Of course, I had said earlier that such communication cannot be handled by phone. That's why we don't list the office phone numbers anywhere. We cannot handle all the calls. Then there is email. Issues can be handled by email, up to a certain point. If there is a specific issue, then email can be used, however, at a certain point that too gets too much to work with, with a limited staff.

The best way to handle the questions, comments and suggestions is to express them openly via a forum for everyone to read and allow feedback as well.

I am now turning to phpbb, which is a free forum program, to address the needs of the company.

I turned to my blog to address the topics that I wish to discuss in the forum -- what will be the important topics that the IRs want to discuss?

FIRST of ALL I THOUGHT of a TITLE:

Compensated Humans do it BEST! This is a stab at the DMOZ site (http://www.dmoz.org >>) that has volunteers toiling away while several billion dollar multinationals are reaping the benefits of their work. In our case we will do the best, and I have no doubt that our IRs who are compensated in many ways can do a better job organizing the Internet into categories. My experience with DMOZ goes back several years, with no success getting the sites that I worked on listed. I don't know how many years I tried to get the original robobanner or biig.com listed, without any success.

Finally, fed up, I tried to become an editor, and that never succeeded. It seemed like a "closed club" for the elite. Of course, looking around, I knew that it could be done better, and I knew that once embarked on, it would be a monumental challenge. Here I am with biig.com.

Now going back to the ideas in the forum:

• The first item has to be an introduction and announcement area at the very top. I will also post these items in the "NEWS"are of biig.com.
• Then I need to write up EDITOR RULES and SUGGESTIONS...And then list perhaps the problems that we have had or better yet a discussion on some topic.
• Then I would like to have suggestions for the network --since maxsimo.com and robobanner will be an integral part of the network I will list those there as well.
• Getting a site submitted and reviewed OR getting the listing updated and re-reviewed regularly.
• Quality of the Network issues, out-dated links, errors, etc.
• Then by the CATEGORIES discussions based on the directory tree the major categories will be listed here.
• Lastly, a miscellaneous subject area, where discussions get started before they are given their own space OR topics that have no place to go.

The forum software by phpbb says that it will take minutes to install the program that uses a MySQL back-end database. Let me test that now and see how long it takes to do it. I think about an hour to an hour and half is a good bet. Furthermore, I'll need another hour to write up the text. Ok, I'll stop the rambling and get to it. Carpe Diem, Sam out.

One last item: I think it's safe to list the forum URL before I install it. It should be http://www.biig.com/forum/ >> I am sure it'll work!

UPDATE: Thursday, 23-Mar-2006 11:22 AM

Wow! The phpbb installation took about 20 minutes from start to finish. Most of that time was for file upload and a cup of tea. Then the install directions from the support area in phpbb.com's site worked flawlessly. There were just two steps: first the change of permission to the install file, and then the creation of the MySQL db. It's refreshing to get started in the day with a good success, and this was it.

Now on to all the modifications, from the images to the writing. I will now get to it. Oh, yes a bonus --the above link works as well! Sam.

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