I can’t even get onto CSInet.org or whatever. I asked a staff member to try at the convention in Chicago - last year, not this year - and he couldn’t get me on either. After another try, another call, I gave up!
PS My dues are paid!
I just tried to get on csinet.org, and couldn’t remember my login name, so I had to call the toll-free number. FIRSTNAME@LASTNAME, all caps. Password was all caps too. Case sensitive, for some reason…Why?! Once I logged in, I found a very bewildering site. Had a hard time locating the forum. It appears that someone has worked long and hard to make the whole site as difficult to navigate as possible, except to maximize exposure to stuff CSI sells. I finally found the discussion forum (cleverly hidden under “Technical” and “Communities”) and discovered four separate “discussions”: One each for specifiers, architects, engineers, and manufacturers & product reps! Whose idea was that?? I thought one of the main advantages of CSI was to include the whole industry in the same group…!
It appears that someone felt obligated to make this as different in every way from the 4specsforum as possible – and since 4Specs works about as well as it can, the csi counterpart works about as poorly as possible.
It’s discouraging, frustrating and exasperating, to say the least…
I use Csinet.org all the time and still find it awkward.
I have never had trouble accessing csinet.org and I have found plenty of useful information there. Navigation could be improved, but I don’t consider it to be all that bad. True, I think 4specs.com has won the war regarding useful, accessible discussion forums, but I still visit the forum at csi just to make sure I’m not missing any important kernals of information. To those at Institute (both staff and csi “volunteers”) I offer my thanks for providing what I think is a very useful site, overall. And to Colin, I also say thanks for providing what is probably the new standard for this type of website.
I think that every gem published here from May 24 on should be transferred to Discussion Forum / Institute Discussions / CSI Public Relations.
This is too good to hide as an appendix to “thinking of giving up on spec writing”