Dear Sir/Madame. Your Forum is Broken...

[admin]

Well, no, it is not broken but one might think it is if one signed up and has not posted at least twice (2).  Anonymous members in this professional community are not encouraged, and participation is strongly promoted. Please read on as the letter continues:

I signed up for your forum two months ago, forgetting to activate my account until I was reminded several weeks later.  I had forgot to expect the automated email from the forum that would be sent to the email address I gave when registering so that I may click the link inside it and activate my verified account.  In fact, my spam filter must have prevented the email from ever reaching me in the first place. Some times new business email does not reach me either.  :-)

After I received your reminder last month, I activated my account and promptly changed my email address to one without so restrictive a spam filter.  But I forgot what I had read about the requirement to reactivate my account should I change my email on file with you: getting another email from the forum with a link to click so my new email would be verified.  Anyway, thanks for giving me a call last week to remind me to check my email for that automated message from the forum to reactivate my account again.  That email was indeed in my junk mail folder.  I am now an activated participant.

When I was at the forum a couple of days ago, I noticed that I cannot see as much of it as once I did.  What happened to all the different discussions? What happened to the Case Studies, Library and News Articles?? Now I only see discussion topics: 
Forum Terms & Rules;
The Name Tag Says: "Hi My Name Is....";
Your Introduction to Public Relations....;
Membership Breakdown = PR Practitioners : Non-PR Practitioners;
Polls;
Site Problems;
Professional Development;
Position Sought/Offered; and
The Vox Populi Soap Box.

Have the other forum boards been removed?  I also realized that I cannot start a topic.  Is the forum broken?  

Reply:
Well, no, it is not broken but one might think it is if one signed up and has not posted at least twice (2).  Anonymous members are not encouraged, and participation is strongly promoted. Please post on the boards you see. More of the forum and its capabilities (such as starting a topic) will be made available to you automatically.

Which leads us to the next unhappy correspondence:
Thank you for the clarification.  I returned to the forum but I have forgotten my password.  Unless I use something frequently I have a tendancy to forget about it.  Can you give it to me, please? 

Reply:
No.    We do not know your password.  We never knew your password.  There is no way for us to retrieve or otherwise view what is secret to you (i.e. your password).  That is the way the software works. .....

[Nick Goulding]

Having just registered, two comments

a) your e-mail with my registration detail went straight into my spam box

b) I had to register twice because you have a minimum length for the password and I only used six chars.

no problem with that except it would be a little less irritating if you had specified the requirement clearly.

[Richard Whipple]

Having just registered, two comments

a) your e-mail with my registration detail went straight into my spam box

b) I had to register twice because you have a minimum length for the password and I only used six chars.

no problem with that except it would be a little less irritating if you had specified the requirement clearly.

Welcome to the Forum!

a) is a common obstacle and that is at the receiver's end.  The eMail client has a SPAM filter that is too fine.  I had this issue myself with eMail (that was responding to my initial eMail) being sent to my SPAM box.  It nearly cost me an overseas client until I had a chat with the tech people.

b) is a situation I was not conscious of.  Can you tell us how many characters are the registration minimum?  I use 8 characters myself.   Your information will be put into the Registration Agreement.

My apologies for any irritation this lack of information caused and thanks for bringing your experience to our attention.  The information in your post will help those members coming after you. 
 
- R. A.

[Eric Friedman]

Yes. For some reason the sign in process is ever so slightly confusing. It may be because the 'sign-in' is handled in a more sophisticated way here and seems to happen behind-the-scenes, as opposed to an explicit sign-in page as on many other sites. But those have their own inherent issues as well. It's nice not having to think about it too much and just be able to get to the forums directly.
-Eric

[Richard Whipple]

I would add one more challenge I noticed: in the preconceived notions department.  Our forum is not part of LinkedIn.  Many members here are members of the online business community LinkedIn.com.  Others belong to other communities.  The recent changes to LinkedIn groups, now to include discussions, has brought an unexpected perception with it: many LinkedIn members believe that they are already registered on this forum.

This creates a problem as first time visitors try to login. It cannot be done.  First time visitors must first register.  The problem ends when the registeration occurs and an activation eMail is sent to the eMail address provided by the visitor.  From there on, the sailing is smooth. 

So I just want to point out that this forum is not a part of LinkedIn. Registration on this forum is not a registration at LinkedIn.  If you are coming from LinkedIn to register here, you are not automatically registered on this forum. As a member of this forum, you do not automatically have a LinkedIn profile.

- R. A.