I have been a member of the EDF Action Network from its inception. Today I received my first alert from the new system and I responded promptly. Here are a few observations.

From the email, I could not tell to whom the response would be sent. Presumably it was both of my senators, but that information was not explicit in the message.

The web based system did display the recipients. If the recipient information shown on the web is identical to that seen by the recipient - I would suggest some changes. Here is what was shown for the recipient on the web site.

John Warner Senator U.S. Senate 225 Russell Senate Office Bldg. Washington DC 205100001

I think it looks better like this:

Senator John W. Warner United States Senate

The 9-digit ZIP is not formatted correctly and is slightly wrong. That Plus4 extension is for the Senate in general. Senator Warner's is 4601. Either drop the Plus4 or use the right one.

The web site did correctly tell me that I had responded to the alert and showed me what I had sent. However, it too did not tell me to whom I had sent it.

When I look at the what I had said, it included my edited comments, PLUS my vCard information which is automatically attached to all my outgoing mail. If this was reproduced in the actual fax, it will look a little silly. I suggest that you strip out any attachments from responding email.

One enhancement to the system which you should consider is allowing the activist to send different messages to the recipients when more that one is the target.

I don't know if it is easy for you to reproduce the actual fax message as received by the senators. I am curious just exactly what one looks like. Perhaps you could add me as a target to some of the Scorecard Team tests. My fax number is 703-528-8719.

These are unsolicited comments, Let me know if you would like me to continue as I notice things in the future.

John

-- Anonymous, April 01, 1999

Answers

John, your comments are more that appreciated. Thanks a lot.

I understand you are willing to pitch in and help out LCV with your observations to improve our site. Great.

I created a virtual bulleting board designed specifically for partners to ask questions, and exchange thoughts on the usage of Action Network, Report Bugs, etc please use it! Anything that you write there comes to me automatically... Here is also where you can write down the new features that you would like to see implemented in the site; this will also start building a nice set of FAQ's for managers.

http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a.tcl?topic=MAN-EDF

The password is: talk4edfman (all lower case)

You can also send an email to Rolf Hanson to ----> rolf@arsdigita.com he is the one on the even more technical side.

Cheers,

Azur

-- Anonymous, April 01, 1999