TOPIC:

I have never been very satisfied with the way the role keywording is implemented. I like the concept... it is very useful. However, the whole thing with the asterisks has never looked right to me. Also, what if you actually just want an asterisk in your role title?

Secondly, there is lot of confusion around numbered role titles, particularly when the numbered role tile involves multiple words. It just seems weird that you have to use tricks to get the system to realize that Backup Speaker #1 should be treated differently than Speaker #1.

So, here are some ideas for a couple of possible better implementations:

1. Ditch the use of the asterisk for keywording. Use brackets instead { and }. Thus, instead of *Toastmaster*, we would have {Toastmaster}. We could also have ****{Toastmaster}**** with no worries. {{} and {}} could be defined to produce normal brackets, even though I do not think brackets are used much.

2. Allow {Backup Speaker} #1 and Speaker #1 to be both valid, but treated as different roles.

Alternatively, a different approach:

1. Ditch using special characters for identifying equivalent roles. Instead, put a drop down in the role settings to allow for saying "this role is the equivalent of that role".

2. Along the same lines, put a field in the role settings to allow for identifying a numbered role as part of the same group as another numbered role.


Any thoughts on these two alternate approaches???

I'm a complete novice to this but my preference for what it is worth would be the second approach:

1. Ditch using special characters for identifying equivalent roles. Instead, put a drop down in the role settings to allow for saying "this role is the equivalent of that role".

2. Along the same lines, put a field in the role settings to allow for identifying a numbered role as part of the same group as another numbered role.

Hello Steve:

The special character "*" could be used to identify roles and when the actual character was desired an override character would be used as well ie. "\*". This is the way these scenarios are typically handled in programming. Backwards compatibility (allowing old agendas to work correctly) is supported with this approach. Adding an over-ride is likely simple and quick to implement since it does not change the approach (whereas adding drop-down lists adds more work).

A sophisticated approach would be to have a dictionary of roles defined and not need to use special characters (like "*"). You would then need to set up your dictionary appropriately for your club though.

If someone does not show up for a role at our meetings we quickly re-assign the (speaker) role or drop it from our meeting. We could either get out early, or use the time (about 10 minutes) for another role in our meeting. People rarely are no-shows for speeches at our club since they are usually very motivated by having that role. By all this, I mean to question the need to have a backup speaker role.

Hope this is helpful.

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