More Collaboration -User Poll

[Motty]

I don't know if there's anyway of doing it without laying the forum open to spam, but I reckon I'd post more of my question attempts if I could so anonomously.
That way no-one would know it was me that had made the silly blunder of .... etc.

Just a thought,
would anyone else post more of their attempts if this were the case, are we all a bit sensitive to losing 'face' ? or having it held against us later?

Motty

[Peter]

I don't know if there's anyway of doing it without laying the forum open to spam, but I reckon I'd post more of my question attempts if I could so anonomously.
That way no-one would know it was me that had made the silly blunder of .... etc.

Just a thought,
would anyone else post more of their attempts if this were the case, are we all a bit sensitive to losing 'face' ? or having it held against us later?

Motty

You are as anonymous as your username allows. The only reason for putting any details about yourself is to help people who may post back to understand the context of the thinking of your answer. The only person who can find out any more about you is the forum administrator who can access your registration e-mail address and I happen to know he is not going to risk his professional integrity sharing stuff like that to hold errors over someone.

Peter

[PJW]

I don't know if there's anyway of doing it without laying the forum open to spam, but I reckon I'd post more of my question attempts if I could so anonomously.
That way no-one would know it was me that had made the silly blunder of .... etc.

Just a thought,
would anyone else post more of their attempts if this were the case, are we all a bit sensitive to losing 'face' ? or having it held against us later?

Motty

You are as anonymous as your username allows. The only reason for putting any details about yourself is to help people who may post back to understand the context of the thinking of your answer. The only person who can find out any more about you is the forum administrator who can access your registration e-mail address and I happen to know he is not going to risk his professional integrity sharing stuff like that to hold errors over someone.

Peter

It is worth remembering that the personal message facility allows people to communicate without exchanging "real" e-mail addresses. Unfortunately this can't send attachments so that does require a normal email to be sent that discloses email address. Obviously these may have full name and have company name, but many email addresses are more anonymous; in your case having registered with your work email then that is a giveaway, yet had you registered with your domestic email I would never have guessed, would I? You'd be right to think that Peter and I were interested who "Aitch" might be and although we do know the email address they used, it doesn't tell us anything extra about who they are! If someone registering really wants to say even less about themselves then they could mislead re what timezone you are registering from. Personally I just can't understand what any such additional secrecy gains anyone; not really sure why anyoneone would think "things would be held against them". Who is the fool; the one that makes a foolish mistake and learns or the one who doesn't ask and find out? I can just about see that some people may not wish others that they know at work to associate them with the pseudonym they use on this site; this is in each member's control when registering.

The other thing is that if posted truly incognito as you suggest, someone would be able to reply but effectively "that would be it"; if the original person then wanted to come back to query anything or ask fo more info, then this would inevitably at least suggest that they had been the orginal poster. Also I suppose if there was never any proper two way interchange there would be less motivation for those giving the replies- it would seem more like a task than feel one was helping someone.

However it IS a very valid question. Far fewer have posted anything than we might have hoped and yet there seem to be quite a few who send me stuff separately who I'd have hoped might have posted here but have not, so there is obviously "reluctance" and it would be useful to understand more of the rationale.

As Peter has advised, the Forum will be briefly disabled during the period of the coming exam, so that it couldn't be used to obtain help / information; obviously it is likely to be relatively quiet afterwards (though be good to have some "how was it for you" / "what did you do for question x" type exchanges). I think we will need to take stock and decide whether to continue for another year / what changes we could make / how to integrate more with the enhanced exam support that I know various YM are considering etc / find out how many of those who have registered are interested in continuing or whether they came once and are not interested further etc. Any thoughts on the above would be welcomed

PJW

[Motty]

It's been nice to have this space to see what's been going on, particularly as I've not had a study group to go to regularly. I guess it's whether the amount of effort that you and Peter have been putting in has been rewarding to yourselves or whether it's all give and no-take.
It's a pity that the IRSE don't have this facility themselves, but I guess it's resources.
Angie

[Peter]

It's been nice to have this space to see what's been going on, particularly as I've not had a study group to go to regularly. I guess it's whether the amount of effort that you and Peter have been putting in has been rewarding to yourselves or whether it's all give and no-take.
It's a pity that the IRSE don't have this facility themselves, but I guess it's resources.
Angie

The IRSE is its members. I think they'd liked to have done it but didn't have the know how. The whole question as to whether it is better as something independent (no constraints on discussion topics) or as part of the institution (word of authority) is a bigger debate.

[Motty]

Kudos to you for setting-up this space, it's been long overdue, especially since it's independent of the IRSE, despite accusations to the contrary.

I think it's difficult to know where to go to without guidance from 'someone-in-the-know'. Personally I've found the forum invaluable, and I know I would have posted more attempts, had I been able to incognito. I don't believe anyone in the forum would allow their judgement to be coloured by people trying, (but not all casual observers are necessarily so enlightened.)

However, I believe that the solo studier armed only with past papers, the syllabus and the technical papers (standards, IRSE past papers, published study guides and modern lit. - Stanley Hall, Christian Wolmar etc.) would struggle to acheive results without this forum.
I conceed that no exam board is obliged to prepare candidates to pass, but I suspect that this link must at least be implicit, as without passing candidates they miss the reason for existence.

Maybe then that's the point, albeit a somewhat subtle line, is developed knowledge about signalling appreciation, or passing exams to demonstrate it?

I feel I've gone a bit off topic now, so I'll stop.

PJW: Unable to add a Poll here so have done so at: Poll

[PJW]

I don't know if there's anyway of doing it without laying the forum open to spam, but I reckon I'd post more of my question attempts if I could so anonomously.
That way no-one would know it was me that had made the silly blunder of .... etc.

Motty

I am trying out two different approaches that may help; let me know views:

1. Potentially could set up sub-forums for we'd restrict entry to people that we already knew were bone-fide students prepared to contribute and if we found that they weren't actually adding things themselves "excommunicate" them from that special area. I have done this for module 2 as a form of virtual Study Group; perhaps also ones related to the various YM training events that are being organised for those registered to attend.

2. An area where people can post yet their post not be seen by anyone until moderators have done something to it.

[CMcGrory9]

I don't know if there's anyway of doing it without laying the forum open to spam, but I reckon I'd post more of my question attempts if I could so anonomously.
That way no-one would know it was me that had made the silly blunder of .... etc.

Just a thought,
would anyone else post more of their attempts if this were the case, are we all a bit sensitive to losing 'face' ? or having it held against us later?

Motty

I was giving this some thought earlier and wondering about the nature of our relationships and this site and the fact that we no longer enjoy being part of BR and all work for the same company.

I'm sure that most of us using the site who are UK based will either be with Network Rail or Network Rail will almost certainly be the number one client of our employer.

My concern in this respect was that I would be posting my efforts which are an indication of my capability as a Designer [though this applies to other roles] to persons who are or may be either my organisations number one client or indeed competitors in the Signalling Market.

I'm sure however, that the individuals taking time to help students are doing so because they enjoy helping people learn and they want the best for UK Signalling in general.

I personally would be prepared to post answers once (once i have acutally produced some) but if any other users have had the same concern?

If I do begin to post answers I would definitely seek the authority of my Line Manager before doing so and perhaps this should be recommeded to new users?

[PJW]

My concern in this respect was that I would be posting my efforts which are an indication of my capability as a Designer [though this applies to other roles] to persons who are or may be either my organisations number one client or indeed competitors in the Signalling Market.

If I do begin to post answers I would definitely seek the authority of my Line Manager before doing so and perhaps this should be recommeded to new users?

If you want to do that, fine and I certainly wouldn't contradict yet I wouldn't feel necessary to encourage either. However one benefit may be that your line manager might actually offer you their own help.

Whilst I am still an employee of client organisation, I would say
1) If let a contract to "Joe Smith and company" to do some work, this would be based upon things like Link-up approval, internal management processes and comptence assessment, IRSE licenses etc; unlike to know that particular named individuals to do work (perhaps in higher powered consultancy but almost certainly those people are already MIRSE)
2) I wouldn't necessarily know who CMcGrory9 was or what company worked for
3) If I did and I found that the person were actually attempting to learn about a branch of signal engineering in which they weren't expert, I think I'd consider this a positive rather than a negative.
4) Even taking design per se, a lot of designers do not get involved with Signalling Plan design nor Control Table production that tend to be the focus of mod 2 and mod 3; I venture to suggest half of those in the NR Reading STPE office fall into that category. The fact that they may not actually know much about those subjects doesn't stop them being good designers of location, level crossings, SSI data .....

Do remember that IRSE licencing is primarily about competency to do the day job and that IRSE exam is less about the specific detail but more about wider understanding; the two are largely complementary though of course some overlap.

My own view is that I do have difficulty really appreciating what the worries are, but yes everyone needs to feel comfortable, satisfy themselves that not in breach of Contract of Employment etc.

[CMcGrory9]

Thanks for the reply(to a slightly ill written post). I think it demonstrates that there are Signal Engineers of vast knowledge and experience who are eager to help those of us at the other end of the spectrum. I think the scenario that I was concerned about where a client would raise concerns about a designers competencey are highly unlikely as the sort of individuals who are using this site share the viewpoint of PJW.

I agree also, with PJW's 4th point. I personally took IST(which involves some Module 2 & 3 content) whilst working in STPE(Works) which normally only involves Loc Design etc.

I think the reply shows that despite PJW's wealth of experience he has an excellent understanding of the position we younger memebers find ourselves in. This has certainly encouraged me to post my answers (again, when I actually create some) and I hope it will encourage others.

Thanks to PJW for taking time to respond to my concerns as well as responding to students answers.