Blandford Forum Camera Club

As you may have seen, my comment in the ‘One Year On’ article (where I expressed surprise that so few members wanted to share an opinion or contribute) drew one response.

Peter Gafney’s comment can be read below and you will see that his main concern appears to be that the procedure for comment and the requirements necessary to be able to make comment are not sufficiently accessible to members. Peter also apparently feels that members shouldn’t have to ask if they do not know how to comment. Peter has separately expressed the opinion that more needs to be done to bring the website to the attention of the membership with weekly references at Club meeting nights and maybe teach-ins for members to familiarise themselves with the features.
The logical conclusion from Peter’s views is that if these deficiencies are taken care of, more members would indeed contribute. In the hope that this may be true I shall attempt to fill in some of the perceived holes:

There is control over entry to the site to avoid spam and malicious content. This is done by allowing access only to those registered and provided with a password. The mechanism for this in the past was by encouraging members to provide profiles and a portrait. This has not been popular. The other way of becoming registered is simply to allocate the status of ‘subscriber’ plus the provision of a password to members who request it. To become a subscriber you only have to ask (but you do need to ask!).
The subsequent entry of your user name and the password gives access to the comment box at the end of each article. It does not give access to the management of the site and the ability to initiate article, edit and delete etc.

In summary then:
If you wish to be able to comment, ask Marilyn Peddle, or me, to register you as a subscriber.

If you wish to contribute an article or any other input to the site, send it as a word document to Marilyn, Malcolm Bowditch or me.

How to make a comment if you are registered as a subscriber:
Go to the home page and the Login for member’s panel on the right hand side and left click login.
Alternatively: Go to the home page, open the article you wish to comment on and, at the bottom of the article, where it says Leave a Reply, left click on the logged in link in the line of text (You must be logged in to post a comment.)

You then get the login panel where you enter your user name (exactly as it was given to you) and password, left click login. (If you click the remember me box you will not have to enter your password every time.
This returns you to the home page and the article you selected for comment. At the bottom of the article is a box for your comment. Type it in and left click submit comment. Job done! Before your comment is made live on the site it has to be initiated by the moderator (Marilyn)

If you intend commenting in the future, I suggest you copy the bit of text above and save it somewhere you can refer to when you forget (like I frequently do….)
I am afraid that is as simple as I can make it.
In conclusion, thank you Peter for giving the opportunity for explaining the procedures again and hopefully in a clear way.

Peter’s initial comment:

Comment:
Regarding the Gallery:- I think it is very good. I look forward to it going live on the main site. I will, in the fullness of time, contribute more images to the site. However I would like to see a lot more contributors first. We have a sizeable number of our more,(normally), prominent members who have yet to contribute their profiles, let alone gallery images! No names, but you know who you are. Lets see some action THIS season!
Regardng feedback etc. :- Speaking only for myself I look at the main site several times a week. I suspect many others do the same. Finding out how to log on, is challenging. You not only need to find the cunningly concealed “log on” button but you also need to know the password. In addition you have to have your profile already on the site so that you will be recognised. I suspect that a combination of the three hurdles are the main reasons for lack of feedback. If there were a prominent “LOG ON” button and members were told their password without having to ring up and ask, this would also help. Some more profiles would also be a boon.

Anyone with comment?????
Regards Keith