Edited by KevinKorell, 03 September 2008 - 12:20 PM.
A message from the Board Leader
#1
Posted 08 February 2007 - 11:15 PM
Kevin Korell
OTOL Board Leader
Lakewood, NJ
#2
Posted 03 September 2008 - 12:21 PM
Kevin Korell
OTOL Board Leader
Lakewood, NJ
#3
Posted 08 February 2010 - 02:01 AM
The Board Leader and the Admins/Mods of OTOL work hard to make this the wonderful and favorite stop on the Internet SupeRRailroad that it is for rail oriented news and information. To that extent, being a little more careful in how you post things on the board will go a long way towards helping us achieve that goal.
When you start a new topic, please make sure that the topic was not posted recently by somebody else. You can use our search functions to see if the same news story may have already been posted.
Please try to keep stuff on topic and thus within the correct forum. We recently had what was clearly a commercial for a school that teaches music. Obviously it does not fit in with our theme. We only allowed it to remain because the person who posted it made reference to how to get to the location by train; in fact he did demonstrate clear knowledge of Amtrak and commuter rail in the area. But please take note that we discourage what clearly borders on "Spam". The person also posted the same note four times, in different forums; we allowed only one to remain.
Next, we do welcome the posting of questions regarding rail travel, be it intercity, transit, or commuter. Please try to keep these questions in the pertinent forum, and with a fitting topic title. A good example was that somebody recently had a question about a baggage limit on the AutoTrain. The question was asked within our temporary forum about the recent winter storm. The question and its response were moved to new topic in the Amtrak forum, and given the name AutoTrain/Baggage Limit? Then somebody else came along and asked a question about bringing one's own DVD's on the AutoTrain, nothing at all to do with baggage. The moral here is that if you have a question about rail travel, it is usually best to start a new topic, rather than piggybacking it as a response to somebody else's question. This will help your question better get the attention it deserves, and it won't throw other person's the orginial question off topic either. We're a public forum, so we would like to help as many people as we can. But you need to help us help you by putting things in the correct place. Staff members on this board spend a lot of time moving things around, correcting spelling, or rewriting topic titles that were too long and clearly end in the middle of a word. That time could be spent posting more news items, or even spending more time with our families.
Finally, please note that as long as you are an approved registered member of our board and in good standing, you are free to post a question here. Still, we have been getting questions via e-mail to some of our Chat alerts. The purpose of Chat alerts is to notifiy the staff of abuse of, or a problem with our Chat software. It is not to ask the board staff a question about the board. You can do any of that, by contacting us individually via PM or board E-mail. The Chat alerts are not for the purpose of asking selected members answers to train related questions. We and all your fellow members would prefer these questions be asked publicly, which will increase your chances of getting a good answer since everyone sees it rather than the few who got it in e-mail form. Your answer posted in a public forum will also benefit those who come after you with similar questions. I've already also mentioned in an earlier thread about the abuse of the "Report" button that appears on every post and response. Again this is only to alert the staff of a malicious, off-topic, or otherwise unacceptable post or response.
Please help us to help you. It wil take a lot of the strain off us so we won't have to move or correct where items are posted on our board.
If you are unsure how or where to post an item, please feel free to contact either myself or any of the other Admins and Moderators.. who you can reach via board PM or e-mail. You can also read some of the other pinned topics in this Board Announcements/Comments section which may be of help to you in understanding what we allow and don't allow on the Forums. In fact, everything in this Announcements Forum should be required reading for anybody brand new to the board, so they understand what their obligations are as a new member. With a little care, you can make our lives a lot easier, and we will all apprecaite that!
We always weclome your comments and opinions on how this Forum is run. Some of your suggestions may really be something we've overlooked before that would help us to work together to make this great place even better!
Kevin Korell
OTOL Board Leader
Lakewood, NJ
#4
Posted 05 October 2013 - 11:55 PM
Kevin Korell
OTOL Board Leader
Lakewood, NJ
#5
Posted 13 June 2014 - 06:45 PM
Kevin Korell
OTOL Board Leader
Lakewood, NJ
#6
Posted 31 July 2014 - 12:10 AM
Kevin Korell
OTOL Board Leader
Lakewood, NJ
#7
Posted 24 May 2015 - 12:07 PM
Just another quick reminder, because from time to time it becomes necessary. If you come across a train-related news story, and you are a member of this board, your first impulse should not be to e-mail the link to me. As a member you have the capability to post it yourself. I encourage you to spend the time you spent sending the e-mail to instead post it properly on this board. I still average over 12 posts per day, and have many sources to check on a daily basis. With 971 members, the act of posting newsworthy articles should not fall on just a few people.
Also another reminder, check your title lines! Again we are getting some topic titles that don't fit and thus end in the middle of the word. Contrary to what I said in Post #5 above (June 13, 2014) about making use of the secondary title line, the new software we upgraded to in December of that year no longer has the second line. So one must watch what is put on the only remaining line. Copy/paste is the easy way out, but a few extra seconds to re-word the title so it fits (such as cutting out short words or using numerals instead of the numbers spelled out) makes our board more user-friendly for everyone.
Kevin Korell
OTOL Board Leader
Lakewood, NJ
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