Anyone involved in online communities knows that there is always a higher percentage of lurkers than there are participants. This is true for discussion forums, wikis, email lists. Note: a number of SIGs have zero activity month after month, yet those SIGs are still considered "active". Hm....

Shutting down the forums in this manner, without a replacement being immediately available or in use, shows bad planning on the part of STC.org. I'm saying this not as an administrator, but as one who enjoyed the participation level that existed. I felt that the forum was integral for interdisciplinary communication, even though for the last while I haven't had time to participate myself.

Note to Michael Hughes: I've been involved in the technology committee discussion surrounding the social networking community "replacement" RFP that went out in the spring. Unfortunately, with the economic situation as it is, I don't think Diana Buttram's choice of a replacement will fly due to the exorbitant cost of the proprietary .NET technology. In our discussions, Mary (the UUX manager), Rick S., and I all pressed for open source alternatives to the golden cow Diana was pushing.

Other bones of contention regarding the forum and its eventual demise:

1) STC.org's "hands-off, this is a member only discussion" policy: Without a voice from the inside, the forum never had a chance of succeeding. Period. Ann Wiley brought discussion points to head office and returned with the answers, but head office should have been directly involved to give us the party line directly. (That said, I'm glad that Michael personally emailed me the notice about the forum, and passed it onto my colleagues as a courtesy to them).

2) Ann Wiley's immediate adoption of the "other platforms are better" stance, after all the work she herself invested into making this forum the success that it is. I don't see Ning, Bebo, Xoops, Facebook, or LinkedIn as being better than the forum.

3) Privacy was an issue, I addressed it point blank.

a) Personally, I didn't like how the user list was searchable and visible to those who weren't logged in. So I fixed it. Users have to be logged in to view the user list.

b) We used to get lots of fake registrations resulting in spam posts, even after Lou installed the pre-registration validation routine. I fixed that, and even have the form submissions emailed to me so that I can verify that the STC member's credentials passed through okay. Since May 2007, zero spam.

c) We could have locked out forum topics to specific member groups, if we wanted to maintain a sense of privacy. The forum could have been the link for all the SIGs, if so desired.

4) Since I jumped on board two years ago I've been wanting to better integrate the forum with the iMIS database, but the providers aren't willing to provide an API. I suggested improvements to the remote logon scripts that would provide more data, so that we could essentially use the remote login (with STC.org credentials) to replace the forum login. I got no response from the iMIS providers, so all that effort went wasted.

5) The big one: The "Strategic yadeyada" discussed this without surveying the actual users of the forum. The decision to kill the forum was put to vote during the summit in May, and the end of June was the first we heard about this. Something went amiss in the chain of communication. I was prepared to wash my hands of it entirely, to the point of leaving STC next year, but then I caught the discussion on Twitter (add me: http://twitter.com/techcom ) and realized this board shouldn't go down without a fight.

I posted the above on LinkedIn as well, as a response to http://bit.ly/CyxmL started by Rick Sapir (LinkedIn; login, STC group membership needed).

"Change is not only inevitable, it is necessary"
- Frank Zappa

-Tony
Any particular reason this was not posted in one of the open forums for commenting? General forum membership cannot comment on admin posts, in fact you have to be logged out to even read it.

So here are some of my thoughts, I had many more after reading your post Tony (and Ann's reply) but I'll try and keep it brief.

This in my opinion is a bad decision. I'm curious as to what costs are associated with this forum, the server it runs on? All of this, the entire site could have been moved to a hosted site for less than $100/year. That is or should be nothing more than a minuscule blip on STC's financial radar. The preferred method in moving web properties is you stand up a replacement first, be it another form of forum tech or other.

In an attempt to reign in costs they are being a bit shortsighted, no? By having a community forum you are in effect creating a larger footprint of STC, by taking it down with no replacement you are decreasing that web presence and footprint. (More than once during my web research searches, STC Forum posts came up in the top ten of results.) And worse yet, not backing up the wonderful discussions and information collected here? No data dump, is the information/data really that large?

And what of the STCWiki, will that too be subject to this shortsightedness?

I agree that current times are tough and as always changing, but still this is not what I would consider a graceful closure of a forum. STC and those members that come here to read and post are loosing that ability now. Where do they go now to post information, comments and questions for general consumption by STC members? Twitter and LinkedIn are not the answers, but again that is my opinion. I personally dislike having so many bloody accounts for this that and everything else, not to mention passwords for each one.

I personally would like to review those recommendations made by The Strategic Planning Assessment Task Force (SPA) to the STC Board, I will be reviewing the STC Board meeting minutes. Recommendations like questionnaires are only as good and valid as the questions asked and those that are asked the questions. What criteria was used in making an assessment?

This to me feels more like a 'changing of the guard', and much like any change in an organization or entity it involves changes and decisions based on the current administrations agenda. This change, under the guise of reducing the financial impact to STC is nothing more than an opportunity for those to eliminate what they do not want or like, and promote (read push) what they want to stand up. A community of 'communicators' deciding to eliminate a channel of communication for our membership without a replacement, even one that is as seldom used as this forum is not in line with promoting our community and membership as a whole. It certainly does not promote volunteerism as those that do get ever more discouraged when events like this one occur.

Cheers,

Patrick

I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has put hard work, initiative, ideas and enthusiasm into setting up and running this forum. As STC members, we are all grateful to you.

Also, I would like to thank STC's members for using this forum over the past years to discuss the organisation that we all value so much.

Since this forum is being shut down, I am confident that STC will be setting up a new mechanism to allow us fee-paying members to communicate with one another, and with STC's management team. I will look forward to seeing you all there.

Nick
Past President, STC UK

I am Vinish, a Chandigarh based information architect. I work for vhite systems, in Chandigarh (INDIA).
I have been a member of STC, attending learning sessions and workshops. Now, I want to use this platform to share knowledge, experience and information on latest trends in technical documentation.

Best Regards
Vinish Garg

I have been doing some research on Best Practices for Context Sensitive Help output files Folder Structure (I use RoboHelp 7).
For example, one combination can be as:

....ProjectName\HTML\(topic files)
....ProjectName\HTML\Images (or even ....ProjectName\Images)
....ProjectName\HTML\CSS (or even ....ProjectName\CSS)
....ProjectName\Output

Somewhere, I noticed that there are different viewpoints that support different ways of folders' setup.
I seek your opinion on what structure you typically follow, or what is best recommended.
Thank you for your time :)

BR
Vinish

I have been doing some research on Best Practices for Context Sensitive Help output files Folder Structure (I use RoboHelp 7).
For example, one combination can be as:

....ProjectName\HTML\(topic files)
....ProjectName\HTML\Images (or even ....ProjectName\Images)
....ProjectName\HTML\CSS (or even ....ProjectName\CSS)
....ProjectName\Output

Somewhere, I noticed that there are different viewpoints that support different ways of folders' setup.
I seek your opinion on what structure you typically follow, or what is best recommended.
Thank you for your time :)

BR
Vinish

You can read the latest issue at: http://newsletter.stc-carolina.org

MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS
-  Able to work a twelve month contracts in Saudi Arabia (paid housing and business class airfare to and from Saudi Arabia)
- Minimum of ten years of instructional design, technical writing or graphic design experience
- For instructional designers:
  *  Formal education and application of ISD theory and methodology
  *  Experience designing and developing highly technical training
  *  Experience designing blended learning training solutions
- For techncial writers:
  *  Experience developing content (not designing) for classroom training curricula
  *  Layout experience with InDesign
- For graphic artists:
  *  Expert level experience with PhotoShop, Flash and Illustrator
  *  Strong experience with 3D design application
- Comfortable designing and developing training programs that are technical in nature (engineering-related)

If you don’t meet the minimum criteria listed above or are just not interested (we certainly understand since this is a fairly unique opportunity) BUT you know someone who might be interested, please forward this invitation to them. If they receive one of the contracts for this project, we’ll pay you a $500 referral fee! Thanks!

I have been asked to find out of there is a standard for installation & config manuals. My response was that a standard is not necessary, because a quality manual for this purpose can be created without a standard. But the powers-that-be insist, so I'm asking for the collective wisdom of this esteemed forum...

Regards,
Evan

I have been asked to look into the possibility of adding to my team by hiring tech writers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. STC doesn't seem to have a Malaysian chapter (though Singapore is close by!). Does anyone know of any contacts for any kind of tech comm groups in Malaysia?

Thanks,
Kirsty

I have been intimately involved with computers and the high tech world for many years. I bought my first Apple II+ in 1982 and built my first interface in 1984. I remember when there wasn't a world wide web and one used telnet, gopher and ftp to get things done on the internet. I have a bs in physics and mathematics.

I have a 17 year old, guitar playing son who dreams of being the next Eric Clapton, a beagle who sleeps all the time, a chocolate lab who never seems to run out of energy and a wife I would be lost without.

The mockups are linked below, but before anyone gets excited (if that's even possible in today's climate) I'm not convinced this is a project than needs done anymore. I've been reading in public and private places around the web that the STC Forum is considered a "good first attempt" at creating a community platform, but likely needs replaced with something offering less overhead and more functionality. I couldn't agree more! Something like a new Ning community might be the answer. I don't know off hand.

The wiki is...well...we all know the wiki pretty much sits like a rotting log. There's nothing there that couldn't be folded into something else, if it's even worth it. Again I don't know. Just depends on what unfolds over the coming months and how you -- members -- feel about it.

So, if for nothing else but to live up to my word of creating the design concepts, here are the first drafts:

* Forum index logged out view
* Forum index logged in view
* Wiki home logged in view

Among other things, the key thing to note is the consistent header and primary tab navigation between the two so it's easy to get around no matter where yous start from. The secondary tabs are contextual to the given system. (The red text you see in the secondary tabs is what admins see only.)

The STC logo links to stc.org. The Forum/Wiki header in the left of blue bar links to the home pages of those systems, respectively.

With the forum I've played around with moving some functions to the very top of the grid so they are more apparent.

With the wiki I've simplified the left content navigation by removing wiki tool functions to footer; making the left column less congested and confusing, I think. The user account tools are now in the right side of blue bar in masthead...a little more visible.

The masthead is conceived to span the whole screen, while the bodies of each site have margins. That's why you see white space on the left/right of the body areas. I've tried to eliminate unnecessary borders and lines in the forum to reduce the visual pollution a bit. As well toned down text labels in the grid that are just repetitive headers and not true functionality.

Comments welcome.

    * A Brief Orientation to E-learning (Julia Hall)
    * Best Practices for Online Review (Terry Smith)
    * Book Review: The Global English Style Guide (Andrea Wenger)
    * Book Review: Web Application Design Patterns (David Dick)
    * Conference Recap - 2009 STC Summit: One Unemployed Man's View (Chris Benz)
    * Conference Recap - Getting Educated at the STC Summit in Atlanta (Elaine Abousalh)
    * Conference Recap - Something for Everyone: My Summit Experience (E-Ching Lee)
    * Conference Recap - The STC 56th Annual Conference (Nicole Black)
    * Five Lessons Learned from our Information Architecture Project (Elaine Abousalh, Penny Ferry-Leeper, and Kristie J. Phillips)
    * From the Editor's Desk: Conference Recaps (Meredith Kinder)
    * Meeting Recap: Open Mic Event Showcases Chapter Talent (Vincent Reh)
    * President's Message: It's Time for Change (Jenna Moore)
    * The Ten Tenets of Effective Communication (Part Two) (Rich Maggiani)

To read the newsletter online or save the articles as PDF for offline viewing, visit http://newsletter.stc-carolina.org.

This is for admins/moderators to post about any technical issues that crop up with the forum and wiki. Members can only reply to existing topics. Although you're welcome to discuss issues here, the main objective is simply to keep users informed of maintenance,  improvements, modifications, down time, and so forth.

Forum maintenance instructions will be recorded in the STC Forum help guide section of  the STC Member Wiki for posterity's sake.

One member after another asked questions and offered suggestions, people bravely said what they thought was wrong with  STC, and offered suggestions for change. And time after time, they felt ignored by the decision makers in STC, or were asked to stop making noise so as not to upset people. And they left.

Now, this STC Forum is pretty much dead. And that is terribly sad.

The irony is that having stopped constructive feedback and dialog from taking place here, STC is now actively soliciting feedback and suggestions by other channels!

I've said all along that STC had nothing to fear from feedback by its members, from discussion of problems. What STC should have been far more afraid of is silence, indifference, and customers (that means "members") leaving quietly without saying why they are leaving.

I would dearly like to believe that times have now changed, and that STC will value and cherish our feedback. And, most importantly, act swiftly on it.

Nick Rosenthal
Past President, STC UK chapter