CRT don't want ANY volunteers [Split from : CRT dont want skilled equipped volunteers]

[Tiggs]

CRT don't want ANY volunteers.

[Jerra]

CRT don't want ANY volunteers.

That doesn't tell me anything, if I put that search in I can guarantee they result would be the same.

[alan_fincher]

CRT don't want ANY volunteers.

 

 

That doesn't tell me anything, if I put that search in I can guarantee they result would be the same.

 

What's wrong with the search then?

 

What is it necessary to change to make it give some meaningful results?

[MtB]

Enter a current date range perhaps?

[Jerra]

What's wrong with the search then?

Well for me there isn't a CRT controlled waterway within 50 miles so posting a screen dump tells me nothing unless I happen to know where the obscure post code is from.

 

A town name and a number of searches for different areas would for me make it mean more.

[twbm]

There are currently 138 opportunities to volunteer easily found by not using any filters.

[colinwilks]

Just done 50 miles of Birmingham for six months from today, all activities. Result: nuffink. Same for London and Atherstone, so I can only think their machine is broken.

There are currently 138 opportunities to volunteer easily found by not using any filters.

Absolutely right. It seems if you tick everything it doesn't believe you. Leaving blank or ticking only "Practical" brought up loads of Towpath Taskforce items.

[WotEver]

Ticking everything probably looks for tasks which match them ALL as opposed to ANY.

 

Tony

[alan_fincher]

Enter a current date range perhaps?

 

 

Why ?

 

If I am (say) a school teacher, and know I cold volunteer throughout the summer holidays, I would expect to be able to enter that as date range, and get some sensible answers.

Edited February 24, 2016 by alan_fincher

[alan_fincher]

Ticking everything probably looks for tasks which match them ALL as opposed to ANY.

 

Tony

 

Good theory, but not, I think the correct one.

 

If I put in say 1/05/2016 to 31/08/16 and 50 miles from my post code, (which is one mile from a major canal), I get zero results.

 

Unticking all the types of opportunity gives me about 8.

 

However if I tick everything except "Roles from home", I get them all back again. But ticking "Roles from home" in combination with anything else that would otherwise give a result, then results in no hits.

 

So it seems "Roles from home" means show me ONLY roles I can do from home.

 

This I would suggest is not just counter intuitive, it is actually completely crap.

 

I think most people would reasonably assume if they ticked that box it would include roles that could be performed from home in addition to roles that could not, but matched other boxes they have ticked.

 

CRT still really don't do this kind of thing well, IMO.

[DHutch]

...So it seems "Roles from home" means show me ONLY roles I can do from home.

 

This I would suggest is not just counter intuitive, it is actually completely crap...

 

Sounds about right, well worked out however!

 

Short email to CRT explain the fault in the sites logic?

 

 

Daniel

 

 

 

###

 

 

Topic split.

[MtB]

 

 

Why ?

 

If I am (say) a school teacher, and know I cold volunteer throughout the summer holidays, I would expect to be able to enter that as data range, and get some sensible answers.

 

I was speculating that shyte programming overlooked the need to search for future date ranges and expected something current.

 

Shyte programming logic abounds. My bank for example, demands a password which "doesn't repeat a character more than twice" to quote one of the parameters. Yet it rejects any word repeating a character only once. E.g. "school" would be rejected.

 

I blame the teachers!

[Allan(nb Albert)]

 

Sounds about right, well worked out however!

 

Short email to CRT explain the fault in the sites logic?

 

 

Daniel

 

 

This does not appear to be a logic problem but rather a fairly basic programming problem. It seems to me that with eight types of volunteering task, these might be stored as binary in a single byte (i.e. 00000000 to 11111111 where the first digit represents 'Practical' and the last 'Roles from home'). However, if that byte is defined as holding a negative number then clicking on 'Roles from home' might produce the response that is being experienced.

[Peter X]

Yes, they do want volunteers and it's bad programming, or to be more specific a badly thought out user interface.

 

The natural assumption a user will make when seeing those 8 check boxes would be that any role involving at least one of those ticked would come up. Also, a little testing shows me that they're not comparing the date range properly against the database. I did a test request with the school summer holiday and the results included a one day event taking place on 12th March.

 

I won't be volunteering to go and explain user interface design and database queries to whoever created that page. After nearly 40 years of doing this sort of thing for a living I'm retiring at the end of March and I plan to go boating, not have a busman's holiday in an office in MK.

[David Mack]

If you want another example of confusing CRT programming, try to work out if your open boat is exempt from the requirement to have a BSC if you are getting a short term license:

 

This page links to a flowchart which purports to address the question.

 

 

So in answer to the question "Is it propelled solely an outboard motor or is it unpowered?" I would say "Yes" and "No" if it was outboard-powered, and "No" and "Yes" if it was unpowered. So which answer should I choose to progress through the flow chart?

 

And if I go to the Short Term License Application Form here, I get the same question (but with the word "solely" missing), and the same two answers, but this time the Yes and the No options are the opposite way round in the flow chart!

 

Edited February 25, 2016 by David Mack

[TheBiscuits]

If you want another example of confusing CRT programming, try to work out if your open boat is exempt from the requirement to have a BSC if you are getting a short term license:

 

This page links to a flowchart which purports to address the question.

 

BSC Flowchart.PNG

 

So in answer to the question "Is it propelled solely an outboard motor or is it unpowered?" I would say "Yes" and "No" if it was outboard-powered, and "No" and "Yes" if it was unpowered. So which answer should I choose to progress through the flow chart?

 

And if I go to the Short Term License Application Form here, I get the same question (but with the word "solely" missing), and the same two answers, but this time the Yes and the No options are the opposite way round in the flow chart!

 

BSC Flowchart 2.PNG

What did they say when you asked them which was correct?

[junior]

So to conclude, the do want volunteers but have a crap website?

 

Shall we change the thread title as it is completely untrue?

Edited February 25, 2016 by junior

[Mac of Cygnet]

Has anyone contacted CRT about this?

[Paul C]

I'm not sure its broken, just illogical. Let the following be one type of "filter". By selecting one or more of these, they are using OR criteria to select the roles, in other words, the more (out of the 7) you tick, the more roles will be returned in the search:

 

Practical
Customer service
Management and supervision
Marketing and promotions
Recording and monitoring
Education volunteers
Administration

 

Let the following be another type of "filter". This filter operates differently, if you tick it then you restrict the roles to be able to be done from home. If you don't tick it, then the location is anywhere but home:

 

Roles from home

 

 

 

 

 

There are no (eg) "Customer Service" roles, which can be done from home.

 

 

Its illogical though.

[alan_fincher]

The problem is (obviously) that many people will assume if they tick every box, they will be shown every available volunteering opportunity.

 

They are then likely to get no results returned.

 

Only the more curious will start to fiddle with it to see if they can get any results after all.

 

Most will either assume either that there are no roles or the web-site is broken. CRT will probably have lost a potential volunteer.

 

If ticking that box said "Show ONLY roles that can be done at home", then it would be slightly more logical, but it does not.

 

If they are going to have a box that says "Show ONLY roles that can be done at home", then it should be not part of the main cluster of opportunity types, but a separate section beyond these that makes it clear that it is to exclude rather than include opportunities.

 

It is hard to be polite about this - it is utterly crap, as so much of their web design that requires user input is. If I had let this kind of stuff get past when I did my day job, I would quite rightly have been told it was not fit for purpose. Even were this one of Cath's students' coursework she would have been sending it back saying "lets think about what is wrong with this, shall we?".

[Arthur Marshall]

To be honest, I can't see why anyone in their right mind would really tick all the boxes. It's unlikely that you'd be interested in, or qualified for, all of practical, customer service, management and supervision, marketing and promotions, recording and monitoring, education, volunteers, and administration. You would also be barmy if you thought you could do all, or in fact most of these while working from home. So yes, it could have been written better, but if you really wanted to volunteer it would be for one or two of the options at most and it really wouldn't be hard to find any opportunities that were going. If however, you just wanted to say how everything CRT does is crap...

There again, you could get CRT to spend a lot more money on their website and use expensive professional writers and grumble about that. Me, I'd rather have a new lock gate.

[john6767]

not sure tit is totally logical, some of the opportunities are categorised in multiple categories, so it looked as though it was and OR, but that is not totally true give the Roles from Hone which seems to have been does as an AND on the other categories, which has a certain logic to it, but it does not make it clear.

[Paul C]

I put my own postcode in - and returned 0 results on jobs from home. I haven't tried around the country though. If there are few/no jobs in this category, just ditch it. Yeah its definitely sloppy.

[alan_fincher]

There again, you could get CRT to spend a lot more money on their website and use expensive professional writers and grumble about that. Me, I'd rather have a new lock gate.

 

Do you seriously imagine they have not used expensive "professional" writers to come up with what they are looking at here?

 

I don't imagine they write all their own systems in house with trainees paid peanuts, do you?

 

Every time they do something like this, it will have cost serious amounts of that money you (and I) would rather have spent on lock gates.

 

The issue with this kind of IT blunder is that an organisation has usually divested all its own people who would actually know how to see that a system written by a third party is correctly specified, and then tested and signed off as fit for purpose.

 

I would be very surprised if this is not the case here - a third party has written it at some cost, and nobody in CRT can see the issues with it. (If someone has evidence that this theory is wrong, please provide it, and I will eat humble pie!).

 

If you are going to make volunteering one of you flagship policies of the new organisation, then coming up with a system that appears to show there are no volunteering opportunities in a given area is a pretty bad own goal.

 

I am not a natural "criticise CRT for everything they do" person, by any means, and I already volunteer for them, but the quality of any of their web code that requires user input is usually pretty dire, and that is not a historic thing. Nearly every new thing they come up with seems to be equally or even more dire, (e.g. licensing systems that create a bespoke link to allow you to download something, but then give "link not found" when you click on it).

[twbm]

 

I was speculating that shyte programming overlooked the need to search for future date ranges and expected something current.

 

Shyte programming logic abounds. My bank for example, demands a password which "doesn't repeat a character more than twice" to quote one of the parameters. Yet it rejects any word repeating a character only once. E.g. "school" would be rejected.

 

I blame the teachers!

 

Yes. When the rail ticket collection machine fails to read my debit card and asks me to 're-insert it again' I have a full Meldrew.