Help us to help you!

jwt

From the ask Eircom comreg a question thread

dahamsta wrote:

While perusing some of the survey comments earlier on I came across a question .............

The comments have been excellent, some negative some positive re IOFFL, the rest pretty much what we all have been saying. I would like to take the opportunity to thank everyone who is going to the effort of putting their comments forward.

So far no one, not one solitary single person has sent damien a photo for his album.
The newsletter might as well have been engraved on a gold disc and launched into space on another voyager probe.
Damien is banging his head against a wall here every day asking for help.

It's time people, the EGM is looming. You want IOFFL to do stuff. You want IOFFL to fix things. Fair enough. But it is NOT a one way street. We need help. We need feedback. Maybe you thought the newsletter was a load of self serving drivel. Say so. Post it here or mail the chairman. Or Pm it. Any feedback is better than none.

One particular comment in the survey struck me, paraphrasing "We are preaching to the converted here on the forum"

Very true, we (and by we I mean everyone reading this) need to spread the word. I have now got into the habit of teling people about IOFFL and this forum every time someone asks me "Why can't I get broadband". Most people are amazed that there is a lobby group, that there are other people who are in the same boat.
Even if these people do nothing more than post here looking for a shoulder to cry on, at least they know about us. The more people who know about us the bigger the stick we have to beat companies and gov agencies over the head. Politicians care about votes. They may or may not care about anything else, but tell them that you represent a sizeable proportion of their vote and they will listen!

You may think that we have huge influence in Ireland. Right now we are insignificant in the larger scheme. But we can become significant.

But it takes effort.

We have webmasters here, both private and professional. Can you stick a link on your sites to IOFFL and here?

Can someone of good standing in the webmaster forum ask the same.

Are you involved in other Irish forums (outside of boards), mailing lists etc. If so post a link to the survey, and to here.

Tell your cousin Vinny about us when he complains about his internet access bill.

Word of mouth works and works well. Lets try to use it as best we can.

Tell your mates, get them to join the mailing list. The more the merrier.

We need presence. You can help just by telling people about us.

It's not a lot to ask. But if you don't do it who will?

Otherwise just sit back, enjoy your analogue modem music and relax, chill out. Sure someone else will sort it out.


John

dahamsta

Hear hear. He's right you know. Feel free to vent your spleen in the direction of chairman AT irelandoffline DOT org, I don't mind. I'll just forward it to Damien anyway.

adam

damien

dahamsta wrote:

Hear hear. He's right you know. Feel free to vent your spleen in the direction of chairman AT irelandoffline DOT org, I don't mind. I'll just forward it to Damien anyway.

He will you know, but its ok I'll happily compile it into one of these many "reports" we're doing.

By the way, 5 people have so far volunteered to help out with the research we need doing. It's be nice if we could get another 10. There's loads of work to do and the number of people that are workign now will never get through the to-so list. So please email: research@irelandoffline.org if you want to volunteer about 2-3 hours to a very good cause. If you could do this every week or 2 weeks it would be fantastic !

As for the photos, yeah, not one photo did I get, which is a shame when you think how bad the network really is. If people have pictures of shoddy lines and equipment, send them to me. The email is above.

damien

Actually, is anyone any good at transcribing audio streams ? I need a text transcript of the following two links:

http://www.rte.ie/news/2004/0805/57live/57live5a.smil

http://www.rte.ie/news/2004/0805/57live/57live5b.smil