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EAGLE User Chat (English) Boycott Element14 posts - for the rest of September
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Related

Boycott Element14 posts - for the rest of September

Former Member
Former Member over 13 years ago

Element14 created problems for the community of forum users of

news.cadsoft.de which they don't appear to have the desire to fix so I

suggest a boycott until

the end of September, or longer if need be, for any assistance requests

logged from there.

 

That would leave Cadsoft staff  and Element14 volunteers to answer all

queries from the many beginners that that site is attracting.

 

Currently most of the knowledge and assistance is coming from the community

that is newsgroup centric or those using  EagleCentral

(http://www.eaglecentral.ca/forums/).  which is in a fit enough state and

works well exchanging messages and files.with the newsgroup. There is one

issue with attributing the correct writers name to a post but those posts

have come from Element14 (Oh!dear, enough said).

 

Cadsoft/Element14 benefits immensely (real money) from all the time and

experience that forum members donate and as much as I like providing the

assistance, I feel nothing will change until they are hit in the pocket or

gain bad press. They have had ample notice.

 

As I see it there are two issues needing correction

(1) Attachments that work both directions

(2) Filter out the emoticon ASCII (known as spam in some circles) prior to

sending to the NNTP

 

 

The methods to use to spot which messages to boycott is varied.

Much of the time  I get suspicious due to the nature of the question.

For news readers, I set  rules that colour  the message headers to indicate

where they have came from. (abilities vary with readers)

EagleCentral messages standout as they most often included the

www.eaglecentral signature.

Browsing at EagleCentral you can spot  the sender as 'Element14 User' for

those Element14 users that did not provide a contact email. For those that

did they have a name  so these are hard to determine.

 

...and its easy. All you have to do is 'nothing' for a month and something

good could come out of it.

 

Regards

Warren

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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  • Former Member
    Former Member over 13 years ago

    Warren Brayshaw schrieb:

     

    Element14 created problems for the community of forum users of

    news.cadsoft.de which they don't appear to have the desire to fix so I

    suggest a boycott until

    the end of September, or longer if need be, for any assistance requests

    logged from there.

     

    Well, while the posts from there are increasingly annoying, I don't

    think a boycott is the right reaction.

     

    That would leave Cadsoft staff  and Element14 volunteers to answer all

    queries from the many beginners that that site is attracting.

     

    I assume that the obvious correlation between dumb newbie questions and

    element-14 posters is a result of the new cadsoft website, which shows

    the element-14 forums as the first support address:

    <http://www.cadsoft.de/forums/>

     

    [IMHO, the order should better be 1. newsgroups, 2. eaglecentral.ca, 3.

    element-14 (may be omitted).]

     

    As I see it there are two issues needing correction

    (1) Attachments that work both directions

    (2) Filter out the emoticon ASCII (known as spam in some circles) prior to

    sending to the NNTP

     

    Lately, I contacted CadSoft/Farnell on this issue - let's see if

    something happens.

     

    The methods to use to spot which messages to boycott is varied.

    Much of the time  I get suspicious due to the nature of the question.

    For news readers, I set  rules that colour  the message headers to indicate

    where they have came from. (abilities vary with readers)

    EagleCentral messages standout as they most often included the

    www.eaglecentral signature.

    Browsing at EagleCentral you can spot  the sender as 'Element14 User' for

    those Element14 users that did not provide a contact email. For those that

    did they have a name  so these are hard to determine.

     

    For filtering element-14 posts, simply look for "premierfarnell" in the

    "Path" header - if you really want to.

    However, there also are "normal" questions and answers posted from

    there, so it's not a good idea to filter them all.

     

    ...and its easy. All you have to do is 'nothing' for a month and something

    good could come out of it.

     

    It's always your choice to answer - or not. I also do not reply to

    /every/ post I could have an answer for (or for which I'd need more

    details to be able to provide an answer).

     

    Tilmann

     

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  • Former Member
    Former Member over 13 years ago in reply to Former Member

    Tilmann Reh wrote:

     

    Well, while the posts from there are increasingly annoying, I don't

    think a boycott is the right reaction..................

     

    >............. Lately, I contacted CadSoft/Farnell on this issue - let's see

    if

    something happens..............

     

    Thanks for putting the effort into this doing that.

    I have done that previously for Element14 and new website issues. Nothing

    changed except that an attachment did get through from Element14 the other

    day. Yet to see another.

     

    ........I assume that the obvious correlation between dumb newbie

    questions

    and element-14 posters is a result of the new cadsoft website, which

    shows the element-14 forums as the first support address:

    <http://www.cadsoft.de/forums/>

     

    [IMHO, the order should better be 1. newsgroups, 2. eaglecentral.ca,

    3. element-14 (may be omitted).]

     

    The order is determined for commercial reasons.

     

    For all its ease and speed of use, a newsreader is not the tool for surfing

    the web looking for help. You get a newsreader once you decide to settle in

    with a forum.

     

    It's understandable for Farnell to modernise the Eagle brand, hence the new

    look website.(pity it's so slow)

    The Element14 knode is obviously  netting potential customers of a new

    generation.

    I suspect upper management may want the newsgroup disbanded as it is not

    generally percieved as a modern tool and denies them the ability to

    advertise in that space.

     

    However, there also are "normal" questions and answers posted from

    there, so it's not a good idea to filter them all.

     

    I disagree. Filtering them all is the only way to get the point across. It's

    the equivalent of broadcasting to all Element14 posters that they should

    now, instead, send email requests for assistance directly to Cadsoft  who

    would be very pleased to help them. Element14 would be fixed fairly quickly

    if that happened, I suspect.

     

    It's always your choice to answer - or not....................

    Agreed. I will find it hard not to assist when the requester has done their

    homework and requesting properly.

    There is plenty to entertain us coming in via the newsgroup and

    EagleCentral.

     

    Fingers crossed that the simple fixes are attended to.

     

    Warren

    --

    Viewed / responded via the newsgroup at

    news.cadsoft.de

     

     

     

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  • Former Member
    Former Member over 13 years ago in reply to Former Member

    Tilmann Reh wrote:

     

    Well, while the posts from there are increasingly annoying, I don't

    think a boycott is the right reaction..................

     

    >............. Lately, I contacted CadSoft/Farnell on this issue - let's see

    if

    something happens..............

     

    Thanks for putting the effort into this doing that.

    I have done that previously for Element14 and new website issues. Nothing

    changed except that an attachment did get through from Element14 the other

    day. Yet to see another.

     

    ........I assume that the obvious correlation between dumb newbie

    questions

    and element-14 posters is a result of the new cadsoft website, which

    shows the element-14 forums as the first support address:

    <http://www.cadsoft.de/forums/>

     

    [IMHO, the order should better be 1. newsgroups, 2. eaglecentral.ca,

    3. element-14 (may be omitted).]

     

    The order is determined for commercial reasons.

     

    For all its ease and speed of use, a newsreader is not the tool for surfing

    the web looking for help. You get a newsreader once you decide to settle in

    with a forum.

     

    It's understandable for Farnell to modernise the Eagle brand, hence the new

    look website.(pity it's so slow)

    The Element14 knode is obviously  netting potential customers of a new

    generation.

    I suspect upper management may want the newsgroup disbanded as it is not

    generally percieved as a modern tool and denies them the ability to

    advertise in that space.

     

    However, there also are "normal" questions and answers posted from

    there, so it's not a good idea to filter them all.

     

    I disagree. Filtering them all is the only way to get the point across. It's

    the equivalent of broadcasting to all Element14 posters that they should

    now, instead, send email requests for assistance directly to Cadsoft  who

    would be very pleased to help them. Element14 would be fixed fairly quickly

    if that happened, I suspect.

     

    It's always your choice to answer - or not....................

    Agreed. I will find it hard not to assist when the requester has done their

    homework and requesting properly.

    There is plenty to entertain us coming in via the newsgroup and

    EagleCentral.

     

    Fingers crossed that the simple fixes are attended to.

     

    Warren

    --

    Viewed / responded via the newsgroup at

    news.cadsoft.de

     

     

     

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  • Former Member
    Former Member over 13 years ago in reply to Former Member

    Tilmann Reh wrote:

     

     

    >I assume that the obvious correlation between dumb newbie questions and

    >element-14 posters is a result of the new cadsoft website, which shows

    >the element-14 forums as the first support address:

    ><http://www.cadsoft.de/forums/>

    >[IMHO, the order should better be 1. newsgroups, 2. eaglecentral.ca, 3.

    >element-14 (may be omitted).]

     

    I agree.

     

    OTOH I can understand that Farnell prefers their own site. But since

    it's badly broken, they need to make a better gateway, anyway!

     

    Oliver

    --

    Oliver Betz, Munich

    despammed.com is broken, use Reply-To:

     

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  • Former Member
    Former Member over 13 years ago in reply to Former Member

    Thank you for your feedback here, there is also a community area Feedback and Support where you can post about issues with the element14 side of things.

     

    We want to ensure that Cadsoft users are looked after as best as possible.  We would also love to have all the experienced cadsoft users taking part in discussions on element14 about their designs and helping the community members out, as well as discussing your questions with the Cadsoft product.

     

    There is a wealth of information on the element14 community, and access to thousands of other experienced designers and our suppliers which we would hope is also beneficial to Cadsoft users.

     

    However, none of the above will happen if we don't keep our users happy!

     

    So we'd like to invite some more feedback.  If you could use the feedback area, or email communitymanager@element14.com then I can respond directly if necessary.

     

    I'd like to hear how you use the newsgroups/forums/websites, and what  are your specific issues. Do you have any suggestions? i.e should we  create a 'beginners' newsgroup, or maybe have a FAQ section, and   provide some rules on posting.

     

    From your comments I understand the issues are:

     

    1 - New users posting 'dumb' questions to innapropriate forum.

    2 - Attachments not always being transferred - is this from newsgroup to the element14 site, or in the other direction, or both?

    3 - Element14 posts all appearing on the site as the same user name.

    4 - Speed of Cadsoft website.

     

     

    As above, I think we can alleviate the problem from new users by providing a better initial support area on the website with a FAQ etc. Again, as our experienced users, you are best placed to help our  beginners, so please let us know the types of question/problems that we  should be populating a FAQ with.

     

    I can confirm that we are looking into why the attachments are not being transferred across, as this is something that should have been fixed already.

     

    We can investigate getting the correct username passed with each new post.

     

    We have the support team investigating the speed of the new website and this should be fixed shortly.

     

    On another point, it was not a management decision to try and move away from newsgroups.  As experienced developers both myself and all my colleagues were really surprised that anyone was still using the newsgroup system so it was more a technical decision in order to get the discussions indexed on the internet.

     

    I hope this goes some way to assure you that we do take these issues seriously.  We obviously want to keep our existing users happy, and need to provide the best possible support for new users.

     

    So please if you do have specific problems that you think are related to the element14 community website, or ideas for improvement please use the feedback & Support section (http://www.element14.com/community/community/support), or email communitymanager@element14.com

     

    Regards,

     

    Martin

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  • Former Member
    Former Member over 13 years ago in reply to Former Member

    Op Tue, 20 Sep 2011 11:06:31 +0200 schreef martinuser 

    <communitymanager@premierfarnell.com>:

     

     

    Hello Martin,

     

    From your comments I understand the issues are:

     

    1 - New users posting 'dumb' questions to innapropriate forum.

    2 - Attachments not always being transferred - is this from newsgroup to 

    the element14 site, or in the other direction, or both?

    3 - Element14 posts all appearing on the site as the same user name.

    4 - Speed of Cadsoft website.

     

    >

     

    as for item 3: everyone posting from Element14 has a 'From:' header like 

    this:  "From: "User Name" <communitymanager@premierfarnell.com>" The 

    username is substituted for the poster's name, the return e-mail is always 

    the same.

     

    Add to that the annoying emoticons coming through as text: 

    image. 

    Please remove these before forwarding the message to the newsgroup.

     

     

    We can investigate getting the correct username passed with each new 

    post.

     

    As stated above, it is not only the username, but the 'From:' header that 

    needs to be corrected.

     

     

    On another point, it was not a management decision to try and move away 

    from newsgroups.  As experienced developers both myself and all my 

    colleagues were really surprised that anyone was still using the 

    newsgroup system so it was more a technical decision in order to get the 

    discussions indexed on the internet.

     

    Really? surprised that anyone is still using the newsgroups? As for 

    myself, I'm not a frequent poster on the Eagle newsgroups but I do read 

    the relevant groups on a daily basis ever since I started using Eagle 

    (4.0; about 10 years ago). Newsgroups are so much quicker than webforums 

    when browsing messages. Everything is 'delivered' in a familiar interface 

    on my computer, no login, no navigation, no advertising (..). I would 

    really hate it, if beeing forced to use a website for this. The last 

    time a manufacturer removed newsgroup access for a program I use 

    (Autodesk's AutoSketch), I really never bothered to check in again. It's 

    just to much work.

     

     

    Richard

     

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  • Former Member
    Former Member over 13 years ago in reply to Former Member

     

    "martinuser" <communitymanager@premierfarnell.com> wrote in message

    news:288034563.1871316509622009.JavaMail.jive@flmspu-

     

    So we'd like to invite some more feedback. If you could use the feedback

    area, or email communitymanager@element14.com

    (mailto:communitymanager@element14.com) then I can respond directly if

    necessary.

     

    Why not just use this thread? Thats how us old newsusers like it. One simple

    entry.

     

    I'd like to hear how you use the newsgroups/forums/websites, and what are

    your specific issues. Do you have any suggestions? i.e should we create a

    'beginners' newsgroup, or maybe have a FAQ section, and provide some rules

    on posting.

    From your comments I understand the issues are:

    1 - New users posting 'dumb' questions to innapropriate forum.

     

    That happens all the time. I think the new one is the quantity has gone up,

    maybe because Farnell grabs new users at higher rate. I think we all should

    live with it. You don't have to anwer noob questions if you don't want to.

     

    2 - Attachments not always being transferred - is this from newsgroup to

    the element14 site, or in the other direction, or both?

    I have suggested before to always post links to attachments. It would have

    to be a link where we don't have to log in and do other time consuming

    things to get to it. I have on some occations logged in to element14 to find

    it, but usually the workload overwins the curiosity.

     

    3 - Element14 posts all appearing on the site as the same user name.

    I accidentially hit reply (personal) instead of reply group to a element14

    user and got a reply from you that I should go to the forum to seek

    answers.. I did not even notice what his replyto address was before it was

    too late. I think element14 lacks the experience of how NNTP servers/readers

    work. You need to get an experienced user to design the interface between

    NNTP and yours.

     

    4 - Speed of Cadsoft website.

    I rarely use the website, neither cadsoft or element14 (however, I do use

    farnell to browse component availability). If I do, its to see if someone

    made a component already in the download section. Im still using IE8 (and is

    pleased with it) and I don't really get into much problems with it.

     

    As above, I think we can alleviate the problem from new users by providing

    a better initial support area on the website with a FAQ etc. Again, as our

    experienced users, you are best placed to help our beginners, so please

    let us know the types of question/problems that we should be populating a

    FAQ with.

     

    I think Casoft (and TONS of other sw tool programmers) could learn from

    computer games here. Why not make a "follow me intro level" built in, where

    starter users get some tasks to do interactively. Its surely more fun and

    efficient training than reading a 300 page manual, or even watching a one

    way tutorial where you have to stop it, switch window, try and maybe rewind

    and fumble around to find where the relevant stuff started. I only use

    manuals for looking up specific problems, not as a starter. When you open a

    new toy, only some originals wants to read the manual before playing.

     

     

     

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  • Former Member
    Former Member over 13 years ago in reply to Former Member

    martinuser schrieb:

     

    Thank you for your feedback here, there is also a community area

    (javascript:;) where you can post about issues with the element14

    side of things.

     

    See the "javascript" inside your text? What does it do here?

     

    As others have noted, we can also post here - much more efficiently, and

    besides that the discussion stays concentrated.

     

    We want to ensure that Cadsoft users are looked after as best as

    possible.  We would also love to have all the experienced cadsoft

    users taking part in discussions on element14 about their designs and

    helping the community members out, as well as discussing your

    questions with the Cadsoft product.

     

    Well, if you really want to have the experienced users share their

    knowledge, you need to keep their threshold for helping as low as

    possible. Speaking in technical terms, that means you need to make

    "scanning" of postings and writing of answers as fast as possible. As

    soon as it's too much effort, the writers won't spend their time for

    helping others. I, at least, also have some other things to do, and am

    always short on time. I really like to share my experience with EAGLE

    and help others as far as I can (and even use valuable time to write

    this reply since I think that EAGLE deserves that support), but

    definitely not at the effort of using a web forum.

     

    If you provide additional access and searchability by some web based

    gateway, it's OK - but please take care to not annoy those who are

    using/preferring the newsgroups (who provide a large part of the answers

    - noticed that?).

     

    There is a wealth of information on the element14 community, and

    access to thousands of other experienced designers and our suppliers

    which we would hope is also beneficial to Cadsoft users.

     

    However, none of the above will happen if we don't keep our users

    happy!

     

    So we'd like to invite some more feedback.  If you could use the

    feedback area, or email communitymanager@element14.com

    (mailto:communitymanager@element14.com) then I can respond directly

    if necessary.

     

    You can also respond directly here in the newsgroups. If you try, maybe

    you even realize that it's much faster and more efficient?

     

    I'd like to hear how you use the newsgroups/forums/websites, and what

    are your specific issues. Do you have any suggestions? i.e should we

    create a 'beginners' newsgroup, or maybe have a FAQ section, and

    provide some rules on posting.

     

    I don't think a "beginners" newsgroup would help much. Even bloody

    beginners tend to see themselves as experts sometimes... :-\ However,

    the FAQ (there already is one at the CadSoft website) surely could be

    expanded, and some basic rules about how to ask a question would also

    make some sense IMHO (though those asking really dumb questions wouldn't

    read any rules, anyway).

     

    From your comments I understand the issues are:

    1 - New users posting 'dumb' questions to innapropriate forum.

     

    We won't be able to change that. It doesn't matter, anyway - if they are

    really too dumb, simply ignore them. If you provide "how to ask a

    question the smart way" in the FAQ, we might eventually post a link to

    that. image

     

    2 - Attachments not always being transferred - is this from newsgroup

    to the element14 site, or in the other direction, or both?

     

    It appears that attachments aren't transferred either direction.

    Recently, one attachment made it from element-14 to a newsgroup. But

    obviously, that was an exception. :-\

    I agree with Morten that they should be referenced by link (in the

    direction from element-14 to the newsgroups) as they are stored on the

    element-14 server anyway.

     

    3 - Element14 posts all appearing on the site as the same user name.

     

    Most (but not all) element-14 posters are displayed with

    "communitymanager@premierfarnell.com" as sender (From:) address.

    The real name is inserted correctly, however.

     

    Maybe this is for some kind of "spam protection" (to not publish the

    real mail addresses of the registered users at element-14). For people

    using decent news clients, it's not really a big problem (unless they

    try to respond personally), however the other web gateway at

    eaglecentral.ca has a bug that results in wrong user name displays there

    (but that's a problem there, not yours).

     

    4 - Speed of Cadsoft website.

     

    Basically, it's not the speed - the site is badly broken. There are two

    main issues:

     

    a) It is invalid HTML. Please use a validator to check for correct code

    before uploading it to the server.

     

    b) The new site makes use of Javascript for several purposes. Without

    Javascript, it doesn't even render correctly - the complete layout of

    the starting page is falling apart, with some texts and links being

    invisible or unreadable. To make things worse, enabling scripts for

    CadSoft alone doesn't make it render correctly - you need to allow

    scripts of a third domain (jquery.com) for that. You should know that

    Javascript is a potentially dangerous technique, so at least by default,

    it should be inactive. Any website should completely render correctly

    (and be fully functional) without Javascript (keywords: barrier-free,

    browser independent). You might use JS to enhance comfort or style, but

    not require it for a correct display. Besides, never use scripts

    running at other domains if they are relevant for the function of your

    own site.

     

    The new website is a good example about how to make it worst. Those who

    have written that obviously lack some knowledge and experience.

     

    Regarding speed: yes, it's somewhat slow sometimes. You should address

    that, too - after you fixed the real problems.

     

    I'd like to add two more issues:

     

    5 - Emoticons

     

    Emoticons placed in posts at element-14 end up as lengthy script macros

    within the posts transferred to the newsgroups.

     

    6 - Line wrapping

     

    Posts from element-14 always contain complete paragraphs within a single

    line (with the newsreader wrapping them due to the window size). When

    answering, it's always necessary to rewrap the message for a correct

    quoting.

     

    As above, I think we can alleviate the problem from new users by

    providing a better initial support area on the website with a FAQ

    etc. Again, as our experienced users, you are best placed to help our

    beginners, so please let us know the types of question/problems that

    we  should be populating a FAQ with.

     

    A good starting point might be an analysis of the last 1000 questions

    here in the newsgroups... All questions being (similarly) asked more

    than (say) 5 times are candidates for the FAQ (or better documentation).

     

    When participating at the newsgroups regularly, you'd also detect FAQ

    candidates by yourself. Every time you read a question and think "oh my

    - not again" ... well, that's an FAQ candidate. image

     

    I can confirm that we are looking into why the attachments are not

    being transferred across, as this is something that should have been

    fixed already.

     

    Yes, it really should have been. Thanks for finally caring.

     

    We can investigate getting the correct username passed with each new

    post.

     

    See above about user names and mail addresses. And eventually take care

    about privacy. (In the newsgroups, we know that our mail addresses are

    public - so we use adequate addresses. Probably, the forum users must be

    informed about that.)

     

    On another point, it was not a management decision to try and move

    away from newsgroups.  As experienced developers both myself and all

    my colleagues were really surprised that anyone was still using the

    newsgroup system so it was more a technical decision in order to get

    the discussions indexed on the internet.

     

    As experienced newsgroup user, me and some other regulars are really

    surprised that anyone could even think about using a forum instead by

    his own choice. image

     

    OK - let each one use the way of access that he prefers. It's fine to

    make this messagebase searchable by web access. It's also OK to provide

    web access for reading and writing. But the gateway should work correctly.

     

    I hope this goes some way to assure you that we do take these issues

    seriously.  We obviously want to keep our existing users happy, and

    need to provide the best possible support for new users.

     

    So please if you do have specific problems that you think are related

    to the element14 community website, or ideas for improvement please

    use the feedback & Support section

    (http://www.element14.com/community/community/support), or email

    communitymanager@element14.com

    (mailto:communitymanager@element14.com)

     

    Well, the newsgroups users (mostly) are not the element-14 users, so

    we don't have "specific problems" with the community website - we just

    suffer from its malfunction.

     

    Thanks for listening,

    Tilmann

     

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  • Former Member
    Former Member over 13 years ago in reply to Former Member

    martinuser schrieb:

     

    Thank you for your feedback here, there is also a community area

    (javascript:;) where you can post about issues with the element14

    side of things.

     

    See the "javascript" inside your text? What does it do here?

     

    As others have noted, we can also post here - much more efficiently, and

    besides that the discussion stays concentrated.

     

    We want to ensure that Cadsoft users are looked after as best as

    possible.  We would also love to have all the experienced cadsoft

    users taking part in discussions on element14 about their designs and

    helping the community members out, as well as discussing your

    questions with the Cadsoft product.

     

    Well, if you really want to have the experienced users share their

    knowledge, you need to keep their threshold for helping as low as

    possible. Speaking in technical terms, that means you need to make

    "scanning" of postings and writing of answers as fast as possible. As

    soon as it's too much effort, the writers won't spend their time for

    helping others. I, at least, also have some other things to do, and am

    always short on time. I really like to share my experience with EAGLE

    and help others as far as I can (and even use valuable time to write

    this reply since I think that EAGLE deserves that support), but

    definitely not at the effort of using a web forum.

     

    If you provide additional access and searchability by some web based

    gateway, it's OK - but please take care to not annoy those who are

    using/preferring the newsgroups (who provide a large part of the answers

    - noticed that?).

     

    There is a wealth of information on the element14 community, and

    access to thousands of other experienced designers and our suppliers

    which we would hope is also beneficial to Cadsoft users.

     

    However, none of the above will happen if we don't keep our users

    happy!

     

    So we'd like to invite some more feedback.  If you could use the

    feedback area, or email communitymanager@element14.com

    (mailto:communitymanager@element14.com) then I can respond directly

    if necessary.

     

    You can also respond directly here in the newsgroups. If you try, maybe

    you even realize that it's much faster and more efficient?

     

    I'd like to hear how you use the newsgroups/forums/websites, and what

    are your specific issues. Do you have any suggestions? i.e should we

    create a 'beginners' newsgroup, or maybe have a FAQ section, and

    provide some rules on posting.

     

    I don't think a "beginners" newsgroup would help much. Even bloody

    beginners tend to see themselves as experts sometimes... :-\ However,

    the FAQ (there already is one at the CadSoft website) surely could be

    expanded, and some basic rules about how to ask a question would also

    make some sense IMHO (though those asking really dumb questions wouldn't

    read any rules, anyway).

     

    From your comments I understand the issues are:

    1 - New users posting 'dumb' questions to innapropriate forum.

     

    We won't be able to change that. It doesn't matter, anyway - if they are

    really too dumb, simply ignore them. If you provide "how to ask a

    question the smart way" in the FAQ, we might eventually post a link to

    that. image

     

    2 - Attachments not always being transferred - is this from newsgroup

    to the element14 site, or in the other direction, or both?

     

    It appears that attachments aren't transferred either direction.

    Recently, one attachment made it from element-14 to a newsgroup. But

    obviously, that was an exception. :-\

    I agree with Morten that they should be referenced by link (in the

    direction from element-14 to the newsgroups) as they are stored on the

    element-14 server anyway.

     

    3 - Element14 posts all appearing on the site as the same user name.

     

    Most (but not all) element-14 posters are displayed with

    "communitymanager@premierfarnell.com" as sender (From:) address.

    The real name is inserted correctly, however.

     

    Maybe this is for some kind of "spam protection" (to not publish the

    real mail addresses of the registered users at element-14). For people

    using decent news clients, it's not really a big problem (unless they

    try to respond personally), however the other web gateway at

    eaglecentral.ca has a bug that results in wrong user name displays there

    (but that's a problem there, not yours).

     

    4 - Speed of Cadsoft website.

     

    Basically, it's not the speed - the site is badly broken. There are two

    main issues:

     

    a) It is invalid HTML. Please use a validator to check for correct code

    before uploading it to the server.

     

    b) The new site makes use of Javascript for several purposes. Without

    Javascript, it doesn't even render correctly - the complete layout of

    the starting page is falling apart, with some texts and links being

    invisible or unreadable. To make things worse, enabling scripts for

    CadSoft alone doesn't make it render correctly - you need to allow

    scripts of a third domain (jquery.com) for that. You should know that

    Javascript is a potentially dangerous technique, so at least by default,

    it should be inactive. Any website should completely render correctly

    (and be fully functional) without Javascript (keywords: barrier-free,

    browser independent). You might use JS to enhance comfort or style, but

    not require it for a correct display. Besides, never use scripts

    running at other domains if they are relevant for the function of your

    own site.

     

    The new website is a good example about how to make it worst. Those who

    have written that obviously lack some knowledge and experience.

     

    Regarding speed: yes, it's somewhat slow sometimes. You should address

    that, too - after you fixed the real problems.

     

    I'd like to add two more issues:

     

    5 - Emoticons

     

    Emoticons placed in posts at element-14 end up as lengthy script macros

    within the posts transferred to the newsgroups.

     

    6 - Line wrapping

     

    Posts from element-14 always contain complete paragraphs within a single

    line (with the newsreader wrapping them due to the window size). When

    answering, it's always necessary to rewrap the message for a correct

    quoting.

     

    As above, I think we can alleviate the problem from new users by

    providing a better initial support area on the website with a FAQ

    etc. Again, as our experienced users, you are best placed to help our

    beginners, so please let us know the types of question/problems that

    we  should be populating a FAQ with.

     

    A good starting point might be an analysis of the last 1000 questions

    here in the newsgroups... All questions being (similarly) asked more

    than (say) 5 times are candidates for the FAQ (or better documentation).

     

    When participating at the newsgroups regularly, you'd also detect FAQ

    candidates by yourself. Every time you read a question and think "oh my

    - not again" ... well, that's an FAQ candidate. image

     

    I can confirm that we are looking into why the attachments are not

    being transferred across, as this is something that should have been

    fixed already.

     

    Yes, it really should have been. Thanks for finally caring.

     

    We can investigate getting the correct username passed with each new

    post.

     

    See above about user names and mail addresses. And eventually take care

    about privacy. (In the newsgroups, we know that our mail addresses are

    public - so we use adequate addresses. Probably, the forum users must be

    informed about that.)

     

    On another point, it was not a management decision to try and move

    away from newsgroups.  As experienced developers both myself and all

    my colleagues were really surprised that anyone was still using the

    newsgroup system so it was more a technical decision in order to get

    the discussions indexed on the internet.

     

    As experienced newsgroup user, me and some other regulars are really

    surprised that anyone could even think about using a forum instead by

    his own choice. image

     

    OK - let each one use the way of access that he prefers. It's fine to

    make this messagebase searchable by web access. It's also OK to provide

    web access for reading and writing. But the gateway should work correctly.

     

    I hope this goes some way to assure you that we do take these issues

    seriously.  We obviously want to keep our existing users happy, and

    need to provide the best possible support for new users.

     

    So please if you do have specific problems that you think are related

    to the element14 community website, or ideas for improvement please

    use the feedback & Support section

    (http://www.element14.com/community/community/support), or email

    communitymanager@element14.com

    (mailto:communitymanager@element14.com)

     

    Well, the newsgroups users (mostly) are not the element-14 users, so

    we don't have "specific problems" with the community website - we just

    suffer from its malfunction.

     

    Thanks for listening,

    Tilmann

     

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