Great Western Coffee Shop

Many of our boards have general information topics pinned on the top of the board - "this is where to start" for newcomers, introducing the line / service / subject matter.  Until now, these pinned topics have been maintained by our global moderators and administrators - busy people on the forum and in real life, and often with limited knowledge of the length of the platform at Betchworth or the curvature of Narberth tunnel. Errors of fact, even in the pinned posts, have not been spotted .... and the threads have gotten out of date too. Hence a "Data Manager".

A "Data Manager" has the same powers within his/her board(s) as a moderator.  That means that he/she can pin and unpin topics, donate topics to other more appropriate boards, merge, and modify posts (by anyone) even once they are older that the 60 day "archived" setting. In other words, the Data Manager can take ownership of the board content. 

We have several long-standing members who have been excellent moderators, but have really not enjoyed the very rare occasions that they've had to be actively involved in sorting out issues with members which comes as part of the moderator job. By making these new roles "Data Manager" rather than "Board Moderator" ones, responsibility for member's issues remains with the moderator / admin team leaving these new data managers the role of looking after content and technical stuff with (of course) the ongoing help and support of the moderators to back them up.

Are you a regular on the forum?  Do you fancy taking day to day data responsibility for a board or two where you're a well informed - writing new "General Information" threads, and then keeping them current?  If so - please let me know.

* For each "line" board ... looking for the following titles for consistency:

Name
Description
Notable Engineering features and architecture
Notable Railway Facilities
Service
Rolling stock used
Main passenger flows
Ticket and fare data
Catering and facilities
Current issues
Planned
Aspirations
Station notes and links
Community Groups
History

See examples at
http://www.passenger.chat/22961 (London to Swindon and Bristol)
http://www.passenger.chat/23029 (Cornish Main Line under "Plymouth and Cornwall")

Congratulations to bignosemac on being our first Data Manager - looking after the South West Railways board.  I spoke with BNM about this the other day ... agreed that he'll be providing an initial line summary for the Salisbury - Exeter line ... on this board (as on some others) multiple line guides will be involved in due course.

Thank you very much for entrusting me with the South Western Services board, grahame. Many members will know I now live in 'enemy' ( :P ) territory in Templecombe.

I'll be researching the history of 'The Mule' over the coming days and updating the pinned introduction thread to the South Western services board. Initially with a focus on Salisbury to Exeter. I'll also look at whether said  board would benefit from sub-boards for the other lines and stations that are served by SWR in the 'Coffeeshop' area. Such as services between London and Southampton, London and Portsmouth, London and Weymouth... and other points where they interact with the Greater Western franchise.

Any input, clarifications, corrections etc will be greatly appreciated. Please though keep that to the new ' South Western Services - General Information' thread that will be started in the coming days.

bignosemac

Welcome to 2 further Data Managers - SandTEngineer for Plymouth and Cornwall, and IndustryInsider for the North Cotswolds.   Gentlemen - THANK YOU.

And a welcome to two more - one for "buses" and one for "cycles" - CyclingSid and Bus_Lady (and I'm sure members can guess which board is which Data Manager  ;D

On both of these boards, the usual pinned "line topic" is not appropriate and I'm going to suggest to the Data Managers that they work out what's most appropriate to have as constant / sticky data - perhaps starting with a thread that asks that question.

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Subject to final moderator / admin approval, I'm planning to open a board for Data Managers - perhaps the "Staff Canteen" or "Staff Room" - where they and the moderators and admins can co-ordinate and share experiences. That's also a useful way of helping ensure that this role is very much a supported one, rather than anyone feeling they've been given a task and then left to get on with it!

Initial testing and first data manager stuff working well - and first updates have appeared online.

If you are stuck at home and at a loose end, or fancy updating the sticky pages one of our boards, please do let me know.  A typical data manager will:
- be knowledgeable about their board (not "know-all" - able to research to fill gaps) and good link providers
- have a demonstrable history of informing and interfacing with other members and other views calmly
- have a posting history of at least 300 contributions
- have posted at least once so far this year
Taking the latter two, which are "hard" numbers, there are 85 members who fit the request

Moderators and Admins already have the rights (across all boards) that come with data managers; if any of the team wishes to take up specific board responsibility, I can add their names (I think) so they show up as "Data Manager" for that board.