Posted By Alan Johnson
have got to agree with you re Forum page allan.
But it looks like half a day is all it takes to drop off the first page. I placed an enquiry at 6.30 pm monday and it will have dropped off by noon Tuesday having attracted no replies.

Alan

Posted By Gavin Gibson
A very valid point. How about enabling people to view up to say 50 entries in the list, in a similar manner to many results from search engines.
Alternatively you could group your topics so that you would see 6 - 8 topics. Either by legislation, eg PUWER, COSHH, or by topic, eg risk assessment, investigations, much in the way that a book is organised.

Posted By Allan St.John Holt
Whatever, Gavin. I agree we could make it more convenient, and there would be a lot preferences expressed. But my point is that we ought to fix what's wrong as a primary aim!

Webperson Angela, are you listening?!

Posted By Eric Burt
I suggest we have a bulletin board where we can post info that the rest of the group can access e.g. Allans SARS info, Training presentations, policies etc. I know this will take up a lot of space, but this will save the hassle of individual contributors sending out the same e-mail many times.

This could even be done through Angela (the Web-maester) to ensure that only good quality info gets through (with the rider that it is not endorsed by IOSH etc etc)

Just out of interest - anyone any idea of how many IOSH members access this site? ( Or as a percentage). It must be a fair number. I bet we get more viewers than BBC 3 !!

Eric

Posted By Graham Bullough
Here are several thoughts about the discussion forum (I avoid the term "chat" in this context as it could be misconstrued with chatline!)

1. If you are looking at any summary page other than the top page (page 1) and click on the OSH chat folder symbol to look at the list of threads, you are always returned to page 1. If this is a problem with the IOSH website and not some quirk of my own computer, I hope it could be amended to make past pages easier to use. The existing remedy for viewers is to use the "back" button instead.

2. Another comment is that the "back to the top" command at the bottom of a thread with full responses sends you to the top of the thread with only the orginal topic and a list of respondees. Again this may just be a quirk of my computer or something which could be ironed out by IOSH.

Now for some thoughts which relate more to forum usage rather than its design:

3. Some of the headings used for threads are obscure and give little or no indication of what the thread is about. Users should be encouraged to think a little more about their headings when starting a thread so that viewers are better informed as its theme.

4.Some headings contain blatant spelling or typing errors. These tend to suggest that those who start them haven't bothered to spend a little time doing a check before launching their thread. I'm not trying to slag writers of threads or responses with spelling /typing errors, but wish to draw attention to the poor impression they create for anyone who views/reads the forum.

5. Talking of slagging, it's pertinent to comment that some threads degenerate into prolonged tit for tat responses between a few people. Please can users bear in mind that the discussion forum, along with the rest of the IOSH website, is the electronic equivalent of a billboard or journal viewable by anyone worldwide with internet access. I don't know how many non-IOSH people look at the discussion forum, but slagging matches on it do little for the people involved or for the status and credibility of IOSH, its members and the H & S profession generally. In addition threads with prolonged slagging take up webspace and can over-occupy the top page - with the effect that most viewers probably stop looking at them after a while because there is nothing new or useful to be gleaned from them.

6. Perhaps the forum pages ought to contain a visible standard disclaimer, like journals do, that threads and responses reflect personal opinion, etc and are not necessarily endorsed by IOSH, etc.

Posted By Ron Young
FAO Graham,

Graham, don't mis-interprate genuine reasoned debate with slagging matches. This is a critical time for the H&S profession and it will do no-one any good if the IOSH inner circle don't hear voices from all angles. It's a great forum to express your opinions and you should use it that way. How else would we hear the comments of the great and good on such a regular basis.

Oh, I think Allans comments about threads falling off the bottom are relevant but perhaps this is a ploy of the "system" to allow the more controversial topics to disappear a bit quicker than they possibly would if the layout was changed...

Posted By Website Co-ordinator
Hi,

As you will be aware, we recently revised the whole website design to reflect the new Corporate ID. You may recall that during the last quarter of 2002, speed of loading of pages had become noticeably slower and we took the opportunity to deal with this on the redesigned site. It was apparent from the comments in January that people appreciated the speed of download of the revised site.

The redesign did not however change the number of forum messages viewable on each page – this remains at 20, although we do appreciate that as the number of postings continues to increase, messages will move off the front page more quickly.

We could potentially increase the number of thread titles listed per page, and have not ruled this out, but given the download considerations, we are also looking at signposting options for the next pages, to encourage people to want to click through. Any suggestions on what would make you want to view the next page? Please email me.

Finally, I’m aware that the facility to view thread stats is well used. For those who’d like a flavour of overall stats for the website, back in 2000 when my post was created, the website had 3 million hits over the year. In 2001 there were around 18 million and the last time I looked, 2002 was notching up around 30 million.

I hope this goes some way to explaining why I’m spread a bit thinly at present! The good news, however, is we expect to recruit another member of staff later this year to work on the website.

Angela Wheatcroft Website Co-ordinator

Liz Spencer Head of Public Relations

Posted By Geoff Burt
One serious point is that English may not be the first language of some contributors. Others, through no fault of their own, may just not be able to spell - and does the ability to spell matter that much anyway as long as the message is understood?

I would hate to think adverse comments on such minor things as spelling may deter contributors to an excellent, informative, and generally tolerant site.

Going back to the original subject of forum design - apart from a couple of very minor irritations mentioned above I find this one of the very best and easiest sites to use. This is one area IOSH, IOSH staff and members should all be proud of.

Geoff

Posted By George Wedgwood
A few small comments - I seem to do a lot of scrolling - often just to go down to the 'next message' number bar. If this were put to the top of the page we could simply go to the next response more quickly if we did not think the content was what we were interested in.

I like the idea of visible 'hit' counters - they give a view of how many others are interested in a thread - not just related to the number of responses.

In terms of categorisation, I like the idea of setting up an index of postings and this could be set out on the EU hazard classification standard so we could post into the appropriate area for ease of scanning for a particular interest area. Additional arwas to cover things like CPD, development, IOSH Planning etc, could be added for completeness but most of all the site could respond to Members ideas of what category they would like to see added.

Re IOSH information systems strategy, if you look at the Corporate Plan you will see a commitment to continuous development of IS and IT systems to improve Membership and admin performance. Things like personal access to certain Membership areas, collaboration websites, purchasing and online applications not to mention CPD recording, will all be part of the future plan. With your support and constructive comments we should remain in the van of development for web interaction - so keep it up!

George Wedgwood, Council Member & Corporate Strategy Committee member.