DV "ER" or DV 911!!!!!

[James Emory]

I think we have all needed some help really fast to get us out of a bad situation with our DV or PC gear. Well, I would like to know if anyone else would be interested in requesting and utilizing a dedicated forum for immediate need EMERGENCY cases ONLY. I know that there are alot of folks on this board that like to help out and this forum would allow for these issue posts to stand out among the other posts and try to get them resolved quickly. It would be like a Super DV "ER" filled with all kinds of specialist doctors and best of all, you don't need insurance!

This is my most recent case, my laptop is vomiting frames. I needed a doctor fast and luckily Dr. Teutsch was on duty!
Case #1
www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=51786

What do you think Dr. Hurd?

[Matt Trubac]

Hey,

I think in theory your idea for a new emergency forum is great!

However, in reality everyone's "problem" is an emergency. Because of this I don't know how well this would work when actually put into practice. Would it be any different or better than having an audio forum, a mac editing, pc editing, lighting forum, etc? In these special topic forums the ones there to help are usually most knowledgeable in the forums topic of focus.

[James Emory]

It's sole purpose would be to isolate very urgent, gotta have an anwser yesterday situations and not for general questions which belong in their respective forums. It would prevent these emergencies from being burried in other normal forums and answers could be gotten quicker. Some forums may not be visited as often so a question may go unanswered for a while and that's where this "ER" would be of great use.

[Chris Hurd]

I'm not opposed to the idea, it's a good one in principle, but I'm a little leery of the maitenance required... we'd need some dedicated people to commit to keeping an eye on it and to answer questions, and then once an issue is resolved that particular thread would have to be moved on to its appropriate forum. This would require a lot of hands-on attention, and we're already suffering from a growing number of topics which aren't properly housed in the boards where they really belong. So I guess we'd need to see a demand for it, plus some willing volunteers to massage it and help it along...

[James Emory]

Originally Posted by Chris Hurd

we'd need some dedicated people to commit to keeping an eye on it and to answer questions.

Why would you need dedicated people to answer? Anyone could answer like they do now but it just isolates the urgent posts in need of quick responses.

Originally Posted by Chris Hurd

and then once an issue is resolved that particular thread would have to be moved on to its appropriate forum.

Yes, that was a consideration that I thought of as well, what to do with the answered, old or unanswered posts. You could send them to the island of misfit posts. Wait, that's another story.

The only issue I see is managing the posts to be moved but if it was done once a week, it would give the benefit of being more manageable for you or the other doctors and anybody else could benefit just because it's there and catch it if they didn't catch it earlier.

[Jack Barker]

Yeah, give it a try. If it gets too cumbersome, then deep-six it.

[Ken Tanaka]

Originally Posted by Jack Barker

Yeah, give it a try. If it gets too cumbersome, then deep-six it.

That would be a very poor, shoddy approach. Taking such a feature down would have the potential to create ill will on both sides of the screen. No, any such "service' facility needs to be considered and planned thoroughly and thoughtfully before implementation.

Personally, I think that this sounds like a better idea than it actually is. DVInfo currently has such a broad array of specific topical coverage that it's hard to imagine that an "emergency" post to one of the specific sections would get ignored for long. (History has shown this to be accurate.) Video, and its various offshoots, is also becoming far too diverse to expect a single crew of moderators to be able to swat every problem posted to a central emergency area.

The best hope for quick, accurate help is to (a) accurately and concisely describe your problem in a post, and (b) to make the post in a location frequented by those most likely to be able to offer help.

Just my thoughts.

[Jack Barker]

Originally Posted by Ken Tanaka

That would be a very poor, shoddy approach...

Gosh! I guess I've been put in my place.

[James Emory]

Originally Posted by Ken Tanaka

Video, and its various offshoots, is also becoming far too diverse to expect a single crew of moderators to be able to swat every problem posted to a central emergency area.

As I stated earlier: Why would you need dedicated people to answer? Anyone could answer like they do now but it just isolates the urgent posts in need of quick responses. Who said anything about moderators being the only ones to answer?

Originally Posted by Ken Tanaka

The best hope for quick, accurate help is to (a) accurately and concisely describe your problem in a post, and (b) to make the post in a location frequented by those most likely to be able to offer help.

Well, what if very few or no viewers are in the forum that you post you urgent message in like I have seen plenty of times? If you post your issue in the wrong forum just because it has alot of people then it will be moved anyway and it breaks the cross-post rule. This is being made more difficult than it should be. I have agreed on the most logical management issue which is efficiently distributing the posts to their respective forums when they have been answered, unanswered or are too old and I believe that was only an issue due to availability of resources to do it which is totally understandable.

The New Posts page provides this function right now but contains posts for every forum including non-emergency posts and the DV 911 forum would list all urgent posts ONLY!

[Chris Hurd]

Gosh! I guess I've been put in my place.

Oh no you haven't Jack... not until our local operatives knock your door down have you been put in your place... now let's see, where did I put your dossier?

;-)

I think Ken has summed up this issue rather well. The thing is, although it might not be too difficult to determine what does or does not substantiate a real "emergency," the trouble is how do you commit to a fast and accurate response at, say, 4am Eastern U.S. time, when the number of members browsing the boards is at its lowest? And I'm not too convinced yet that we have a sluggish response time in any of our regularly populated boards during U.S. daylight hours. Like I said, it's a sound idea in principle, but the following through with that kind of commitment is intimidating. If we get a call in that area that nobody can answer in a timely fashion, what does that do to our reputation? And aren't we already getting good answers out as it is with the existing structure?

[Chris Hurd]

the DV 911 forum would list all urgent post ONLY!

How would you define urgent, James?

[James Emory]

Originally Posted by Chris Hurd

How would you define urgent, James?

Yep. That and the others are some good points that have not gone unthunk by myself. I ain't complain'n and agree that the board gives great results for info right now but this could possibly make it faster. I guess not only would you have to manage appropriate posts but those that really don't need to be in there and you know that is going to happen just as it does in other forums now.

[Ken Tanaka]

Jack: I didn't mean to sound harsh. Sorry if I did.

James: I understand your perspective. But give the idea a full work-out and I think you'll see that, in fact, such a service board would require quite a bit of active moderation to remain vital even if moderators were not the primary care-givers. Let's look at a prospective, and highly likely, scenario.

Monday morning: Joe Bagadoughnuts posts: "Help!!! My Whizcam 550 is eating my tapes!!! This really sucks. I thought that the 550's tape transport was supposed to be improved over the 500's?! I spent $1,500 on this stupid thing. How can I recover these tapes? What can I do."

This type of problem rains down here like bird poop, notwithstanding the fact that nobody on the Internet can offer anything much beyond "Sorry for your trouble". Nevertheless, by Wednesday afternoon the thread has drifted far afield from Joe's problem into the familiar, but distinctly non-urgent, topical neighborhoods of "the camera sucks" and "the tape sucks". As passers-by seem to feel the need to offer their opinions on such subjects ("Aw, dude, I don't use those tapes any more. The Best Buy guy say's they're junky.") the thread continues to bubble to the top of the the "911" section unless, of course, a moderator quickly closes the thread after an obligatory number of "Sorry for your trouble" sympathy notes. Close it too soon, however, and Joe becomes angry that he didn't get helped, perhaps expressing his frustration with DVInfo at any other place that his fingers lead. Close it too late and "911" becomes "411", better located elsewhere, and the board eventually becomes largely overlooked noise.

So I have to stand by my opinion.

[James Emory]

I guess I can see that by creating a dedicated forum that it implies that you are a fix it place and if in a member's opinion it didn't get fixed then that place sucks! kind of mentality propagates. Not being able to seperate the two, it's sad but true that it could actually happen. Then Dr. Hurd gets sued for malpractice and the DV Info lawyers have to get involved and what a damn mess!!!

[Jack Barker]

Originally Posted by Ken Tanaka

Jack: I didn't mean to sound harsh. Sorry if I did.

Too little, too late, Ken. I'm hurt. I'm really hurt. As I always do, I gave a well-reasoned and concise argument, only to be trashed and treated as one would a child. I'm going to sell my XL2 and retire to Yemen, where they've never heard of the goddam thing and where I can get a little R*E*S*P*E*C*T!