Discussion about the usefullness of the communication system CS provides

Message

Friday, 11 January 2008, Megève, France

Hi All CFers!

This CF outage just underlines the stupidity of not sending all communications with each CFer’s e-mail address!

GlobalFreeloaders (http://www.globalfreeloaders.com/) sends all messages with the sender’s direct e-mails so there is never a problem communicate and never delays!!

Hoping that CF will wakeup and do the same!!!

Love to all!!!

Olia

__________________________________________

Olga Kovshanova

Email: mailto:olinka@olinka.info

Homepage: http://www.olinka.info

Skype name: olinkaru

M: +33 (0)6 75 19 26 39

Reply

Olga,

Thanks for your constructive attitude. No wait I was being sarcastic.

You may see a problem here but going off calling people stupid is the fastest way to NOT solve a problem, ever.

Did you ever think that there might be another angle to the problem of sending direct email contact. The reasons are this

• That CS tries to record all contact between members for security reasons
• That giving direct links to a persons email takes away the privacy of that person by removing their ability to veto communications if they want to terminate them with that person.

You may believe that there is some huge conspiracy here but then it may just be that there is a problem with the database, caused by a power outage and the guys have been working around the clock to fix it. And even if it was something else that caused the problems, why do you care. If you don’t like the way CS is run then stick to GFL and stop being negative and complaining about CS.

The admin and tech teams are just average people like you and me and they are trying to help. So give them a break and little support and you’ll find that things run much more smoothly. If you think that you could do a better job then ask if there is something that you can do to help but don’t try to run things and if there is someone else already doing the job that you think that you could do then support them and offer advice rather than criticising and being negative.

Anyway I hope that you understand the points I am trying to make here, please feel free to write to me to discuss.

Have fun and lighten up

Regards

Trent Collins (thecombie a t hotmail dot com)

Reply

• I didn't know any "normal member" saying something critical will get told between the lines "Do some work for CS or shut up and go to GFL if you don't like it". Anyway. Trent, it's true her mail was rude, but yours is not better, you're answer sounds pretty agressive (besides, she never mentioned conspiracy theories, so don't you get paranoid). I don't think being rude to everybody being rude is a constructive attitude either.

Anyway, I understand you guys have to be stressed like hell and annoyed with people sending complaints right now, but keep it down a little. If CS volunteers start agressing everybody who is being a bit negative and telling them to shut and go to GF then I think there's a problem; esp it will throw a bad light on CS. I have to strongly disagree with your response to the girl.

• And to the CS-members out there: There is not point writing complaints about the tech problem right NOW while they are working on it and stressed like hell. Keep your critical thoughts, which I think are important and vital, for later.

Alright, hope this is not seen as an attack from my side, I just felt like making a statement (so this is not meant to be a discussion) about the tone and content of his response; I think ALL should keep the emotions down, including the volunteers. I do however think the original post had a practical point in content (if not in tone..) worth discussing.
So here's my more practical thoughts:

• I do think it would make sense to give people the OPTION to include their E-Mail adress; not in general, but for each single message, like on HC; means when you send a message there is a button "Include my E-Mail-Adress". As I'm aware of the things Trent mentioned there could be a warning next to the button saying smth like "(please consider that we can't safety-monitor messages sent through E-Mails, so please only give away your E-Mail-Adress if you're sure about it)", so that people are aware of the "danger" Trent mentioned.
  

Has smth like that already been discussed by the team? I do think a button like that, letting the user decide each time and for each message (problem of GFL is it gives away your email automatically I think) would be useful and might be a good option considering future longer downtimes of the site (more people would have each other's E-Mail).
Good luck and good nerves for repairing the problem!
Michel83 (I shortened my text a bit, it's more readable now)
P.S.: In response to the post under me: It is of course true that everybody who wants it can write his E-Mail anyway manually in every message; I do however think that a lot of people forget about doing that, so I personally still support the idea of the "button" (just like I think there is also the option given to include your adress).

About the practical points of this discussion: I would only venture to make the obvious point that there is nothing preventing anyone from including their email address--or any other contact information for that matter--in the body of any email they send. It's perfectly valid to discuss the creation of a button for this (what else is a GUI good for?:), but it's senseless to say that CS is stupid because it doesn't automatically include your email in every communication, since you can do it manually as you please. I for one appreciate the option of privacy and its possible usefulness, even if I don't feel I've ever needed it.