Posted: Fri Oct 31, 2008 2:23 pm Post subject: New opportunity for AmPm-Marathon participants
Dear Members,
It truly feels good to see the success of AmPm-Marathon over the months. We have witnessed a considerable increase in the volume of posts of late, and this has led us to give you all an opportunity to enhance your quality and accuracy.
We have come up with an idea of selecting our winners through your votes from now on. This would give you a scope to monitor each others' posts and evaluate their worth in terms of both information and quality. Our panel of experts have decided to pick up the top five performers every month for your consideration.
We would expect each one of you to vote for the member-id that you believe to have participated effectively and promoted the cause of our forums through quality posting and knowledge-sharing. The winner for Oct'08 would be declared automatically once we achieve the polling results after 7 days.
I don't know any domestic terrorists or a plumber named Joe. _________________ Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it. - Ferris Bueller
I think it is really a hard choice here to make because I feel all four (myself excluded) have all been wonderful posters and have a lot of repect for all of them. They are my favorites when coming here to either get answers or to post with. Each one has taught me a lot concerning the insurance world since I came here and I do not think I can choose.
Yeah, sorry Lakemen, I don't think I like this idea either, I'll certainly cooperate and vote, but not sure about it...do you have to be a registered member to vote? If so how many posts must you make prior to voting? _________________ **************************************
Life gaurantees a chance NOT a fair shake
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FIND a way EVERY day to lighten the load of another
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sorry forgot to vote and apparently you have to post in the thread to do so... _________________ **************************************
Life gaurantees a chance NOT a fair shake
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FIND a way EVERY day to lighten the load of another
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1. You have to post to vote (what Lori pointed out)
2. I'm not so sure I would have the poll restults visible _________________ Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it. - Ferris Bueller
I personally think this will just have to be a "trial and error" type situation, but at least it's a start in the right direction.
I haven't seen any guidelines as to what is or isn't a "quality" post. We all have our own individual ideas, but I think it would be better for us to all grade a member's work based on some established guidelines, some common ground.
My vote would be to allow only registered members to vote on the winner.
I don't think we should ever judge anyone's commitment to the community by the "number of posts" he or she has made.
What has a member done to develop a more professional insurance community? Does he/she have a blog with current content?
We obviously have members with insurance experience and also those who don't have any experience, other than their own personal experience.
How do we grade knowledge against just opinions and experiences?
Even though we shouldn't be giving out professional advice as in an agent/client relationship, there are just some things that we know.
I don't think the votes shoud be visible and how do we prevent a member from voting more than once?
This is an excellent idea, just needs some thought and work.
I don't believe the results are visible. I didn't vote because I couldn't chose between so many good people (self excluded). I honestly and personaly don't think winning something can replace being a member to the community.
Once you vote, your access to the poll is turned off.
I admit, I am one of those who probably "chatter" more than I should. Is that necessarily a bad thing? I'm not so sure that chatter is bad. Everyone comes to message boards for one reason or another. I personally would hate to see a board that has no personality. If everyone strictly posted factual information, no lame jokes, or off the wall comments, I think things would be pretty boring.
As people read the different threads, if they see a post that isn't adding anything to what they are looking for, they will just move on by.
It doesn't take that much time to skip a post or two because someone is talking about a pony or a pot of chili or something that happened to them several years ago.
Too many things in today's world are negative. Bad news everywhere it seems sometimes. If I can find a place that will make me think or laugh, smile, shake my head, groan, or entice an emotion, well, that is where I want to be for part of my day. _________________ Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it. - Ferris Bueller
Is that necessarily a bad thing? I'm not so sure that chatter is bad. Everyone comes to message boards for one reason or another. I personally would hate to see a board that has no personality.
I couldn't agree more, we want personality, but here's the problem.
This is not just any community forum, it's an "insurance" forum. Normally, when someone poses a question here it's about insurance in some form - life, health, auto, etc.
For someone to come in and make a post like -"Well, I don't know much about auto insurance, but just hang in there and I'm sure soneone will be along in just a minute" - is a total waste of time and space. These posts do not present the "personality" we want to have.
We have this Pub and we can discuss anythihg from armadillos to zebras and no one cares.
There are many professional insurance agents and agency owners who participate in professional forums. These people could actually advertise their agency for free here. In order to attract these people, there must be a reason for them to come here, right?
When I see a thread that starts with an honest serious question, I do my best to give an informative answer. When I see a question that I know absolutely nothing about, I pass it by.
There's certainly nothing wrong with having some fun, heck, my hero is Shrek!
Trying to give someone some advise on whether they should purchase term or permanent life insurance would just seem to be the wrong place to make jokes and talk about chili.
The Pub was once entitled "Non-Insurance Talk", but someone chose to change that.
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Though I would not mind giving this a few months to see how it goes. Its a novel idea.
It is a novel idea and I think Lakemen needs and will appreciate our input.
Okay, I agree that the chatter has to end if it has nothing to do with the post.
I think that these new rules should have taken affect next month, new rules, new month. You should not be able to change the rules in the middle of the game, in fact this was at the very end. It is very clear that fireyone is the winner for this month. If her posts were not worth it, then they should have been deleted and points removed for before now at the end of the month.
I understand that you want a professional image here, however, this is a public forum, it does not state anywhere here that you have to be an industry expert to express your oppinion or share your personal experience. Personally, weather my oppinion counts here or not, I like to hear what other people have been through and how they handled their situation.
Thank god Lori has an attitude and the patience to explain to us dimwits who don't have insurance experience, she is honestly the only one that I have seen that works in the industry that will take the time to explain or break down a post to the industry illiterate to layman terms so that the normal everyday consumer understands it.
I think this voting thing will work, I agree we all should have input, but I think it should start next month. I do think that the everyday person who posts on this forum should have the same chance that the industry expert does. If it comes down to only the experts oppinions counting then it loses its value as a public forum and becomes a private party where only a few oppinions count.
Not everyone is going to be able to develop and maintain a blog, so I think that part of it should not be considered at all. The bloggers are making their dime through adsense and their reward should be the satisfaction of doing the blog and contributing it to the forum period.
We are all adults here, if we have a problem then lets just bring it to the table instead of pming and complaining about it. We can discuss issues in open forum, surely we are all capable of that much.
