Welcome to the Fairy Lamp Club Forum

[Admin]

Welcome to the Fairy Lamp Club Forum

You are invited to join the Fairy Lamp Club Forum. It will provide you the opportunity to solicit and share information related to fairy lamps, both Victorian and contemporary.

My intention when creating this forum was to create a community of fairy lamp collectors to share information and personal knowledge related to fairy lamps and related topics such as manufacturers, art glass, advertisements, etc.

As with any public forum, I think it is important that we have some ground rules to follow.

Ground Rules for Fairy Lamp Discussion Group

• Try to keep focused on the topic. I understand the need to occasionally drift off topic but let's try to keep it to a minimum.

• Disagree when necessary, but do it a manner that you would expect from someone else.

• If your message is not related fairy lamps and related topics (glass, manufactures, etc.) please use OT or OFF TOPIC in the beginning of the subject title of your message.

• Please do not use this forum for personal messages. If your messaage is personal, please send a Private Message (PM).

• Use good ol' fashioned common sense and we won't have to create any new rules.

• Don't be shy. Every question is worth asking and every answer in worth hearing.

And, finally.

• Have fun! This forum should be a pleasant experience for you. If not, don't let it ruin your day. Life is too short to spend time participating in things you don't enjoy.

I have provided these ground rules so that we all are on the same sheet of music. While the discussion group is un-moderated, I reserve the right to use my best judgement to exercise my privileges as abministrator to keep us on track.

Jim.

[Admin]

I was adventurous this morning and tried the forum notice. I am not sure just what I am doing but how is this different than the regular e-group: one posts a question and others answer? How will this setup be different? John

Well, it remains to be seen if this forum had any advantages of not. However, a couple things come to mind

• The forum allows for categories of discussion. For example, I could set up categories for Victorian Fairy Lamps, Contemporary Fairy Lamps, art glass, miniature lamps, Classified ads, etc.

• It keeps the email traffic to a minimum. Only the participants in a thread recieve notification that a reply is made. And, that can be "turned off" if a thread gets off track.

• Replys seem to be near real time as opposed to email which, for unexplained reasons, is delayed.

• Allows "guest" to participate without signing in. I may change this privialge if it get out of hand.

• There are no ads to deal with compared to the Yahoo Discussion Group.

• It has a search tool to find specific threads. For example, if I only visit the forum occassionally, I can search of "Burmese" and find all the threads that use that term. That is exactly what I do in similar art glass formus

The down side is, of course, the learning curve associated with something new. Fo me, I am accustomed to this type of forum because I participate is several others in this format.

The bottom line is, of course, participants will be the untimate judge is this forum is useful or not. I still have a lot of work to do to get it set up properly and that is where you and others come it. Tell me what you would like to see in the way of categories and what "problems" you encounter trying to figure this thing out.

Thanks for your inquiry.
Jim.

[GLASSLUV]

I worked my way around the new format a bit. not sure we need this degree of sophistication for such a relatively small well focused group. i think one of the goals should be to get more collectors to join and contribute and that these persons may find the forum format with this many bells and whistles to be a bit daunting. i have used this format in another group and found it made me less likely to jump in with a comment because the process was confusing. jmho.

stu

[Admin]

.....not sure we need this degree of sophistication for such a relatively small well focused group. I have used this format in another group and found it made me less likely to jump in with a comment because the process was confusing. jmho.

Yes, it is certainly more sosphisticated and, like all new things, a bit daunting. However, there are some distinct advantages including:

• The sophistication is free. There is a wide selection on basic templates, i.e. colors and format. And, there are tools for the administrator to customize the "look and feel". In a matter of minutes I had the fundamental format I wanted. Of course, I will continually be tweaking it.

• No more emails to deal with, except for the threads I am interested in. These emails come as a notice that someone has posted a reply, along with a link that takes me right to it. The emails I find most annoying are the ones with a long series of appended messages.

• The ability to setup specific catagories is a good feature. I have only identifed a few but I expect the "binning of topics" to grow with the interest of the members.

• The ability to send a "private message" to a members without knowing an e-mail address is available with a click of a button. I think this will reduce the number of "personal messages" being broadcast to the entire membership.

• The ability to post an item for sale is a huge advantage for those who like to "finance their addictions." This feature alone could be worth the time spent "learning something new."

There are probably other good features, but that's enough for now. Only time will tell if this format holds up under critical evaluation. The level of participation will, of course, be the measure of success.

Jim.

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