Comments on: my.emich creates a “fail blog” worthy submission

By: emu guy

emu guy — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 22:26:24 +0000

Even given the above rant by me, I do think EMU is a terrific opportunity to students. It can offer a premier (I mean *world-class*) education (if courses are carefully selected – a constraint true for every university). It does drive me nuts, though, when I walk past a lecture hall and see the prof has written “petty burgeois” on the board. Argh!.

By: emu guy

emu guy — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 21:36:27 +0000

cobstudent:
Stupid typos, grammatical errors, unreadable, ambiguous, and incorrect text in official EMU places/publications have driven me nuts too. It is *not* a consolation that I have seen similar (though not as endemic) errors elsewhere.

This is NOT minor. It’s shoddy and affirms shoddiness.

EMU website – I agree.

By: cobstudent

cobstudent — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 19:50:54 +0000

That kind of thing has driven me nuts ever since I started here. I have seen very few error free publications/websites etc. come out of EMU.
(Another noteworthy typo…check on the ground floor of Pease by the loading dock sometime. Some of the placards by the elevator state that you may not smoke because the elevator smoke detectors are “effected.”)
This stuff is relatively minor, but being a university we should at least hold each other accountable and take the responsibility to correct our mistakes.
On another topic, what’s up with the unprofessional mishmash of design schemes on the EMU website? There’s absolutely no flow from section to section. It seems like every page could have the same menu bar at least.
/rant

By: sitedad

sitedad — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 11:30:13 +0000

Gipper, I agree with your first paragraph, but not so much with your second. I’m surprised that I hadn’t noticed the mistake on the “Pray Harold” sign, though it wasn’t my job to make sure it was correct– I presume that was someone in the physical plant. But if I was in charge, I’d say “hey, this sign needs to be replaced” because it’s wrong. If you saw a stop sign that said “STIP” or a construction sign that said “WIRK ZONE AHED,” you’d probably understand the message, but you’d probably also think “they ought to fix that sign.”

As for your points in the third paragraph: I’m not saying that the IT people aren’t hard-working and over-burdened like every other staff and faculty person at EMU. But the error that someone made with this date snafu on my.emich certainly looks unprofessional and would not have been hard at all to fix.

By: The Gipper

The Gipper — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 01:21:32 +0000

This has gotten to a point of pleasant silliness, but I am pedantic enough to note the obvious: Nothing anyone posts on emutalk is something they’re doing as professionals, as part of our job responsibilities, with supervisors to whom we are accountable for EMUTalk posts; so typos here aren’t as damning as ones made in official capacities by paid professionals with supervisors. Get it? Kind of like a typo in an email to a friend isn’t the same as one in a paper handed in for a class.

And public typos that don’t create confusion are less problematic than those, like getting dates wrong, that do create confusion. And the Pray-Harrold signs? So what? What confusion does the missing dash involve? yes, there’s an error made in some sign shop – should they toss out the sign and spend money on a new one? That kind of mistake is minor compared to an online error that takes no labor to fix besides noticing the error.

Who said that the IT people aren’t hard working? Not me, nor anyone on this tread. That’s a straw man argument, entirely irrelevant to whether the error that sparked this discussion was or was not unprofessional.

By: emu guy

emu guy — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 22:03:13 +0000

Yes!

I need a camera.

By: sitedad

sitedad — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 21:40:15 +0000

Ah-ha! You mean this sign:

Ouch, that is bad. I think some new signage is in order….

By: emu guy

emu guy — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 20:54:40 +0000

Good grief. From the above paper sign, exit the building. Go south 30 feet. Turn around. Look at Pray-Harrold. Observe the metal sign (there are four) that says, “no smoking beyond this point – designated non-smoking entry for pray harold”

By: George Tirebiter

George Tirebiter — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 16:40:28 +0000

They run a 24/7 operation. For the most part, things just work.

Institutionally, we take that level of IT performance for granted. Yet if students (or faculty) operate with that level of efficiency/competence it’s prolonged multiple orgasm time for a stellar performance.

I think they get tired of hearing complaints with nary a compliment–or even a “Thank You”to balance it out. If you know who to contact (and IT should try to be a bit more proactive about this), mistakes and problems get resolved quickly. Many “problems” that I contact IT about turn out to be DOH! type errors on my part.

By: sitedad

sitedad — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 16:05:17 +0000

Umm…

Unless you are thinking of a different sign?