Good morning RSPB,
A user recently posted a request for the presence of RSPB experts on these forums (see HAZY's comment on page 4 of my (OP) 'Avian whodunnit' thread).
I agree that this would be helpful, particularly with requests for ID and for practical advice regarding helping wildlife in distress.
I'm sure I'm not alone in trying to share some of my (limited) knowledge with those who might know less than me, just as I'm happy to learn from those who know more.
But some 'official' presence on the forums would, I think, be a plus, both for regular forum users and for newcomers looking for help.
To illustrate the problem, I checked my own profile this morning and see that I'm in the top 1 per cent of forum posters. Now, however you work out your metrics, something's wrong there, as while I've never been known to mix up stools and boot polish, until I've had my second coffee I frequently confuse my elbow and my ***.
Any chance of you setting up a rota for monitoring and responding to posts where necessary? In my experience, we're not looking at significant volume here...
Best regards -
Dave CH
Regards,
Ian.
__________
Nige Flickr
In reply to Nigel O:
I don’t know how long you have been a member of this forum. But the moderators where always posting regularly and all of the members got to know them well, although of course never meeting any of them and the one moderator I do miss who was in charge until she retired and is a big miss, was Mrs T(Claire). But for various reasons with cuts being made generally at the RSPB, the moderators only post on forum very infrequently now. When I first joined this forum, just after it launched, the Moderators lead by Mrs T would not just post Monday-Friday but at weekends and also well into the evening and where quick off the mark if any alerts by any of the members was activated and Mrs T would also have informal quizzes and polls and it was nice seeing the moderators been an active part of this forum. But for reasons I won’t go into cuts had to be made at the RSPB, you might know about this, but I won’t go into the detail about this. But sadly at present it’s not same on this forum now, but I’ll continue been a life member of the RSPB and. also a member of this forum. And I just hope this forum might be one day again like it used to be.
Good points and good advice, Nigel.
But I think you might be describing what the Community is intended to be rather than what it actually is, for a significant number of one-off or occasional posters at least.
What to do? I'll take a look at the advice pages you mention, consider updating my profile and using a signature to indicate that I'm a bit thick (so don't trust me), and---of course---wait for someone from the Society to answer this particular thread.
Dave
Best wishes
Hazel in the Gironde estuary, France
In reply to Dave - CH:
Dave - CH said:But I think you might be describing what the Community is intended to be rather than what it actually is, for a significant number of one-off or occasional posters at least.
Yes, I am aware of that which is why I also suggested more clarity in the definition of the Community. In the past, there was moderation, so it wasn't necessarily an issue that people went to the wrong place. Now it is an issue. Apart from that,
a) I'm not suggesting we don't answer anything. I'm just suggesting that due to the lack of official experts (incl. moderators) combined with fewer experienced users (for want of a better term) that re-direction might be something we should now consider in an answer, as we can no longer have the luxury of relying on the hope that someone will know the answer.
b) if people ask something in the wrong place or to the wrong people, however well-intended, shouldn't they be re-directed to the right people in the right place?
Obviously, your call for moderators to be re-instated would resolve the issue, but I'm not convinced that will happen anytime soon, so I offered an alternative for people to think about and that can be implemented immediately by anyone who wants to, however far from ideal it may be.