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Good evening everyone! I'm glad that so many of you were able to make our first town hall meeting, and hopefully this becomes a more regular event.
Tonight’s meeting was set up as an opportunity for our members to interact with our community leadership, provide constructive feedback, and ask questions and receive feedback in real time. When we leave tonight’s meeting we’ll have a clearer understanding of the direction of the EMTLife community. With your support we will evaluate the needs of our community and determine how we can work as a team to create a stronger community of EMS professionals. (more coming)
First, some ground rules for tonight’s town hall meeting. I will begin the meeting with some background information and opening statements. Though I have the option of creating a moderated event where only the Community Leaders may speak, tonight the chat will remain open for the duration of the meeting. I ask that you please don’t interrupt me, ask questions, or provide feedback until I have concluded my opening statements. Second, all of our chat rules and expectations also apply to this chat room. I’ve allowed all of our members to have an opportunity to join tonight’s discussion, because I value your input, and I ask that you please remain respectful of me, the community leadership, and your fellow members. Thank you. (more coming)
As I wrote earlier, EMTLife was created nearly six years ago as an online community where EMS professionals could share and learn with their colleagues. Over the years our 6,500+ members created nearly 15,000 threads with nearly 185,000 individual posts. We are not the same community we were back in January of 2004, but I strived to hold true to my belief that EMS, our relatively new profession, needed a professional community. That's the EMTLife I envisioned many years ago, and in many respects we've stayed true to that vision. (more coming)
To begin, we have made some changes to our leadership structure, and over the coming weeks will continue to refine our current system. First, Jon has been promoted to have full administrator capabilities. Jon, an EMT-Paramedic, has been a member of the community for a long time and is a valued contributor to EMTLife. We welcome him to his new position and look forward to working with him as an administrator. (more coming)
In the coming days we will solicit interest in a new Community Advocate position, an elected member position that acts as a liaison between the community members and Community Leaders. Our new community tribunal will have an open line of communication with the community’s leadership, and will represent the needs of our members. While not yet set in stone, we intend to solicit nominations for Community Advocates in each of four categories: EMT-Basic (BLS), EMT-Intermediate/Paramedic (ALS), EMS Volunteer, and a Member at Large (any background). (more coming)
The Community Advocate is an elected position with a one year term. Our Community Advocates will act as a tribunal to deal with member concerns including warnings, infractions, and restriction of privileges. Most importantly, they will act as a vital line of communication between our members and community leadership. More information will be posted as we work out the details. (more coming)
One of our member concerns appears to be the lack of communication and action from the current leadership team. As the site continues to grow, our volunteer Community Leaders are faced with a growing work load. To help address that problem, in the next few weeks we will add several new Community Leaders, who will both lead discussion and help us consistently enforce our community rules and expectations. This will provide additional resources to deal with member concerns, and will help increase our communication and effectiveness. (more coming)
A significant concern lately has been our implementation and enforcement of our community rules, expectations, and consequences. I want to be clear tonight; we will not lower our community expectations or standards. In the coming days we will solicit member feedback in the form of a survey, and work together with our new Community Tribunal to implement changes to our expectations and enforcement. While everyone may not agree with our community rules, with your feedback we will create a more succinct set of rules and expectations to meet the needs of our growing community. (more coming)
On the technology front, from nearly the beginning we've built our site on the vBulletin (http://www.vBulletin.com) community platform, and have generally been very pleased with the product. The software has allowed us to offer our members a stable and consistent community over the past five years. We eagerly await the imminent arrival of vBulletin version 4.0, which will offer a tremendous amount of new features and upgrades. Until the new version is released, we've modified the software and settings to better serve the community. (more coming)
Based on member feedback, we removed the 10 character limit that would not allow users to create posts with less than 10 characters. (more coming)
Some of our members expressed concern that sometimes their posts just disappeared, and they had to assume that the thread was deleted or closed for a reason. To improve our communication, in the future you will receive an automatic private message if your post is moved, edited, removed, etc. Should you contribute to a thread and have your post(s) disappear, you will receive a PM explaining what happened. (more coming)
We understand that many of our users use the PM feature, with ffemt8978 having over 2,500 PMs in his box, and we've had many suggestions as to how we can improve the function. There is now a quick reply box in the private message page, and you may now "reply to all" to reply to more than one member at a time. We hope to add additional functionality in the near future. (more coming)
We are testing an enhancement that will offer posters similar threads before they actually post a new thread. When a user attempts to create a thread they will be prompted with similar threads based on the title text entered. This happens before a user even begins typing in the message box. Hopefully this will help address some user concerns regarding seeing the same topic over and over again. (more coming)
Though currently we’ve only implemented a few minor improvements, we eagerly await the release of vBulletin 4.0, which will provide improved functionality to the community. You’re asked to please provide any feedback on our new features in the Suggestions, Feedback & Questions forum, so we can track any problems. Thank you! (more coming)
This concludes my opening remarks, and for the remainder of the meeting you are welcome to ask questions and provide constructive feedback that applies to the whole community. Now is not the time to ask why you received an infraction back in the summer of ’05, but instead we welcome constructive questions and feedback that applies to the whole community. So that we may hold a civil discussion, please do not interrupt another member. The entire Community Leader team will respond to your questions and concerns, but please understand that we may miss something due to the fast pace of the chat. We are not intentionally avoiding anything, and will eventually respond to all of you. Please note that if we were unable to respond to your questions tonight, we will review the chat log after the chat and post any responses to the community. (more coming)
So that we may do this in an orderly fashion, do any of the members with usernames A-G have any questions or feedback at this time?
Thank you to those users. Now do we have any members with usernames H-N that have any questions or feedback at this time?
Thank you to those users. Now do we have any members with usernames O-U that have any questions or feedback at this time?
Thank you to those users. Now do we have any members with usernames V-Z that have any questions or feedback at this time?
Thank you to those users. As I said earlier, if we were unable to respond to your questions, we will review the chat log after the chat and post any responses to the community. (more)
This concludes the formal part of this evening’s town hall meeting. I would like to thank our phenomenal members and leadership for making this possible. I know that I can speak for the entire leadership team when I thank you for your tremendous support over the past five and a half years. We are the community we are today because of you, and we will be the community you want us to be because of you and your contributions to EMTLife. At this point we welcome our entire community to interact at this point. Thank you.
Tonight’s meeting was set up as an opportunity for our members to interact with our community leadership, provide constructive feedback, and ask questions and receive feedback in real time. When we leave tonight’s meeting we’ll have a clearer understanding of the direction of the EMTLife community. With your support we will evaluate the needs of our community and determine how we can work as a team to create a stronger community of EMS professionals. (more coming)
First, some ground rules for tonight’s town hall meeting. I will begin the meeting with some background information and opening statements. Though I have the option of creating a moderated event where only the Community Leaders may speak, tonight the chat will remain open for the duration of the meeting. I ask that you please don’t interrupt me, ask questions, or provide feedback until I have concluded my opening statements. Second, all of our chat rules and expectations also apply to this chat room. I’ve allowed all of our members to have an opportunity to join tonight’s discussion, because I value your input, and I ask that you please remain respectful of me, the community leadership, and your fellow members. Thank you. (more coming)
As I wrote earlier, EMTLife was created nearly six years ago as an online community where EMS professionals could share and learn with their colleagues. Over the years our 6,500+ members created nearly 15,000 threads with nearly 185,000 individual posts. We are not the same community we were back in January of 2004, but I strived to hold true to my belief that EMS, our relatively new profession, needed a professional community. That's the EMTLife I envisioned many years ago, and in many respects we've stayed true to that vision. (more coming)
To begin, we have made some changes to our leadership structure, and over the coming weeks will continue to refine our current system. First, Jon has been promoted to have full administrator capabilities. Jon, an EMT-Paramedic, has been a member of the community for a long time and is a valued contributor to EMTLife. We welcome him to his new position and look forward to working with him as an administrator. (more coming)
In the coming days we will solicit interest in a new Community Advocate position, an elected member position that acts as a liaison between the community members and Community Leaders. Our new community tribunal will have an open line of communication with the community’s leadership, and will represent the needs of our members. While not yet set in stone, we intend to solicit nominations for Community Advocates in each of four categories: EMT-Basic (BLS), EMT-Intermediate/Paramedic (ALS), EMS Volunteer, and a Member at Large (any background). (more coming)
The Community Advocate is an elected position with a one year term. Our Community Advocates will act as a tribunal to deal with member concerns including warnings, infractions, and restriction of privileges. Most importantly, they will act as a vital line of communication between our members and community leadership. More information will be posted as we work out the details. (more coming)
One of our member concerns appears to be the lack of communication and action from the current leadership team. As the site continues to grow, our volunteer Community Leaders are faced with a growing work load. To help address that problem, in the next few weeks we will add several new Community Leaders, who will both lead discussion and help us consistently enforce our community rules and expectations. This will provide additional resources to deal with member concerns, and will help increase our communication and effectiveness. (more coming)
A significant concern lately has been our implementation and enforcement of our community rules, expectations, and consequences. I want to be clear tonight; we will not lower our community expectations or standards. In the coming days we will solicit member feedback in the form of a survey, and work together with our new Community Tribunal to implement changes to our expectations and enforcement. While everyone may not agree with our community rules, with your feedback we will create a more succinct set of rules and expectations to meet the needs of our growing community. (more coming)
On the technology front, from nearly the beginning we've built our site on the vBulletin (http://www.vBulletin.com) community platform, and have generally been very pleased with the product. The software has allowed us to offer our members a stable and consistent community over the past five years. We eagerly await the imminent arrival of vBulletin version 4.0, which will offer a tremendous amount of new features and upgrades. Until the new version is released, we've modified the software and settings to better serve the community. (more coming)
Based on member feedback, we removed the 10 character limit that would not allow users to create posts with less than 10 characters. (more coming)
Some of our members expressed concern that sometimes their posts just disappeared, and they had to assume that the thread was deleted or closed for a reason. To improve our communication, in the future you will receive an automatic private message if your post is moved, edited, removed, etc. Should you contribute to a thread and have your post(s) disappear, you will receive a PM explaining what happened. (more coming)
We understand that many of our users use the PM feature, with ffemt8978 having over 2,500 PMs in his box, and we've had many suggestions as to how we can improve the function. There is now a quick reply box in the private message page, and you may now "reply to all" to reply to more than one member at a time. We hope to add additional functionality in the near future. (more coming)
We are testing an enhancement that will offer posters similar threads before they actually post a new thread. When a user attempts to create a thread they will be prompted with similar threads based on the title text entered. This happens before a user even begins typing in the message box. Hopefully this will help address some user concerns regarding seeing the same topic over and over again. (more coming)
Though currently we’ve only implemented a few minor improvements, we eagerly await the release of vBulletin 4.0, which will provide improved functionality to the community. You’re asked to please provide any feedback on our new features in the Suggestions, Feedback & Questions forum, so we can track any problems. Thank you! (more coming)
This concludes my opening remarks, and for the remainder of the meeting you are welcome to ask questions and provide constructive feedback that applies to the whole community. Now is not the time to ask why you received an infraction back in the summer of ’05, but instead we welcome constructive questions and feedback that applies to the whole community. So that we may hold a civil discussion, please do not interrupt another member. The entire Community Leader team will respond to your questions and concerns, but please understand that we may miss something due to the fast pace of the chat. We are not intentionally avoiding anything, and will eventually respond to all of you. Please note that if we were unable to respond to your questions tonight, we will review the chat log after the chat and post any responses to the community. (more coming)
So that we may do this in an orderly fashion, do any of the members with usernames A-G have any questions or feedback at this time?
Thank you to those users. Now do we have any members with usernames H-N that have any questions or feedback at this time?
Thank you to those users. Now do we have any members with usernames O-U that have any questions or feedback at this time?
Thank you to those users. Now do we have any members with usernames V-Z that have any questions or feedback at this time?
Thank you to those users. As I said earlier, if we were unable to respond to your questions, we will review the chat log after the chat and post any responses to the community. (more)
This concludes the formal part of this evening’s town hall meeting. I would like to thank our phenomenal members and leadership for making this possible. I know that I can speak for the entire leadership team when I thank you for your tremendous support over the past five and a half years. We are the community we are today because of you, and we will be the community you want us to be because of you and your contributions to EMTLife. At this point we welcome our entire community to interact at this point. Thank you.
