Due to lack of community involvement on these forums compared to the competitors out there I believe it could be useful if you were to provide a monthly newsletter to give information on known errors, user requests, case studies, updates, user explanations. Or a LNL type forum for discussion of practical application issues that users are encountering in real time applications. I think it would provide more of a community atmosphere and allow for more input/collaboration between active users as well as draw in new users since it may allow the learning curve to be a bit more approachable.
additionally, It seems like all aspects involved with IES software are cost incentivized. There is a premium cost associated for utilizing this vs the competitors and I understand it is a robust software and has good features, but then factoring in additional costs for python scripts, LNL sessions, LCA tools, GHP design tools. When crashes often occur, BIM integration is hit or miss, and errors are still prevalent with each update, it makes it frustrating at times and leads to wondering if this software is worth the trouble and premium associated. Overall not sure if IES wants to be community based available to the everyday common company/user or if they are only targeting the larger firms which have the expendable money to cover the learning curve and overhead associated.
Community Involvement
Re: Community Involvement
I second this as this forum looks very much dead to me, where even the administrators are not that active as I am waiting for too long for my post to be approved. It would be great if you could in some way encourage the use of the forum as it can be a great place for learning and exchange of opinions.
Re: Community Involvement
daki,
That delay is possibly because you are a new user and they are attempting to avoid spam most likely. Anyway, an idea I had that they could potentially use to encourage users is by rewarding content with a credit system. It could be users voting up or down if they find a topic or query valuable or if that is biased have a staff member decide the credit reward amount. After gaining maybe 50 or 100 credits, the user could trade them for a LNL type of reward; or something like displaying the top 10 users all time and top 5 users of the month scores.
That delay is possibly because you are a new user and they are attempting to avoid spam most likely. Anyway, an idea I had that they could potentially use to encourage users is by rewarding content with a credit system. It could be users voting up or down if they find a topic or query valuable or if that is biased have a staff member decide the credit reward amount. After gaining maybe 50 or 100 credits, the user could trade them for a LNL type of reward; or something like displaying the top 10 users all time and top 5 users of the month scores.
Re: Community Involvement
Thanks for the suggestion guys and apologies for the delays.
We had been waiting for assistance in helping to purge the hundreds of thousands of spam posts in the moderation queue. It got to a the point where we couldn't see genuine posts due to the level of spam. We have now put measures in place such as blocking certain content, email address etc... so a post will be approved a lot faster in future as well as users who don't seem to get an activation email (we can't figure out why this email doesn't land in some users inbox or spam folder, it is sending).
Anyway, if you have any problems posting then please use the contact form and we will look into it ASAP
http://www.iesve.com/support/contact
We had been waiting for assistance in helping to purge the hundreds of thousands of spam posts in the moderation queue. It got to a the point where we couldn't see genuine posts due to the level of spam. We have now put measures in place such as blocking certain content, email address etc... so a post will be approved a lot faster in future as well as users who don't seem to get an activation email (we can't figure out why this email doesn't land in some users inbox or spam folder, it is sending).
Anyway, if you have any problems posting then please use the contact form and we will look into it ASAP
http://www.iesve.com/support/contact