FIRST-a-holic Anonymous mailbox corner

[Aaron Lussier]

Just so I make sure I'm reading this right the system would work out something like this:

First a person who is haveing trouble with there team or a concern with something e-mails the mailbox. i.e.

Dear, First-a-aholic mailbox (or a diffrent name)

There are a few people on my team that like robotics and are very skilled, but I can not get them to focus during the meetings, I have tried dealing with this by saying/doing

- All of
- This standard
- Stuff

But this has not worked out What should I do?

Signed,

Stressed In New England

Then one of the people responding to the e-mails in the mail box will first make sure it is appropriate, and then respond i.e.

Dear Stressed in New England,

You teammates have classic yayayyayayayayayayaya, you should take them to the side during your next meeting and try yyayayayayaayayaya

Signed,

First-a-holic Email box moderator.

Now realize I just threw down what ever came out of my head for the emails. But overall is that the way it would work out?

[Ken Leung]

Originally Posted by Aaron Lussier

Just so I make sure I'm reading this right the system would work out something like this:

First a person who is haveing trouble with there team or a concern with something e-mails the mailbox. i.e.

Dear, First-a-aholic mailbox (or a diffrent name)

There are a few people on my team that like robotics and are very skilled, but I can not get them to focus during the meetings, I have tried dealing with this by saying/doing

- All of
- This standard
- Stuff

But this has not worked out What should I do?

Signed,

Stressed In New England

Then one of the people responding to the e-mails in the mail box will first make sure it is appropriate, and then respond i.e.

Dear Stressed in New England,

You teammates have classic yayayyayayayayayayaya, you should take them to the side during your next meeting and try yyayayayayaayayaya

Signed,

First-a-holic Email box moderator.

Now realize I just threw down what ever came out of my head for the emails. But overall is that the way it would work out?

The first part is right. But I am not sure I would limit the responds to only mailbox moderators. Any thoughts on this? I do not want to ask people to spend their time in this as dedicated moderators who are the only ones to reply, since they are busy already anyway. Besides, I cannot say who is "more deserving" to be moderators than others when a lot of people are good.

All that need to be done is monitor the incoming message to wipe out the names, and watch for responding messages to make sure they don't cross the line.

[Wetzel]

Dear Kenny...

Perhaps having a subsection on CD, with 3/4 ish mods. The same group can get access to the submissions. Can threads in a certan forum require mod approval before they are public? That seems to me the easiest way to do it, just have people submit to it, then the mods can read it and then repost it using the Dear Kenny moniker. Once posted, then everyone can post and read it.

That is if the forum can do that. If not, then setting up a new user on CD that the forum mods can all use, and have people PM their questions there.


Wetzel

[Kiwi_queen]

i give two thumbs up to the idea. it'd be a way for people to get help without anyone looking down upon them or what not. I say go for it!

[Jay H 237]

Originally Posted by Ken Leung

The first part is right. But I am not sure I would limit the responds to only mailbox moderators. Any thoughts on this? I do not want to ask people to spend their time in this as dedicated moderators who are the only ones to reply, since they are busy already anyway. Besides, I cannot say who is "more deserving" to be moderators than others when a lot of people are good.

All that need to be done is monitor the incoming message to wipe out the names, and watch for responding messages to make sure they don't cross the line.

I believe the responses should be open to everyone and not just the moderators. Say someone does have a concern, someone from another team might have had the same concern and can post how they dealt with it. It might have happened to several individuals (or teams) and you can get different responses so the original poster will then have more than one choice on how to deal with it. The moderators can also give thier thoughts and advice and also filter the responses. I believe this "Dear Abby" idea is great and will help alot of individuals and teams.

( Just out of curiousity if there are three to four moderators how often would they check (to screen) the responses? Say someone posts a reply but it has to be screened first would it be hours before the Mod posts it?)

[indieFan]

I have one minor tweak on the "everyone gets to respond, not just the mods" concept. Everyone has valuable information to give on one topic or another; however, all too often from what I've seen on these forums, the information gets buried in the long lengths of some posts or the amounts of posts in a thread. I've also seen the "Department of Redundancy Department" represented to a significant degree in various posts. Since the "emails" would be moderated to start with, I would prefer to see the moderators make a compilation response to the original "email".

Just my thoughts,
indieFan

[Jeff Waegelin]

Originally Posted by indieFan

I have one minor tweak on the "everyone gets to respond, not just the mods" concept. Everyone has valuable information to give on one topic or another; however, all too often from what I've seen on these forums, the information gets buried in the long lengths of some posts or the amounts of posts in a thread. I've also seen the "Department of Redundancy Department" represented to a significant degree in various posts. Since the "emails" would be moderated to start with, I would prefer to see the moderators make a compilation response to the original "email".

Just my thoughts,
indieFan

Well, the Department of Redundancy Department is what the new mods are here to handle. I think as long as the moderators for this forum are on the ball, it should be fine.

[Ken Leung]

Many things for the wonderful responds from all of you. I greatly appeciate your thoughts and suggestions.

Let me think about this for a little bit and see what can be done.

[Ken Leung]

Originally Posted by Ken Leung

Many things for the wonderful responds from all of you. I greatly appeciate your thoughts and suggestions.

Let me think about this for a little bit and see what can be done.

Ok, after chatting with Brandon for a little, I found out:

1. It is possible to make a forum where only approved message will show up.
2. It is very hard to post a message without showing who the user is.

I think what we can do is setup a little corner in the forum, and people can e-mail/PM me messages they want to post, and I can post the message for them. Then all responds will be approved before they are open for public to see. Realistically, I don't think there will be much moderating going on. Only meaningless or negative responds will not be approved, and any mentioning of individuals, teams, organizations will be replaced. The current moderators can easily do this without much work.

Now all we need is a good name for this corner. I only use FIRST-a-holic Anonymous mailbox corner because I rushed it. Any suggestions?

[Jessica Boucher]

Ummmm, the FAH Mailbag, Ask the Forum, FIRST Feedback, FRC-911, ::racking brain::

or......Sleepy Ken's Corner?

[Matt Leese]

As a suggestion for not showing who posted the message, wouldn't it be easier for whoever's approving the message to just post it and approve it under their name? That way it stays anonymous.

Matt

[Ken Leung]

Originally Posted by Matt Leese

As a suggestion for not showing who posted the message, wouldn't it be easier for whoever's approving the message to just post it and approve it under their name? That way it stays anonymous.

Matt

Ah, good idea. That way people just have to post a message, and the moderator copy, delete the post, and start a new thread under their name.

Now all we need is a good name for this. :-)

[Joe Matt]

Originally Posted by Ken Leung

Ah, good idea. That way people just have to post a message, and the moderator copy, delete the post, and start a new thread under their name.

Now all we need is a good name for this. :-)

But that'll still have your name to the post, even if not for ever, atleast for a few hours. Can't we just PM them to people?

[Kate Leach]

Can we create a new user just for this mailbox? Then let whomever the moderators are have the user name & password to log in whenever they get the chance. That should take care of the initial post being moderated & anonymous.

We're only trying to make the original post anonymous, right? That way if a someone responds to the original, they could be contacted personally for more details about their view. If we're trying to make everything anonymous then forget I even said that.

My $0.02.
Kate

[Ken Leung]

Originally Posted by JosephM

But that'll still have your name to the post, even if not for ever, atleast for a few hours. Can't we just PM them to people?

See the trick is, since its an approve only forum, only messages approved by the moderators will show up. So any messages that people post will not show up at the beginning. Then the moderators just have to look at them, copy and start a new thread, and disapprove/delete the original message.

I am also fine with just doing it in PM/E-mail. It's up to what people want really. My PM box can act as the mailbox.

I thought about creating a new user for this purpose, although that means we cannot keep track of who did what to which message. I would rather have moderators added for this then not knowing who did what to which message. Also, I am not sure what would happen if multiple people log into the same user at once. Too much work to log on and off between different user when there is an easier way to do it.