Name and Location... and Saying Hello
As you all know we like to encourage all members to say Hello in the Welcome forum, and for everyone to complete the basic Location part of their profile, and add their first name to their Signature...
Location is useful to other members when it comes to suggesting useful local suppliers, or internationally specific issues such as local mains voltages, and the like. It's also useful to know if you are offering something for sale or wanted.
As far as Name is concerned, it's all about The Art Of Sound being a real community of people rather than an anonymous group of individuals hiding behind wacky usernames!
New members have been PM'd automatically with a request to do this for some time, but its still proving necessary to remind first time posters that they need to fill this info in and say hello. Most members are more than happy to do this; your thread in the Welcome forum is your way to introduce yourself and let everyone know what you're interested in. It's all about being part of something, setting out your stall as it were!
We do want to be able to move away from the need to remind new members to do this stuff though. And we've had feedback from members that the number of prompts is getting a bit boring!
It seems that most of you are happy sharing this information. I know in this day and age people can be cagey about what information they share online, but I think it's fair to say that first name and basic location are pretty vague and of limited value outside of helping others here to refer to you by name, and tell whereabouts you're from.
To this end we've made, or will soon be making, some changes that I want you to know about.
- We've amended the new registration Welcome email to ask that users say hello in the Welcome forum, and fill in the other stuff...
- Location is now a required field for all new members, and existing members will be prompted for a Location when you next update your Profile, if it's not already completed.
- First Name is going to be added to the fields available for completion in your Profile. I'm going to make a change so that it is listed under Location in the Posts view... this will free members from having to have it in their Signature.
First Name will need to be completed by all new members. It is our plan to make it required of existing members at some point. Most likely this will be at the time you next update your profile.
Down the line, we hope that this will enhance the sense of community here, it's all about real people. I'd be interested in any feedback anyone has on this...
