Best thing about TechRepublic is.....

I think the best thing about TechRepublic is the sense of community. There are members I've never met, but somehow feel I know nonetheless, at least to some degree. The articles and white papers are quite useful to be sure, but to be honest the information they contain could be found elsewhere - although perhaps not as easily. But the community aspect of the site, the Q&A and Discussion forums, is what sets TechRepublic apart from the rest. I like the fact that they are not really moderated, per se, but rather controlled to a large degree by the members themselves.

Will that kind almost covers it - The Open Discussion forums with world wide participation, ability to pose Tech questions and get answers from others in the field, to assist others with technical questions and personal experences.

A number of the articles are very well written - then again some are very slanted to support MS, but the good thing is the ability to post to that article.

If you add it all up - the ability to share freely with the world individual knowledge and expertise in the field of IT and Management...

Worst = techpoints

This is covered in another thread started by Beth Blakely!

OK I'll C&P my other post.

Hi Beth,
Well I always thought Tech Pro Guild was a part of the site I didn't use. Your description of the activities there make me think you are referrnig to what I've always known as Tech Republic?!?

If you are here for feedback, here ya go. Max doesn't like the spaces entered into URL's and also extra characters inserted into long lines such as >>>>>>>>> becoming >>>;>>%>

I for one think that the dicussion forum is used WAY too often instead of the Technical Q&A forum, many threads about that one.

It has been suggested that even moving the Technical Q&A link to the top of the menu and the Discussion link to the bottom would work.

We've also discussed such things as being able to flag a question posted in the discussions forum to have it removed. The first idea of moving the link sounds more effective, and a lot easier though.

MY ONLY beef is people posting questions in to the Discussion forum.

Oh yes, and the fact that you can post a 50 point question, accept ANY answer and get a 1000 point reward, for what, asking a question?

Thanks for asking, now I bet you wished you didn't! ;-)

OzMedia

I can't think of anything that I do not like about TR.

The e-mail newsletters are often useful.

Many articles have been of assistance.

I enjoy helping others via the Q&A forum.

I have fun exchanging ideas in the discussion forum.

All in all, keep up the good work.

Since there have been so many non-IT related discussions, how about adding a discussion category specifically for these "off-topic" discussions?

Chas

The whole site is great and while I mist admit I visit here mainly to wind down at the end of a days work and play on the various discussions there is always a good sense of Comunity with everyone here even if we violently disagree with each other we will at least listen and give a valid responce without bringing any personalities into any disagreement that might from time to time occure.

The Q & A site is brilliant with a lot of people offering help quickly when required and even on the disucssion sites this help is readily offered and always with thanks from the person who is asking.

About the only down side is when someone askes a question and doesn't let us know how the problem was fixed that sought of get me as while I'm not directly affected I would like to know sometimes as it might prove usefull to me at some time.

My favorite is the "What would you do?" columns. I also used to get a lot of benefit from the technical articles back when NT4.0 was the most recent OS. I don't see as much of those types of articles for W2K, or XP. I REALLY hate the articles that suck me in thinking I'm going to get some good info, just to find out that they are really just advertisements disguised as articles. I also wonder what happened to the Tech Points program that was advertised where you could trade them in for stuff. I also have too much stuff lying around, but it's the principle of the thing. If you advertise it, do it...

Very Informative. "A must" if you have an insatiable thrist for knowledge.

What I dislike the most about TechRepublic

- The ?Subscribe? option on Discussions that means absolutely nothing. Once, in the dim and distant past, e-mail notifications were actually dispatched when there was activity on the discussion!
- The ?Printer-friendly? option on articles that, in most cases, still instructs one to ?click on the image to view? for figures or illustrations. How is that ?printer-friendly??
- The meaningless Techpoints concept. I am on of those community members who recall the hype around being able to exchange Techpoints for goods. Does anyone else recall when a calendar, TechRepublic e-mail address and other PIM goodies were also part of the package?
- The ?Contact Us? link that results in slow, worthless or no feedback whatsoever.
- My collection of HUNDREDS of broken links to articles on TR, following the recent changes to the site?s structure. Thanks for that one, guys. I think it?s on most top ten lists of things webmasters should NEVER do.
- The dwindling NetWare coverage, which began when the monthly TechProGuild NetWare report was no longer available in hardcopy, then vanished altogether. More recently, the NetWare Tips e-newsletter changed from a twice weekly to a weekly format, and then disappeared. It?s now been months since a new article on NetWare or other Novell products has been published on either TR or TPG.
- Promises of TR coffee mugs for input to articles. I?ve only ever received one TR mug, after I wrote to complain, but this is not something I should be forced to do.

I originally became a TechRepublic member because it appeared to be a platform-agnostic tech website, but I?m having a lot of doubts about whether that?s still the case.

RLC/
2003-10-31

the Tech republic has some of the most practical solutions on computing and computers i have ever seen! the downloads and the white papers are great, too. i especially like the e mails i get because they help me learn about the processes and also helped me get out of a lotta jams!! aditionally, i helped some of my nieghbors and co-workers on some of thier problems, disasters, decision-points and the like. PLEASE change nothing and keep up the great work !!!

It is a shame that they removed the "Save" functionality. I used to treat TechRepublic as my reference of interesting stuff without having to dowload and store the articles. It's been an advantage over other websites that never offered it. But TR responded to my e-mail asking to retrieve my old links and I got most of them after a while. How's that for attention to customer's needs?

Most of the categories are really useful to me, specially the NetAdmin Articles.

But what I don't like is the Slogan of Techrepublic. You had an ex-slogan saying: "Many Things in life are really free, TechRepublic is on of them".

I hope that you re-use it as a slogan and I hope that you consider its meaning.

My opinion is that when you have access to information as we do with Tech Republic on all IT issues that could relate to our jobs, we have an extra ACE in our deck. A very valuable ace which can actually be interpreted in $$ amounts once you take into consideration the time saved and maybe even the intricacies that are associated with any particular case in which only the experience of someone who's already been down that road could pass on in detail. Also, lets not forget the articles which are very educational and informative; I say Thank You Tech Republic for an outstanding job as much to the people work there or maintain it as to the members who participate.
John Agudelo

I'm a techie who is currently employed in another field (that economy thing, ya know?) and the articles in Tech Republic help me at least THINK that I'm keeping current. I somehow feel that if I still understand the article, I'm not totally out of date yet!
Thanks a lot...

The ability to save articles that I think might be useful in future, and be able to easily find them from my Favourites page every time I log in.

Oh, sorry, that must be some other site :-(

All the tech tips and hearing things about the "real world" type of fixes etc.

Provides me with tremendous amount of knowledge. Thank you.