On Fri, 11 Mar 2011 08:32:05 -0800 "David Love" <davidlovepianos at comcast.net> wrote: > > Will: > > I thought that at first and I will say > that I'm disappointed at how the > functionality and the implications of > future use was communicated from the > beginning. > Very true - I wrote the following on CAUT: The rollout of this new setup was very poorly handled - and had some more thought or effort were put into advance information, justification and tutorials ahead of the rollout, a lot of this hue-and-cry could have been avoided. But, Susan tells me, that this is the way it always happens - even in large corporate settings. The people who have been working with the setup and testing of the system and the executives in charge are so very familiar with it and so sure that its use is easy and intuitive that they can't conceive that someone who comes into it cold wouldn't be able to just pick it up and run with it. Just another very human foible... > > But once you set up the system and > make your notification selections I'm > not sure it's that different in terms > of actual use (emphasis on not sure). > If you want it to operate more like > the old system then in the > notifications you should select text > (or PDA). That gives you a plain text > email notification and not an html > interactive post that defaults you to > the website format. But I'm trying > to still get a grip on the reality here. > Like anything new, it'll take some practice. I suggest that you give yourself some time every once in a while to explore the system, try various things, go through all the menus and figure out all the various things that you can do with it. Do it on a computer - where it's easier to see and navigate. Once you have a good grasp of how the system works and its various functionalities, transferring the skills to cellphone or PDA use and figuring out the specific quirks of those platforms wouldn't be a great problem. After all, you did it with e-mail too - no? > > After examining it more carefully the > only extra step really that I see is > if you want to post a new message. You > then have to go to the site and start > it from there. But that has an > advantage as well in that by doing so > you create a unique thread which is > automatically sorted on the site. > Yes! You discovered this too. This is a great plus - you can follow the thread without all the other stuff getting in the way. > > One potential issue I see is when > people form groups. You do have to > occasionally check in on the site to > see if new groups have formed. I see > this as a potential problem in that > there's no limit to the number of > small sub groups that might be > formed. You could have a voicing > group, fine. Then someone wants to > make a group on Steinway voicing, then > Renner blue voicing. There's no real > control over how any one individual > wants or decides how to set up groups > or under which umbrella a new group > might already exist. Potentially you > just have a clutter of groups. In > practice you will have to go onto the > site and check out which groups exist > to see if you want to subscribe to > that group. Once you do that it's > easy enough to select but you do have > to monitor. I don't really like that > aspect. I think it could get very > unwieldy and inefficient. > Actually, David, once you get fluent with the setup, this is a piece of cake. It takes no time at all to check the groups, and subscribing/unsubscribing involves just pushing a radio button. What I do is I subscribe to all the groups in which I am interested. Those that I want immediate contact with, I choose the "individual e-mail" option. The next level is daily digest - i skim through the subject line/author table at the top and use the HTML links to navigate to the messages I want to read and if I want to follow a thread or reply or post a message - I go to the website directly from the message via an HTML link and log in. The next level is "no notification". For those I just go onto the website once in a while and check to see whether anything interesting is happening there. Once you are fluent with the system, you can check for all the stuff you might be interested in a lot faster that wading through listserve e-mails across a lot of different groups, and select how you want to deal with each. Since changing your preferences, subscribing and unsubscribing involves merely clicking on a radio button - you can change your mode of operation depending on where the action in which you are interested is happening. The bottom line is, once you get fluent with it, this system will let you conduct your communication and information intake a lot more efficiently than the listserve. > > I can also see a problem in deciding > where you want the posting to go. As > the current system exists you can post > a query, say, to multiple groups by > simply copying the respective email > addresses into the address part of > your email. For example you can send > a single query to pianotech and caut > by just posting to both email > addresses (as I've done here). In the > new system if you want to do that I'm > not sure how that would work or > whether you would even need to do > that. If people are subscribed to > multiple groups then any posting you > put in would by everyone anyone. So > I'm not sure about that concern. > One of the problems with the listserve was that the CAUT list became much too similar to Pianotech - whereas it was supposed to be a specialized list dealing with specific CAUT concerns. Now that we have groups which deal with specific technical concerns - voicing, harpsichords, piano history - and the potential for other such specialized groups is there - say, refinishing, belly work, business and financial issues etc. etc. - one could post just there. Otherwise, if cross-posting is desired - it shouldn't be so hard to copy and paste into a second group. If there are specific individuals that you want to pose this question or idea to, you can use the "my contacts" feature to create a quick way to send it to all of them (once they agree to be your contacts). So it might be a good idea to create such contacts with all the people on Pianotech and CAUT who you feel are important for you to communicate with regarding various technical issues, and use it in such situations. Yes, there is a potential that some people might drop through the cracks in this switch from broad general lists to more finely focused groups. On the other hand, this system will definitely draw in people who were put off by the sheer mass of stuff irrelevant to them on the general lists, and the need to weed through a lot of extraneous (to them) stuff in order to get to what they want. There are always tradeoffs. In this case, experience has shown that they are worth it... > One other issue that I see is that > often conversations start on one > thread and then morph into something > else. Now the subject line is "Hmmm", > not very aptly titled with respect to > where this conversation is going. > Since you can't change the subject > line in the new system that forces you > to start a new subject line > altogether. I don't know if that's a > problem or not but there may be a > reason to want to follow the entire > thread from its pre morphed subject to > its post morphed subject. > When I change the subject line in mid thread, I always use the form "My ears are ringing - (was: Abramowitz is a neoclassicist)". If we all start doing that, and urging each other to use this form, this would not be a problem at all. This is a tenet of netiquette - we should all become familiar with it and use it. It would make our lives so much easier... > In the old system you can do that > fairly easily. In the new system, > especially going back to research, > you'll have a harder time determining > where that break took place and if you > are following the original subject > line going forward you won't know if > it branched off into a new subject > line except to hunt around and try and > figure it out. I don't like that but > I have to consider it more and see how > that might be worked around in practice. > > However, for the moment, much of the > confusion comes from the fact that > there are two separate systems > operating and how you choose > notification settings. I'm not sure > how that could have been avoided. > > The alternative is - start the new system, unplug the old one, sink or swim. i don't think that would have gone over really well in the PTG environment. Had a lot of advance publicity and information been put out, the transition period would be a lot shorter, and some of the pain could have been avoided. But not all. In my experience, many people ignore all that kind of stuff - until it bites them in the rear end. In my six years at the head of the PTG's Technical Exam whatever (titles changed in midstream) i always trumpeted changes in every publication, e-mail list and other medium where examiners could be reached. I even set up special channels. We still had lots of examiners who remained blissfully ignorant - human nature... Israel Stein -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/pianotech.php/attachments/20110311/ff346e15/attachment-0001.htm>
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