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OK... this forum is for us to tell you what's new on the community. The idea is that when we announce something we'd really like to get your feedback and as fast as possible.
Community is all about people helping people and wanting our community to be the best it can be. Might sound a bit trite but to be frank that's what Scots have done all over the world.
As I've spent so much time doing the history of Scotland and the Scots it is very clear to me that in the old days when Scots settled all over the world they wanted their new community to be the best it could be. They were often the ones to get the first church built in their community and with that was often a school.
Being a member of a Clan was also community based as members helped members where Clan Members had special skills or just wanted to help out a neighbor. When so many of the Clan Members were chucked off their lands to give way to sheep they must have been totally disgusted with their Clan Chief.
That said when they emigrated to other parts of the world they took with them that sense of Clanship and Community and so where they settled they wanted that place to be the best it could be. That meant that anyone who settled in their area became a kind of Clan Member no matter what ethnic background you had.
And certainly when you read the history of those early settlements you see people helping people. They got together to raise a barn, to help with roofing a house, you have sewing bees, quilting bees, and in Canada I know they got together to make Maple Syrup and sugar.
Everyone needed help at some point during the settlement of new lands, villages and townships.
That's also why we called this the Electric Scotland Community rather than the Electric Scotland Social Network. We wanted to forge a new community that would be worth getting involved with and where members can help members and also help to build this community to be the best it can be.
This is also why we need your feedback. Just because we add some new application to the community doesn't mean that it is here to stay. We just think it might offer a benefit to the community but after reflection we might find that it's not as good as we thought.
It's like the new Media product we've introduced. It now appears that we're mostly limited to adding YouTube videos but as we already have that ability within our forums I'm not sure that it adds much to our community.
I think we do need a way to upload videos and audio but this media clearly doesn't offer that facility so do we really need it?
And that's why it's important to get feedback from the community. Let us know if you either like something or don't like it or even if you are ambivalent to it. I'd be more than happy if every member expressed a view on anything we add to the community and don't be worried if you just tell us you don't like something as it certainly won't hurt our feelings.
Steve and I don't claim to be perfect and so if we spot something that we think would be great for the community and add it in we look to see what it offers to us. When we come to use the new feature we may decide that it doesn't offer what we thought it would offer and so we'll take it down. This is why we'd love feedback as soon as possible after we put it up.
Also if I might ask for your feedback... would it be better if we announced each new benefit in a separate thread and added a poll for it? Like we could simply ask "Do you like this new feature" and offer Yes, No, Not Bothered as options you could vote on? That way you wouldn't need to actually send us a message just vote. Having read about the new feature you can go look at it and then come back and vote on it.
I'd like to think that being a member of the community that you'd make a point of reading any new message in this forum and also make a point of responding to let us know what you think. That's what a good community does.... helping each other to be the best we can be. Silence is not an option!!! <grin>.
Alastair
Community is all about people helping people and wanting our community to be the best it can be. Might sound a bit trite but to be frank that's what Scots have done all over the world.
As I've spent so much time doing the history of Scotland and the Scots it is very clear to me that in the old days when Scots settled all over the world they wanted their new community to be the best it could be. They were often the ones to get the first church built in their community and with that was often a school.
Being a member of a Clan was also community based as members helped members where Clan Members had special skills or just wanted to help out a neighbor. When so many of the Clan Members were chucked off their lands to give way to sheep they must have been totally disgusted with their Clan Chief.
That said when they emigrated to other parts of the world they took with them that sense of Clanship and Community and so where they settled they wanted that place to be the best it could be. That meant that anyone who settled in their area became a kind of Clan Member no matter what ethnic background you had.
And certainly when you read the history of those early settlements you see people helping people. They got together to raise a barn, to help with roofing a house, you have sewing bees, quilting bees, and in Canada I know they got together to make Maple Syrup and sugar.
Everyone needed help at some point during the settlement of new lands, villages and townships.
That's also why we called this the Electric Scotland Community rather than the Electric Scotland Social Network. We wanted to forge a new community that would be worth getting involved with and where members can help members and also help to build this community to be the best it can be.
This is also why we need your feedback. Just because we add some new application to the community doesn't mean that it is here to stay. We just think it might offer a benefit to the community but after reflection we might find that it's not as good as we thought.
It's like the new Media product we've introduced. It now appears that we're mostly limited to adding YouTube videos but as we already have that ability within our forums I'm not sure that it adds much to our community.
I think we do need a way to upload videos and audio but this media clearly doesn't offer that facility so do we really need it?
And that's why it's important to get feedback from the community. Let us know if you either like something or don't like it or even if you are ambivalent to it. I'd be more than happy if every member expressed a view on anything we add to the community and don't be worried if you just tell us you don't like something as it certainly won't hurt our feelings.
Steve and I don't claim to be perfect and so if we spot something that we think would be great for the community and add it in we look to see what it offers to us. When we come to use the new feature we may decide that it doesn't offer what we thought it would offer and so we'll take it down. This is why we'd love feedback as soon as possible after we put it up.
Also if I might ask for your feedback... would it be better if we announced each new benefit in a separate thread and added a poll for it? Like we could simply ask "Do you like this new feature" and offer Yes, No, Not Bothered as options you could vote on? That way you wouldn't need to actually send us a message just vote. Having read about the new feature you can go look at it and then come back and vote on it.
I'd like to think that being a member of the community that you'd make a point of reading any new message in this forum and also make a point of responding to let us know what you think. That's what a good community does.... helping each other to be the best we can be. Silence is not an option!!! <grin>.
Alastair