hi -

we're planning a programme of work over the next few months to update and improve rightsnet .... and we'd welcome your feedback on what you like about the site, but also what changes you'd like to see ...

... for example, are there certain areas or features of the site that you use all the time ... or perhaps there are others that you don't find so useful ....

.... or maybe there are things that we don't currently offer that you would like us to ...

at this stage we're ruling nothing in and nothing out ... so feel free to throw anything into the mix ...

... whilst, of course, we can't guarantee to include everyones ideas, they will all be taken into account as we begin to draw up our plans

reply here or, if you'd prefer, email us @ rightsnet@lasa.org.uk

thanks in anticipation -

best wishes ... shawn

I would really love the ability to edit a post that I have made. Occasionally I realise too late that I have made a small mistake, and sometimes certain punctuation doesn't appear on screen the way it did when I sent the message.

In discussion forum, it would be good to be able to go directly to the last post of any particular thread, rather than having to open OP, then scroll down and click through to last post.

Hi,

I think it's a great site anyway and would ask that it remains moderated to ensure a balanced view (I have been alienated from other sites because of the blatant negativity and focus only to 'score points' against the system, rather than considering each issue on its merits). Praise/rant over.
It would be useful to have a Social Policy Section, where people can post details of issues currently being raised in their area, either through general correpondence or via local MPs. Knowing that issues aren't necessarily isolated to your own area gives 'clout' to your arguments. If such info was readily available, all the better.
Keep up the good work!

Yes a social policy section where people can post examples would be very useful, provided that people did submit evidence.

Aslo a spelhceker woudl be usefil!

Spell chequer is a grate eye deer, butt it dose knot all weighs work... lol

Mirror the punctuation problem too - especially square brackets.

social policy forum I think is a good idea too.

Personally, I often struggle with the search facility which really doesn't seem to work very well.

I would not like to see the forums changing too much. Some forums on other sites (ones with spell checkers and loads of smilies usually) I find difficult to use. I've always advocated these forums as being the easist online forums I've ever used.

Other stuff. I get confused about what's in Briefcase, updater and toolkit and think they could be more appropriately named. Tookit would be better named 'law' or 'legislation' (and have no case-law links), and the the briefcase section could be better named 'case-law'.

I'm not sure why we have 'updater' when it just seems to be another place to search from (did I miss something?).

On the whole, this site is, I believe, very easy user-friendly. I like the way that news items are linked to previous items of relevance, and the language used is easy to understand.

Font type and size could be adjusted for disability access (size 12 verdana is, I think, still recommended by disability groups) and, as someone with a colour deficiency, I have to ask that no text be put up in red as I find it difficult to read and sometimes invisible (although this page is OK).

I've always found Rightsnet a valuable resource and Shawn and Ken are always helpful and well on the ball. I always recommend it to my trainees when tutoring.

Thanks

How about changing the default search logic to “all words”------ I am sure that is what is used more frequently.

Another formatting thing - it would be good to be able to add emphasis without SHOUTING, eg by having ability to go bold or underline, so you can highlight things.

On the spell-checker - I have my own set up to avoid my personal bugbears: as shown in the problmes that calimants ahve with beenfit paymnets. Here, usually, I correct as I go. Still, as long as most of it is there even if scrambled, it's comprehensible!

Emphasis can be added using the standard html tags.

Have a look here for how to do:

http://werbach.com/barebones/barebones.html -----> the most important thing to note is that rightsnet does not use the <> brackets but uses the [] ones.

Martin

Quoting would be useful.

Gareth- quoting from previous threads?

Personally, I hate this aspect of internet forums. It means you get really long posts with "Gareth said "quote"" which then includes a quote you did in your post which I am quoting etc etc

Means long bits of a thread are repeated in each post.

I prefer to keep it lean like at present.

----all of this is opinion etc but thats my twopence worth

when replying to posts it would sometimes be useful to see all of the previous replies - as you can when reading a topic - becuase often, my reply will take in comments from several previous posters.

I tend to get around this by either using two browser windows or writing my reply in word then copying over, but it would still be nice not to have to mess around to achieve it.

Writing the reply in word also gets round the spelling problem because it has its own spellchecker.

here's an idea. (disclaimer: i just made it up and i _am_ hysterical! feel free to flame, anyone... : ))

how about assembling all of rightsnets news archive on the tax credit fiasco since birth onto hard copy or at least the highlights eg ministerial statements, relevant annual report extracts, committee findings, policy revisions, into a binder, and flogging them (sustainable social enterprise)to welf orgs who will gladly pur-chase them, to use as evidence in defence of HMRC victims? it could be an indispensible tool like derbyshire, at least until HMRC is semi-house-trained and tax credits fit for purpose...

Great Idea JJ!! - I can't wait till you've finished putting it all together! lol

Tony

: ) : ) i know... i'm full of it...

You and me both, but still not a bad idea.

If your up for it, we can do it together? I've often thought such a thing would be good evidence to back up appeals too. I often raise our professional experience of the incompetence in benefit processing to support appeals where the client's word is doubted, with some success.

So far, I haven't been asked to back it up. I could do if I spent weeks trawling our cases but for now my word is good enough (and tribunal chairs know what's it like anyway).

For tax credits, It's still not too late to do what you suggest, and it would certainly be good fodder for social policy work and media work. What do you say?

TB

ps, seriously off-topic with this thread, so email me if you're up for it.

Not sure if this is possible. Currently you can set things up so that you get an email notification when a new message is posted to a topic to which you are subscribed.

However, it is not possible from the email to easily tell which topic it is going to relate to.

Would it be possible for these emails to include the subject of the thread?

(jokey flame warning for part below)

Then for example I would be able to tell that the two notices I received for this thread about WTC policy work were related to helping us to improve rightsnet and not to WTC policy work...... or would I?

oh now i'm really confused, lol! tony, i have e-mailed you from clicking on righsnet, but i don't know if it works...let me know if they didn't fly...

I can never find the current standard mortgage interest rate when I want it and usually resort to looking on the Bank of England website for base rate and adding the 1.88 adjustment. Could it be put on the benefit rates page? (Everyting in one place, and all that...)

Just a minor one really..

I tend to use the read new/mark facility although I sometimes leave forums unmarked for quite a while if I want to keep a particular thread in mind which means that the "search" results often span more than one page. The results per page default is 25. I can change this to upto 100 so that I can view everything on one page but each time I mark a topic or refresh teh page someother way it resorts back to 25 per page which is irritating. A facility to be able to reset the deafault as 100, or even more would be useful. A facility to mark individual threads as well as whole topics would also be good.

hi ... thanks for all your thoughts

we'll be starting to look at changes to the site next month, and will look at incorporating as many of your ideas as possible ...

... in the interim however ...

• editing forum posts – as if by magic .... you can now edit your message for 2 minutes after you've posted it.
  
  
• social policy information – lasa's currently recruiting to a policy officer post, and welfare benefit social policy will be part of their brief ... so may be scope to look at this in the future?
  
  
• spellchecker – i use the one that comes with google toolbar … works in any web form.
  
  
• use of square brackets in the forum – the forum doesn't like it because it thinks you're trying to format your post with html, and therefore will most often delete any text you've included between them.
  
  
• confusion re what's in briefcase and toolkit - i agree … part of the work we'll be doing over the next couple of months will involve how we can make the site make more sense and easier to navigate around
  
  
• re 'not sure why we have updater .. just seems another place to search from' – again, i agree ... we'll be making improvements to the site search, including adding the ability to search the whole site, rather than individual sections ... and so am thinking of losing updater
  
  
• accessibility – we'll definitely be addressing this, including allowing users to change font size
  
  
• re changing default search to 'all words' - no problem
  
  
• forum email updates – stuck at the moment with being able to change the alerts (the discussion forum is an off the shelf bit of software so there's less room for modification than if we'd built it ourselves) ... we will however be looking at alternative ways of keeping you up to date – for example the use of RSS
  
  
• wanting to keep a particular forum thread in mind – when logged in, you get access to a 'bookmark this topic' feature, which may be what you're looking for here?