When Under One Roof was started it was decided that it should include an area board for Avon.
It's not widely known that the county of Avon was in fact abolished in 1996 having come into existence in April 1974. Some places will have been originally in Somerset, then in Avon and now in Somerset again. The confusion is added to by some institutions which still carry the name, such as the Avon Wildlife Trust and The Avon and Somerset Constabulary. Road signs welcoming travellers to Avon can also still be found.
We decided that by having both an Avon board and a separate Somerset board we could leave it up to our members to decide in which one they lived in. At first this worked well but as UOR got busier problems began to arise, a few members were putting their advert on both boards, which gave us the problem of which one to delete.
It was when asking one member which advert to remove, that the idea of combining them into one came about.
Her argument was simple, if she posted in Avon then her advert might be missed if somebody just looked in Somerset and vice-versa. Which meant she could miss out on a possible exchange, not the idea at all! The two boards would both have to be checked by anyone wishing to move to Bath for example which just complicated matters.
We asked members what they thought about merging the Avon and Somerset boards into one. All those who replied agreed it was a good idea and so they were combined into one.
Sunday 15 February 2009
Wednesday 11 February 2009
Marching to a different drummer
Right from the start we've claimed that Under One Roof is not the same as most other council house exchange sites. So how is it different from the rest, what makes it unique.
To start with UOR does not have a single "owner", it's been jointly run and funded from the start by a group of five people (now three). But the big difference is in our philosophy and ideas about how an exchange site should be run.
We wanted to administer the site from the view point of the members. Cutting out all those things we found annoying when using other sites. Heavy-handed administration was out for a start, if somebody didn't read the rules, who does anyway, we'll let them know in a friendly way and explain why we have the rule, not a "don't do that or else" manner, there's never an excuse for being down right rude. UOR was going to treat it's members with respect and as adults, after all without them the site is nothing.
We allow our members to post links to other exchange sites in their adverts, we know of no other site that allows this. Our aim is to help people find an exchange, where they find it does not matter and if UOR can help in any way then it has done it's job. People are going to join other sites in any case so why put hurdles in the way, Google is everybodies friend.
Members can also put their email address's in their adverts, most other sites don't allow it. UOR does because it helps people communicate, it's their choice even though their is an email button on every post. This is why the main boards are not visible to guests, if it was then spambots would soon be harvesting those email address's and sending them loads of spam.
It was also decided right from the beginning that we would keep our members informed about any changes that were made to the site or any problems it was having. If it was offline or running slowly we'd let everyone know as soon as we did. We will give proper explanations, if the server's crashed we let members know that's what happened. We never ever trot out meaningless glib little phrases like "circumstances beyond our control", whatever that's supposed to mean.
In the chat forums we allow our members to have an opinion and to voice that opinion if they wish. We do not close or delete posts simply because somebody disagrees with us.
Above all we want to keep it friendly and not have people afraid to post or add something to their advert in case the "admin" jump on them. What are "admin", just ordinary people, at least on Under One Roof they are.
To start with UOR does not have a single "owner", it's been jointly run and funded from the start by a group of five people (now three). But the big difference is in our philosophy and ideas about how an exchange site should be run.
We wanted to administer the site from the view point of the members. Cutting out all those things we found annoying when using other sites. Heavy-handed administration was out for a start, if somebody didn't read the rules, who does anyway, we'll let them know in a friendly way and explain why we have the rule, not a "don't do that or else" manner, there's never an excuse for being down right rude. UOR was going to treat it's members with respect and as adults, after all without them the site is nothing.
We allow our members to post links to other exchange sites in their adverts, we know of no other site that allows this. Our aim is to help people find an exchange, where they find it does not matter and if UOR can help in any way then it has done it's job. People are going to join other sites in any case so why put hurdles in the way, Google is everybodies friend.
Members can also put their email address's in their adverts, most other sites don't allow it. UOR does because it helps people communicate, it's their choice even though their is an email button on every post. This is why the main boards are not visible to guests, if it was then spambots would soon be harvesting those email address's and sending them loads of spam.
It was also decided right from the beginning that we would keep our members informed about any changes that were made to the site or any problems it was having. If it was offline or running slowly we'd let everyone know as soon as we did. We will give proper explanations, if the server's crashed we let members know that's what happened. We never ever trot out meaningless glib little phrases like "circumstances beyond our control", whatever that's supposed to mean.
In the chat forums we allow our members to have an opinion and to voice that opinion if they wish. We do not close or delete posts simply because somebody disagrees with us.
Above all we want to keep it friendly and not have people afraid to post or add something to their advert in case the "admin" jump on them. What are "admin", just ordinary people, at least on Under One Roof they are.
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