STS Web Site Forums

Many of you have been or are stake technology specialists. We have a new Stake Technology Specialist Web site that specializes in some of the unique issues STS individuals have. My question is should we spin up a separate instance of forum software for the STS Web site or continue to use the forums on the Tech Web site (even though they are more general in nature) in supporting stake technology specialists. Having a separate STS forum site would make it simpler for STS individuals to focus on their issues. However having one forum site keeps it simpler for STS to find information (as they don't have to shuffle between two different forums). Take the poll and leave feedback.

Tom

My thinking right off the top of my head would be to create one on this site, labeled something like 'Stake Technology Specialists', and have a link from the STS site to the forums on this one, and just be sure the registration link is also in the descriptor of the forum for the first few weeks or months as deemed necessary.

That way, they will also know more about Church technology. I am almost sure they get bombarded with questions about MLS and other systems that they do not have any idea what to do with also. That way they can also be in the loop when things happen and they then can let us know of their needs too, and have other info.

That has been very informative so far over there at the STS site, and yes some of it crosses over into this one, so it may well be best to incorporate that forum as part of this one.

Gee, you didn't use the short URL, http://staketech.lds.org/

I can think of 3 major areas for a STS:
- Administrative computers (including MLS)
- Family History computers (a whole bunch of software)
- Audio-Video (satellite system)
It may also include
- Emergency Communications

As such, there's a lot of cross-over with what has already been posted here, as well as cross-over with other callings. For example, clerks also work with MLS. Family History workers also work with the computers. As such, I don't think it should be segmented by calling, but by task/technology area and to be a resource for all who work in that area.

I think Administrative computes can be safely separated from Family History computers as they have different policies and use different programs.

RussellHltn wrote:Gee, you didn't use the short URL, http://staketech.lds.org/

Heh...that is what I get when I copy/pasted. Sorry for the long URL.

Tom

I have to agree with Russell, in some stakes the STS only deals with Audio/Visual while the clerks deal with MLS and the FH people deal with Family History and in some stakes it is a one man show.

After thinking about this a little more, I have some more questions/thoughts.

Is this to be a "user-to-user" group or will there be official Church presence answering questions? The sections would need to be divided according to what that church department supports. I've already outlined 4 areas, but you may need to talk to those 4 departments as to what they see as their role and what roles the different callings have. For example the department that supports STS working with the Administrative computers also supports the clerks. Do they want to create two sections, one for clerks and one for STS or would they rather have them merged? While the roles may seem clear, a problem in one area frequently crosses over into the other.

I'm backing away slightly from the desire to have merged forums simply so that people will realize when they've crossed over into another calling. Nothing wrong with a clerk doing the STS job (the stake may not have a functional STS. And in some cases the clerks act as assistant STSs), but they should realize that they are slipping out the boundaries of their clerk calling. But I think the major criteria is how the departments envision their support to the community via the forums.

RussellHltn wrote:After thinking about this a little more, I have some more questions/thoughts.

Is this to be a "user-to-user" group or will there be official Church presence answering questions? The sections would need to be divided according to what that church department supports. I've already outlined 4 areas, but you may need to talk to those 4 departments as to what they see as their role and what roles the different callings have. For example the department that supports STS working with the Administrative computers also supports the clerks. Do they want to create two sections, one for clerks and one for STS or would they rather have them merged? While the roles may seem clear, a problem in one area frequently crosses over into the other.

The intent is that the forums are a great way for the community to help each other. However, like the current MLS and LUWS forums, there are Church employee moderators in there that help answer questions as they come up and when others don't reply. However one of the reasons to have forums is to allow others the opportunity to help and share information.

I'm backing away slightly from the desire to have merged forums simply so that people will realize when they've crossed over into another calling. Nothing wrong with a clerk doing the STS job (the stake may not have a functional STS. And in some cases the clerks act as assistant STSs), but they should realize that they are slipping out the boundaries of their clerk calling. But I think the major criteria is how the departments envision their support to the community via the forums.

Ahh...you have touched upon a subject we are discussing internally. I did not mention it as I did not want to "muddy the waters" but the natural progression of this type of web site is to add ward clerks. The discussion has been that ward clerks are not as technical as STS and therefore may feel lost when visiting tech.lds.org. However, on the other hand, there is a lot great information and help that a ward clerk may miss if he were only visiting a ward clerk forum.

Tom

tomw wrote:The discussion has been that ward clerks are not as technical as STS and therefore may feel lost when visiting tech.lds.org. However, on the other hand, there is a lot great information and help that a ward clerk may miss if he were only visiting a ward clerk forum.

Not always. I've noticed that the idea of being a ward clerk terrifies a lot of people in my neck of the woods unless they're at least semi technical, and a lot of our clerks (not always, particularly in branches) tend to be somewhat technical. I'm very technical, but I'm not the ward clerk either, just the assistant financial clerk :p

On the other hand, we had a person a few years back who functioned as our STS (not sure of their exact title) who... well... let's just say computers weren't his friends

I would keep the STS forum here.

I think getting STSs specific information related to their calling is a matter of pulling information off of this forum and distilling it for inclusion on the STS site. The more informal information seems to benefit from exposure to a larger audience, since many of us have tech experience, but are not in callings directly related .

This may not be the case for some information. Some things may be useful to the STS, but may be confidential. I would think the STS web site is not the place for such things now, but maybe in the future.

The Earl

tomw wrote:Ahh...you have touched upon a subject we are discussing internally. ... the natural progression of this type of web site is to add ward clerks.

I'd be very disappointed if that wasn't the case. It's only logical. (Don't forget Stake clerks)

tomw wrote:The discussion has been that ward clerks are not as technical as STS and therefore may feel lost when visiting tech.lds.org.

Some are, some aren't. But you're right in not making any assumptions. I think as long as the link takes them directly into the right area, it shouldn't be a problem.

Another factor will be what will the clerks area look like? I'd think it would end up being divided into Membership, Finance and "Other". Mostly to support the fact that there are clerks that specialize in those areas. But if they are in sections, then that imposes some issues in how you set up the final product.

But as for Clerks and STS - I'd like a line, but not a boarder. (If that makes sense.)

tomw wrote:However, on the other hand, there is a lot great information and help that a ward clerk may miss if he were only visiting a ward clerk forum.

Well, the phrase "you can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs" comes to mind here. While there is some useful content here, it's small compared to where we are going. I would not want to compromise an optimal setup just to save a few threads that will likely be out of date in a few years. If those threads can be moved, so much the better.

As for new discussions that could help the clerk, if everything was a part of this forum, then the more curious clerks could "climb out" and explore the upper levels of the forum. I can't see any overriding reason that the clerks/STS forum has to be separate from anyone else. The only issue I can think of is departmental control over "their" section. But if they are happy with the tools this software give them and can do what they need with Moderator status, ehhhh. Why change?

Can the forum support pointers to other sections? Here's what I'm envisioning:


STS
- Administrative Computers
- FHC Computers
- Audio visual
- Wireless network
- Emergency Communications

Clerks
- Finance Clerk
- Membership Clerk
- Ward Clerk
- Stake Clerk
- Administrative Computers (a link to the STS's Administrative Computers area)

The link for the current STS area would link to the STS area. Clerks to the Clerk area. And yet clerks can find their way to discussions on the computers and if they wish to "climb up" to the whole tech area.

My vote is to keep them together but in separate sections. I think many non-STS people could benefit from the STS discussions.

Great posts. If the ward site was included, do you think that there will be any chance that inappropriate information (policy, membership info, financial info, etc.) could be posted. The current moderators of this site do a great job, but we would be getting into some more gray areas.

I believe we would make it work and it would be very beneficial, but I was wondering what others think.

DJC wrote:If the ward site was included

Ah, thanks for the reminder. LUWS Admin should have a section in there too. It's something that both clerks and STS touch on, but it also has unique issues too.

As for the concern, as long as people know it's a public forum, I think thinks are kept in check.

DJC wrote:Great posts. If the ward site was included, do you think that there will be any chance that inappropriate information (policy, membership info, financial info, etc.) could be posted. The current moderators of this site do a great job, but we would be getting into some more gray areas.

I believe we would make it work and it would be very beneficial, but I was wondering what others think.

Thanks for the vote of confidence, we do try to keep up with everything, though the community catches most things before we can even log in for our daily glance.

Most people in these positions know the importance of and how to treat the data part. As for policies we will do our best to judge and make sure that everyone is in keeping with the rules of these boards. That said I believe there will be someone that will try once but I believe the benefit of having the resources available to those that need it outweighs the possible downsides.

thedqs wrote:Thanks for the vote of confidence, we do try to keep up with everything, though the community catches most things before we can even log in for our daily glance.

Most people in these positions know the importance of and how to treat the data part. As for policies we will do our best to judge and make sure that everyone is in keeping with the rules of these boards. That said I believe there will be someone that will try once but I believe the benefit of having the resources available to those that need it outweighs the possible downsides.

I need to recognize the great work that the community and the moderators do in keeping these forums on topic. Since releasing the forums in January, I think that I have found a problem one or two times before anyone else. Most of the time the community or the moderators pick up the problem. Moderators are doing a fantastic job of isolating the post while the community does a fantastic job of notifying flagging and notifying us when there is a problem.

Tom

Going back to the usability idea (today's blog) keeping them together makes sense until there becomes too much clutter to make navigation a chore. As an example:

I use Cakewalk Sonar for recording music. An author put up a website to promote his books on using Sonar and also including a forum where readers could help each other with challenges, share works in progress, or whatever. It was a very helpful and fun site to visit. Now, however, so many other software packages and topics have been included in the forum that it is not as fun to 'hang out' there anymore.

I don't imagine this site would explode to such an extreme state as that. But the potential number of users could make a future separation desirable.

brentboylan wrote:Going back to the usability idea (today's blog) keeping them together makes sense until there becomes too much clutter to make navigation a chore.

I understand what you are saying. I've seen it too. Once a forum gets so busy I can't follow it all anymore, it's not as interesting. I'm simply proposing sections by calling. I fully expect once the word gets out that the support forums will be busy enough that some people won't want to venture out of their own calling.

If it gets really busy, we could see the Audio-Visual portion broken down into PA, Satellite, Projector. Financial Clerk could be broken down by Weekly Donations, Budgets, Tithing Settlement, etc. But for now to limit it by what typical members would be called to do seems like a reasonable start.

Just to toss some number out there, an unofficial clerks list has been averaging mid-100 messages/month. But in the first two months of this year it was 400+ and there have been a couple of peaks of 700+. And that's not spam. The unofficial FHC Director's list did 540 messages just last month. Now think what those numbers would be like if official word was sent out to all the units?

I also want to see Administrative computer separate from FHC computers because they are governed by different policies. It would lead to too much confusion if they were mixed together.

But in going with the blog, the layout has to be clean and clear. It has to be easy for people to find the right section.

What about the possibility of breaking it out later? If it is possible and not too difficult you could keep things combined until it starts becoming unmanageable.

It isn't too difficult, you just move the posts to a new section, though it will give the moderators some work to do all of that. So really it depends on how many posts we have to move and how many moderators are here.

We need to look beyond the daily traffic and consider the new user. For example, someone has just found out, or just been called to be Financial Clerk.

Good protocol is to look at forum messages before posting. Even if the daily traffic is low, the number of threads and messages can be high. (There's already 100 threads in LUWS and 120 in MLS.) But if everything is lumped together, he'll be digging though posts of FHC, satellites, and membership. With everything divided by calling, everything he reads is pertinent to him, even if it's not a issue at this time.

I can think of 3 major areas for a STS:
- Administrative computers (including MLS)
- Family History computers (a whole bunch of software)
- Audio-Video (satellite system)
It may also include
- Emergency Communications

Add the How-to for the LUWS to the STS site and other computer/Tech questions

How is the STS directly involved (calling wise) with emergency communications? Unofficially, most have their licenses for Amateur Radio though.

thedqs wrote:How is the STS directly involved (calling wise) with emergency communications?

From the STS site:

"The stake technology specialist is called by the stake presidency as an assistant stake clerk to serve as the primary support contact for technology services and electronic devices in all Church meetinghouses in the stake."

and

"You support all users of Church technology in your stake, including the stake presidency, bishoprics, auxiliary leaders, family history consultants, seminary and institute instructors, and others who use such technology in Church meetinghouses."

It's not specifically mentioned, but it most certainly could fall under the STS.

I would like see the Church to create a section for Ecom however it's placed.

[quote="RussellHltn"]STS[/quote]

RussellHltn wrote: - Administrative Computers
- FHC Computers
- Audio visual
- Wireless network
- Emergency Communications

I think this should have something like "other" as well.

For instance, I have a DJ system that I work with as well as policing copyright issues not only on viewed movies but also the music in the DJ system.

We also have a set of translation transmitters and receivers as well as the Assistive LIstening devices that I work with during conferences, broadcasts and many times in weekly events.

There's not a lot to do with some of it, but we could share information as we find it. For instance on the translation receivers we have, a certain brand name battery is too short to work by itself without padding it, so it's best to go with a different brand name as they are the correct length.

But I'd love an area to discuss STS issues!

It's been created, and there is an "other".

thanks