Originally Posted by
eestlinc
Since we don't know what gets discussed in the staff forumwe can't really eb expected to know what decisions you have come up with recently and/or some time ago. When someone posts a thread in feedback about an issue and the staff response is "we've already discussed this in staff and come to a conclusion" then a message this sends is "we already made up our minds so what you think doesn't matter". I've seen the feedback forum morph from a real staff-membership discussion forum to a member question - staff response place. If that's the way feedback is going to be, we might as well just have a PM link set up so members can send questions and ideas and then get a private response back. I think threads like this where there is a running dialogue are much more benficial. Even if you already have discussed and made a decision, that doesn't mean members can't add to the discussion and bring fresh and different views into the mix. Then even if the decision has already been made and its not going to change, you at least present the illusion of including the membership. So much of the social dynamic is what everyone perceives regardless of how things actually are. "We discussed this in staff already" gives the impression of our views not mattering or being considered whether that is actually the case or not.
