RE: FN-PRO Main Freelancers Forum query

date posted 1st August 2000 12:42

The other thing I have seen on other forums, is to enforce a topic
keyword in the subject line to help with filtering mail, e.g. SITE
CHECK, JOB, EVENT, QUERY. Do you think that would help make the volume
of email more manageable?

This sounds ideal to me. This would make filtering (in Outlook at least)
dead easy. Presumably the list would just bounce non-compliant messages? In
which case, can it also bounce reply messages which include whole threads,
non-text, or very long messages?

David Nye
http://dnye.com
Business Systems, Database & Internet Applications Design & Development.
Microsoft SQL Server, Access, ASP & VB Programming.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: [EMAIL REMOVED] [EMAIL REMOVED]
> Behalf Of Dan Winchester
> Sent: 31 July 2000 11:45
> To: [EMAIL REMOVED]
> Subject: Re: FN-PRO Main Freelancers Forum query
>
>
> > Did you envisage that the Freelancers Digest would turn into a
> > flame board and a "Please check my site out" area?
>
> Guys,
>
> I do appreciate where you are coming from here. I have to download all
> the forum emails too!
>
> But as Peter (Small) identifies, it's very hard to be selective about
> what is 'appropriate' and what isn't. In terms of site checks, I
> wouldn't want to ban people for asking for feedback, or to bug or beta
> test their work. Flames are unfortunate, but if you think of the forum
> as a community, they do serve a purpose in that that community starts
> to self-regulate itself.
>
> The scope of the forum is certain wide, and this means it's noisy, but
> we tried drilling down into specific areas with the pro forum, and
> it's never particularly taken off, with much of the pro traffic
> 'naturally' migrating back to the main forum.
>
> I'm not saying that there's nothing that can be done here - just that
> it's hard to see an easy solution. Breaking the forum up in specialist
> areas doesn't seem to work, those new forums just wither and die.
> We've supplied a noticeboard, but people don't use it particularly for
> setting up meetings or for site checks.
>
> The events/meetings have been so successful so far, I think this is
> one area where we could definitely take the strain off the main forum
> and back into the site itself, especially if the events start falling
> on regular dates, e.g. last Thursday of the month.
>
> The other thing I have seen on other forums, is to enforce a topic
> keyword in the subject line to help with filtering mail, e.g. SITE
> CHECK, JOB, EVENT, QUERY. Do you think that would help make the volume
> of email more manageable?
>
> Sorry if this seems a generally unhelpful response to this issue. I'm
> happy to setup another forum with stricter rules (e.g. only tech
> questions) if you still think it would help things. In fact, it's very
> easy for us to setup any number of forums, so this isn't the problem.
> As an aside, if any of you want your own forum, just give us a shout!
>
> Peter (Small), I'm thinking Reading and London meetings, last week of
> each month, alternate months? What do you think?
>
> Comment, suggestions, criticisms - always welcome.
>
> Cheers
> Dan
>