Tim, It looks like what Jack is saying (and I would agree) it is not a good engagement tool. If you are paying a cent for it it is too much.
Doc KX0O Sent from mobile > On Sep 3, 2014, at 8:13 PM, "Jack" <j...@3kitty.org> wrote: > > Hi Tim, > > Thanks for following up on my email! > > According to my profile on the Flex Community website, I joined on June 30, > 2014. My name is "Jack Haverty", my email is k3...@arrl.net, and my profile > URL is http://getsatisfaction.com/people/jack_haverty_6654904 Seems like > your search should have been able to find me. > > I did just poke around a bit in My Profile, and found the check boxes to > enable things like getting an email when someone posts a reply. I checked > that, but still don't know how to find the posting I made back in June to see > if anyone answered it. But at least now maybe I'll get something if anybody > answers. > > That profile page also mentions that posts are available through RSS, > headlined "Get RSS feeds". It offers me a "fun explanation" of RSS in a 2007 > Youtube video. But there are no details of how to get Community posts via > RSS. I know what RSS is; I was there when we defined the NNTP protocol. What > I need are the specific URLs for the Flex community feeds. > > I tried using the Community to solve that problem. Posting "How do I get an > RSS feed?" produced 2206 allegedly relevant conversations. The first few > weren't relevant to my question, but the third one was "RSS URLs for Flex > Community Categories?", which seemed promising so I dove into that. > > It's an old thread, last touched 6 months ago. But it did lead me to the > final post, which says "After digging, and digging, and digging.... There is > only ONE RSS feed available. > https://community.flexradio.com/flexradio/topics.rss"; > > Well, one is better than nothing, so I put that RSS URL into my current > favorite newsreader (Thunderbird), and sure enough it is a live feed. It > produced a page of posts, with the most recent from yesterday. There are 20 > posts in the feed, dating back to 12/31/2013. That number seems a little > small for 8 months worth of community activity. > > Looking at the newsfeed posts, and looking at today's Home page on > community.flexradio.com, there's very little correspondence between the two. > It's almost like they're showing totally different community conversations. > > Digging a little deeper, it appears that the newsfeed posts are only the first > post in a new conversation. Each contains a link to the Community website, > where you can see any replies that might have occurred. But it appears that > such replies do not get sent out on the newsfeed at all. E.G., there was a > posting in May 2014, and several subsequent replies, but only the first post > appeared in my newsfeed. > > This is not a newsfeed of posts. It seems to be more accurately described as > a newsfeed of notifications of the creation of new conversations, each of > which can have may posts. To see more than just the first post of any > conversation, you must go to the website. > > So, there apparently are no "RSS feeds" from the Community. Or am I still > missing something? > > I also have inordinate difficulty with the built-in search engine. It seems > to generate an awful lot of noise. For example, when I post "How do I use > this forum?" I'm presented with 2272 results. The top result is a post you > made a year ago, which is on topic but not very rich on any details. The > second result has to do with the HelpDesk, which I guess is marginally related > to the question I posed. The third result is "How do I use an external keyer > with SmartSDR?", which seems unlikely to be relevant at all. I didn't bother > looking at any of the other 2269 suggested answers to my question. Life is > too short. > > The tip to use "Tim - W4TME" as a search term is a good one. That's the kind > of thing that belongs in that non-existent "How to Use The Flex Community" > guide. Of course you have to know exactly what a particular user's name > looks like. When I receive mail, new mailboxes are easily added to my > contacts list, so I don't have to remember them - but is there a way to search > the Flex Community members list to find a particular user's correct name for > searching, if, for example, I know someone's email or callsign but not their > Community Name? > > I just tried Googling 'community.flexradio.com roadmap "Steve - N5AC"', > guessing that "Steve - N5AC" would be the right search term. It worked - I > got a whole bunch of results that looked relevant. So far so good. > > The top one on the list is "Announcements - FlexRadio Systems Community", and > the excerpt says "The roadmap details our software development..." This > sounded interesting, so I clicked the link. > > I arrived however at the Community webpage for "All Announcements" - not the > page containing that particular announcement with the text from Steve. There > are 22 announcements. One of them might be the one that Google reported in > the search results. But I guess I have to open each one in turn and see if > it is the one I'm trying to find. I don't know why that link didn't take me > directly there. > > I hope this helps explain why I find the Community "tedious". Too much work > to get too much noise, not enough signal. > > I agree that there are some workarounds for some of the limitations of the > Flex Community. > > Yes, I can save a conversation web page in HTML. But then I'll have to > invent some way of naming the files, organizing them into folders, updating > each such saved conversation as new posts emerge, and otherwise do all the > things that my mail software has done for decades. Tedious. > > Yes, I can do a lot of things in a browser. But other organizations have seen > the value of making applications which are optimized for a specific task, such > as mail, newsfeeds, etc. Some of these are quite powerful, and available on > multiple platforms. E.G., Google Mail provides a very powerful web interface > for use with any browser. They also have made apps optimized for use on > tablets and phones. Other function-specific apps run on Windows, Macs, Linux, > etc - such as Thunderbird which I currently use on my desktop, and K9 which I > use on my phone and tablet. These apps work quite well on small screens. > It's even possible to use text-to-speech facilities if you prefer. You can > view the same mail streams and archives using different apps on different > platforms, using whichever is best for your situation at the time. > > If the Flex Community conversations were accessible through mailing lists or > newsfeeds, I could use any of those powerful existing applications to > participate. So could everyone else. > > I casually track a lot of SDR activity since I'm interested in it. I even > built some SDR systems before I retired. In addition to blogs and wikis, I > monitor a bunch of forums, e.g., SDR-Radio, HPSDR, Apache, KC9XG-SDR, > SDR-Users, and of course FlexRadioSmartSDR and Flexradio. > > All of this material comes into my mail/news software, which does an excellent > job of organizing it for me, allowing me to manipulate it efficiently. The > Flex Community conversations unfortunately remain outside, since I haven't > been able to figure out any practical (i.e., non-tedious) way to plug them in. > > Like many others, I monitor all these conversations to help me use my current > radio equipment better, and to help me decide what to buy next. It has worked > quite well. Now I'm finding that it is still easy to keep track of what's > happening in the SDR world ... except for Flex. That's too bad, since I > really am interested. > > It's just that the new world of The Community has made it much harder to stay > "in the loop" about Flex, compared to the old forums. I find the workarounds > too much of a chore - too tedious to use, and too much noise. So I've > noticed that I just don't use the Community, even though I use my Flex-3000 a > lot - it's my *only* HF radio, worked almost 200 countries with it using just > a dipole, and used it in many contests over the last 5 years. > > If this is the new world of "Customer Engagement", count me as a Customer who > declines to be "Engaged" this way... > > It's encouraging that you've discussed some of the problems with the > developers of the Community software. And of course discouraging that > they've made no commitment to do anything about it. If I were you, I'd look > for another software vendor. > > 73, > /Jack de K3FIV > > > >> Jack, >> >> I am sorry that you are having issues using the Community. I have some >> answers to your questions and comments in-line below. >> >> Tim Ellison, W4TME >> Customer Experience Manager >> FlexRadio Systems^(TM) >> 4616 W Howard Ln, Suite 1-150 >> Austin, TX 78728 >> Phone: 512-535-4713 Ext. 223 >> Email: t...@flexradio.com <mailto:t...@flexradio.com> >> Web: www.flexradio.com <http://www.flexradio.com> >> >> >>> On 9/2/2014 3:14 PM, Jack Haverty wrote: >>>> On 09/02/2014 10:41 AM, Neal Campbell wrote: >>>> The email reflectors are things of the past, Flex uses its community >>>> website for all customer interaction (and many of its customers do also). >>>> Go to community.flexradio.com and sign up! >>> I signed up for the Flex community website a while ago and found it very >>> tedious to use. >> Jack - I did a user search on you call, your name (first and last) and >> your e-mail address and did not find you in the Community's list of >> users. Are you subscribed under a different e-mail address and used a >> alias for your user name? To be able to access some of the feature you >> want to use, you have to be subscribed to the Community. >>> Rudimentary "search" ability - e.g., no way to search >>> for messages from a particular author. No way to filter messages, >>> e.g., to hide, or flag, or tag, messages I've already read. No way to >>> order messages, e.g., by date or author, etc. >> That is correct, these are not core features of the Community software. >> We have addressed it with the developers of the software, but we have no >> commitment that for them to implement these types of features. >>> No way to save, >> To save an article, right click on the open article and select Save >> As... You can save it in HTML format >>> forward, >> You can send a topic via e-mail or a wide variety of social media >> options (~300) by clicking on any of the small icons in the post question. >> >>> or print, a message. >> To print an article, right click on the open article and select Print >>> No way to read messages except through a browser - >>> in contrast to my desktop, tablet and smartphone where there are many >>> quite good custom apps for handling mail efficiently. >> Jack, Community is not a "mail" based system; it is a web based >> application designed for customer engagement, so the capabilities you >> refer to are not inherent in the capabilities of the community; a web >> browser is required. I use my tablet to view the Community as a web >> page while traveling on business. I agree it is a little tedious to use >> an small screen device like a smart phone, but I don't think an app >> would solve the screen real estate issue either. >>> >>> I searched for a way to set up a forwarder so that messages would be >>> sent automatically to my regular mailbox, where I know how to do all of >>> those things plus more. Couldn't find any way to do it. >> When you post a reply or start a topic, you are automatically subscribed >> and will receive e-mail notifications when there is new activity on your >> post. You can subscribe to other posts individually or to entire >> categories by adding it to your profile configuration. You can also >> subscribe to the RSS feeds as well. Here is a URL that describes how to >> "follow" topics: >> https://getsatisfaction.com/corp/help/managing-email-notifications/ >>> The "how to >>> use the community" information posted by Flex is minimal at best. No >>> answers there. >> The intent if the how to use the Community page is a basic introduction, >> not a comprehensive post for using all aspects of the community. >>> >>> Shortly after I signed up I posted a question about something. There >>> may have been replies. But now I can't remember exactly how I posed >>> the question, and I can't find that "conversation". There's no >>> "SentMail" folder to capture all the messages I have sent, and no way to >>> carbon-copy my mailbox as I send something. >> See my comments above on following conversations. It sounds like the >> replies may have ended up in your junk e-mail folder. >>> >>> It also seems that the Flex Community materials are somehow hidden from >>> search engines. If I Google "flexradio.biz haverty", I get a list of >>> postings I've made on this list. If I Google "community.flexradio.com >>> youngblood" to see what the company president has said, I get nothing >>> except a pointer to community.flexradio.com. >> I just did a Google search on "community.flexradio.com GPSDO" and it >> returned 24 relevant "hits" from the Community. Only the user alias is >> in the HTML of the post, not the full name so Google will not return >> posts using the search criteria you listed above. However, if you use >> the Community user alias, in my case "Tim - W4TME", hundreds of hits are >> returned. >>> >>> It's possible that I just didn't spend enough time to figure out how to >>> do any of these things. But I find that I don't log in much at all, >>> and when I do there's such a hodgepodge of stuff that it's hard to see >>> if there's anything of interest since I last looked. >>> >>> Am I missing something? Is there a way to get a "feed" of the >>> community messages into email, or a newsfeed, or any other such >>> mechanism that is commonly used in the Internet? >> Yes, see my comment about how to follow posts using RSS feeds above >>> >>> >>> 73, >>> /Jack de K3FIV >>> >>> >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> FlexRadio Systems Mailing List >>> FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz >>> To opt out of the Reflector: >>> http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexradio_flex-radio.biz >> >> _______________________________________________ >> FlexRadio Systems Mailing List >> FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz >> To opt out of the Reflector: >> http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexradio_flex-radio.biz > > > > _______________________________________________ > FlexRadio Systems Mailing List > FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz > To opt out of the Reflector: > http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexradio_flex-radio.biz _______________________________________________ FlexRadio Systems Mailing List FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz To opt out of the Reflector: http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexradio_flex-radio.biz
