge organizations use it to feed people information.
I enjoy reading the Irish Times headlines , National Geographic Photo of the Day , NASA information and information put up by other astronomers all in seconds.

twitter.com/skysketcher

Deirdre Kelleghan
PRO IFAS

The unfortunate thing about the likes of Twitter etc is that it will be blocked by a lot of firewalls / web screening software etc. as it falls under the category of social networking e.g. facebook, bebo etc. this is seen as a security / social risk in most companies as is instant messaging etc. and as a result gets blocked automatically. Email is the only "safe" way to do this.
Good suggestion though.