Author Topic: GUIDANCE ON POSTING AND COMPLETING TOPICS ON THE LONDON AND MIDDLESEX BOARDS  (Read 22874 times)

Offline Valda

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WELCOME TO THE LONDON AND MIDDLESEX BOARDS




The two moderators for these boards are Dawn and Valda




RootsChat is a forum for searching for ancestors

If you’ve missed seeing and reading the previous guidance and support written by moderators to help you, here are the links for you to refer to. Just click on the topics you wish to view.




GUIDELINES FOR POSTING



POSTING TOPICS AND REPLIES



GETTING THE BEST RESULTS



ROOTSCHAT SURNAME INTERESTS TABLE



COPYRIGHT



SEARCHING FOR LIVING RELATIVES



FAQ TIPS AND HINTS



INDEX TO HELP PAGES



Census information is Crown Copyright, from www.nationalarchives.gov.uk

Offline Valda

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GUIDANCE ON POSTING AND COMPLETING TOPICS ON THE LONDON AND MIDDLESEX BOARDS
« Reply #1 on: Wednesday 30 December 09 16:28 GMT (UK) »

PLEASE MARK POSTS COMPLETED - THIS BENEFITS EVERYONE - PLEASE READ WHY
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A VERY BIG THANK YOU to those posters who are putting 'COMPLETED' in the Subject line of the topics that have been resolved on the 'London and Middlesex' and 'London and Middlesex Lookup Requests' boards. 

It is really appreciated as the London and Middlesex boards do take quite a bit of administrative looking after. If posters don't complete topics, moderators have to spend their time reading all the replies on each topic, before deciding a post is complete and moving it to the 'Completed London and Middlesex board'. If posters complete their own topics it saves the moderators 'oodles of time'! The more time saved on housekeeping tasks means the moderators can give more time to help with answering topics, so everyone wins.

To mark a topic completed:  you need to click into your topic and on the first post press the 'Modify' button at the top (or it could be at the bottom) on the right hand side. The first post will then open for you to edit (very useful if you make a mistake in your post and want to change it or if you want to add to it). Add COMPLETED to the 'Subject' box (where you normally type a title) and then, when you are happy with the changes, press 'Save' under the 'Message' box

Doing this saves moderators having to open each topic and read it through to find out whether it is completed. Instead they can just scroll down the list of topics on each page and see the completed ones they need to move. Please do not put completed in your last post on the topic, because moderators cannot see it unless they open the topic and read it through - there are 75 topics on each page so it takes sometime to open all topics on a page and read through them.

Moderators move completed topics to the completed board for that county. Topics are not deleted from Rootshcat and can still easily be found and responded to, particularly by new Rootschatters who find they have similar research interests when they search Rootschat through the website's own search engine or by searching on a search engine like Google.

Moving completed topics from the 'active' boards means those boards only contain current requests and topics that still require further help. That way Rootschatters trying to help posters will be more confident that any research they do will be for those requests which have not already been fulfilled in some other way. It encourages Rootschatters to scroll back through the pages to look at the older topics. Moderators definitely don't do it because they enjoy tedious time consuming housekeeping tasks - this is a myth. Moderators much prefer the challenge of helping to answer the topics and try to crack the puzzles (just like you) - this is why they got involved with Rootschat in the first place.

If you would like to check on any of the boards for your old posts to find how many could now be completed the easiest way to do it is to click the second column at the top of the first page of a board. The column entitled 'Started By'. This will then arrange all the topics on that board in alphabetical order of poster. You can just click on the pages until you find your own topics.

If a post is moved to a completed board by a moderator and you would like it 'reactivated' back to an active board just pm one of the moderators.


Please remember everything on Rootschat is freely given and that includes moderators' time.


Thanks again, we really do appreciate all the help we get to keep Rootschat running smoothly to everyone's benefit!


Dawn and Valda
London and Middlesex Moderators

Census information is Crown Copyright, from www.nationalarchives.gov.uk

Offline dawnsh

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Re: GUIDANCE ON POSTING AND COMPLETING TOPICS ON THE LONDON AND MIDDLESEX BOARDS
« Reply #2 on: Saturday 29 December 12 17:06 GMT (UK) »
UPDATE

Following the recent Rootschat upgrade, the 'modify' button for posts over a certain age has been removed as the facility was being abused by certain members here.

However, you can now notify your own posts, something not previously available.

So if you can't modify the 1st topic title, please use the 'report to moderator' function but please start the report off with 'Dawn/Valda', and then tell us the topic is completed so we can single these reports out for action.

Thanks

Dawn & Valda
Census information Crown Copyright, from www.nationalarchives.gov.uk

Sherry-Paddington & Marylebone,
Longhurst-Ealing & Capel, Abinger, Ewhurst & Ockley,
Chandler-Chelsea