Science Technicians Lobby

We are trialling the lobby which works like a chat room.
To access the Lobby click on the link below.

Leave the window open and see if anyone comes online.
Hopefully this will build into a helpline for technicians, a way of technicians keeping in touch or just having a chat.

Try it and let us know what you think.
Take me to the Lobby

Ok, you are asking for constructive feedback. First of all Java chat room applets built into sites like yours' are generally blocked by many school or local authority servers. Which is why we never wanted to use them on TecHKnow. They block either the outbound and/or inbound connection. Those that don't employ this method will at the very least filter on the word "lobby" or "chatroom" and you may quickly find yourself being blacklisted by many school servers.

So particpation during school time will be restricted. Secondly, based on my experience, your lobby chat room and forums will be in competition with each other. I appreciate your host maybe supplying all of these wonderful widgets to bolt on to your site but you really need to look at what the main service you are offering your technician membership base. Do you want them to communicate information and knowledge via your forums or through the chat room area? I would suggest you do one or the other but NOT both.

Finally, and I want to stress here that I am not trying to dampen your enthusiasm or belittle your good efforts, the competition out there is very strong. Many Colleagues are registered members of Scitech. They have a Java applet chat room as well. It has never been used for the reasons discussed above together with other substantial reasons. So this should be a clue here as to what way the direction of your site should be developing.

Thank you for taking the time to give us your valued feedback TechKnow. The information you provide, based on your own experience, gives definite food for thought and it is good of you to share your insights with us.
We like the idea of having a live portal in as many prep rooms as possible, so colleagues who have a question can have a wealth of knowledge/experience at their fingertips.
We are currently trialling the lobby. It isn't set in stone that this is the direction we are heading, we wish to find out what fellow Technicians prefer. We have a vision of how we see this area progressing on www.sciencetechnicians.org in the future but it is early days yet, and we will be guided by the wishes of our members.
We’ve tested the lobby with two filtering systems and it appears to work fine but, as you advise, it might not be ‘plain sailing’ ahead, and we urge any users that encounter problems to contact us, as this will help us greatly.
We hope that people will use the lobby if they need help or are willing to be there to offer assistance to others; some Technicians have expressed that they feel a strong sense of working in isolation and so might welcome the chance to talk to others via the lobby.
We would like to state that it is not our intention to compete with other sites; we are here for Science Technicians and hope their wishes will help shape how this site will evolve in the future.
We are grateful for your comments and hope you will become one of our regular contributors at www.sciencetechnicians.org
Admin

Admin wrote:Thank you for taking the time to give us your valued feedback TechKnow. The information you provide, based on your own experience, gives definite food for thought and it is good of you to share your insights with us.
We like the idea of having a live portal in as many prep rooms as possible, so colleagues who have a question can have a wealth of knowledge/experience at their fingertips.
We are currently trialling the lobby. It isn't set in stone that this is the direction we are heading, we wish to find out what fellow Technicians prefer. We have a vision of how we see this area progressing on www.sciencetechnicians.org in the future but it is early days yet, and we will be guided by the wishes of our members.
We’ve tested the lobby with two filtering systems and it appears to work fine but, as you advise, it might not be ‘plain sailing’ ahead, and we urge any users that encounter problems to contact us, as this will help us greatly.
We hope that people will use the lobby if they need help or are willing to be there to offer assistance to others; some Technicians have expressed that they feel a strong sense of working in isolation and so might welcome the chance to talk to others via the lobby.
We would like to state that it is not our intention to compete with other sites; we are here for Science Technicians and hope their wishes will help shape how this site will evolve in the future.
We are grateful for your comments and hope you will become one of our regular contributors at www.sciencetechnicians.org
Admin

Darren (I think its Darren you're called)

Anyhow, the entire Secondary Schools in Northern Ireland are blocked accessing your lobby area. We are on the C2K Managed network (formerly known as Classroom 2000.

The remainder of your site can be accessed ok.