Thursday, September 9, 2010We hear you loud and clear! It's time to make some changes to this blog. We want a blog that is welcoming to authors of sightings and yet encourages comments. We want to continue attracting the interest of mothers, parents and nannies. We want to start some new feautures to captivate our readers during the lulls of postings. If you have ideas or suggestions, please feel free to leave them as comments to this post. We appreciate your continued interest in and support of ISYN.
I think it would be great if you could post articles/links to articles related to childcare/child development.
ReplyDeleteAs a male, it would be interesting to hear a male perspective to working as a nanny, babysitter, or daycare worker. What it's like, and what, if any, response they receive from people while they are working in that role.
ReplyDeleteJust a thought...
Maybe you could have a "day in the life" type feature where different nannies describe their days, hours, what they do, etc. Seems like often nannies get attacked for being lazy on this site, it would be nice to see competent nannies being described
ReplyDeletePlease make it more difficult for people to choose numerous monikers to make comments. It may not be completely unavoidable, but it can cut down on the bs. It would at least be nice to have trolls NOT making comments under names other people use. That's not any better than being anonymous, really.
ReplyDeleteI like notlazynannny's idea, too. Also interested in a male's perspective, not just a male nanny, but hearing the father's side of having a nanny in the family's employ would be pretty neat.
It would be nice to have a feature writer who chooses a topic each week to write about related to child care or education.
ReplyDeleteAlso I would like the sightings to be a little more detailed, it would help to get a better understanding of the incident.
I also like survey's for readers to fill out, it would make the blog even more interactive.
The above comments are great.
I would suggest an employer section for tips, advice and questions! I am not a nanny but without the parent you wouldn't have a job and without the nanny we wouldn't either. We need to work together, not against. Thanks, I love this site.
ReplyDeleteMartin and Michael:
ReplyDeleteI suggest you go and spam somewhere else.
I love ISYN!!
ReplyDeleteI really like the child development articles... I'm a human dev. major, graduating in May, and I find anything related to child dev fascinating!
I do agree with Nanny M, but I don't know how difficult it would be to block the trolls... a *little* drama just makes the conversations more interesting :)
I really like the idea of child development articles. Thank you! This is something I will get to work on right away.
ReplyDeleteI would like to read positve comments on what readers think the OP ought to have done. What are better ways to deal with interactions we deem inappropriate, other than just writing it up?
ReplyDelete(When OP described crazy behavior that occurred in my local bookstore, I gave a printout to the store manager and the local police.)
My first comment didn't go through it said it was too long so please forgive me for posting more than once because I want to be sure my comments go through
ReplyDeleteI would love to see a day in the life article, something sorta along the lines of the nanny diary. I'd also like to see parent and nanny horror stories.
I have been a member of several online forums/blogs/sites. I've seen a LOT of things both good and bad come from sites. I've also been a moderator for a forum so I know just what it takes to moderate and deal with people.
ReplyDeletePersonally I like an unmoderated forum...to an extent. The forum that I helped start and run was wonderful in the beginning. There were no rules and people discussed things like rational adults. Then as time went on more people joined and the no rules took a toll on the board and the members. It got to the point where people were posting private information about people like phone numbers addresses relatives addresses and we realized that we did unfortunately need rules.
So although we kept the rules to a minimum we realized we did need some. They were simple though, no posting personal information about people, no extreme cursing (like the c word) and no constantly following one person around simply to bash them. Other than that you were free to do as you wish. We moderators had the option of deleting a post or banning a member we felt broke the rules and that went well for a while but personal bias came into play.
Every single one of us struggled with our own personal bias. It was hard to delete or ban a friend and it was equally hard to 'stick up' for someone we hated who was being bashed.
I am also a member of an online news site who uses people rather than a computer program to delete posts and ban members. Again personal bias comes into play and I once was banned for saying Aint free speech grand....kinda ironic actually :)
*sigh* my last post showed up but then disappeared.
ReplyDeleteThe news site I joined makes you register before posting and you must use a valid email address. Before your registration is complete you have to click on a link from your email address.
Also if you're banned so is your email address. It makes it a tad more inconvenient for people to register there by hopefully discouraging the spammers and the ones looking to stir the pot.
One idea would be to close comments on the actual blog articles but open a forum where people are allowed to comment about a specific blog or about anything else.
I think maybe turning off comments for nanny sightings could be a good idea, but allow them for other features.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I think a "what would you do?" feature might be nice. Pose a question either regarding child behavior a nanny might deal with, a boss/nanny situation that might be difficult, or a bystander for a bad, but not abusive nanny and let nannies/parents/etc. respond with how they would handle it.
I like the idea of hearing employer and nanny horror stories
ReplyDeleteI really don't find the layout or colors visually pleasing at ALL. I think it's time for a re-design!
ReplyDeleteI think we should be able to vote on each siting, 1 to 10, 1 being a crappy ridiculous siting and 10 being a good, helpful siting.
ReplyDeleteI find a lot of nanny posters are very preachy and not honest how the really feel about their employers
ReplyDeleteI think you should bring back the nanny horror stories- those were so great!
ReplyDeleteI also agree with the previous posters and think it would be a great idea to include more nanny stories, or even written lists that pertain to nannies. Example- 10 ways to Jazz up Kids Meals, or 10 Tips to Get a Baby to Stop Crying.
Oh, I could go on forever... obviously I love lists ;)
DD,
ReplyDeleteI have to agree. I loved it for a week, but you are correct. It needs to go!
How about a "nannies in the media" type thing? Not news articles, but entertainment... movies and books. There have been lots of those out lately (I'm thinking The Nanny Diaries, Nanny McPhee, and The Rebound had the male lead working as a nanny). We could have reviews, and discussion in the comments.
ReplyDeleteMorgyn,
ReplyDeleteLove it! I appreciate all of the ideas. It will be a week or so until you start seeing the changes. Thank you all.
I want to hear about nannies who have affairs with their employers, it happens a lot more than you think!
ReplyDeleteTrue, monkey shines. I'm in my 30's now and no longer a nanny but in my early 20's had an affair with my DB. And I regret every single minute of it because after I found letters from him to his wife (she was visiting family when it happened) he said some awful things about me and when she got home she terminated me. I think he had the whole thing planned as a way to get rid of me because he was afraid of her finding out.
ReplyDeleteMPP and Jane, I would love to do some "feature writing" for ISYN. Top Ten Tips, Child Development, Day in the LIfe, even Featured Nanny Interviews (of course, annonymity would be preserved), or maybe Nanny Employer Interviews.
ReplyDeleteEmail me - nannydebsays AT gmail DOT com
I would suggest nanny stories, from both sides. The good, the bad, and the ugly, as they say. I have a couple myself, from my childcare service years. For instance, stories about the parents, how they make their living, how the nanny got them comfortable with their childcare, how to get the children to mind and enjoy it. How did a nanny keep a family in line, or how did a nanny get out of an untenable situation? Is there a secret to getting families to pay a proper wage? I think the stories, or reports if you will, could be entertaining as well as enlightening. It would be good to have reports from both sides, as putting yourself in the others' shoes in often helpful in understanding a dynamic situation.
ReplyDeleteWhile I find many of the responses to a sighting annoying, I do not think you should disable comments on those posts. There have been times where the OP responded with additional important details that they didn't think of until someone asked.
ReplyDeleteI think you should just block the IP of anyone who is a troll. If you don't want anonymous comments, why is that an option?
Psyber Chica,
ReplyDelete"If you don't want anonymous comments, why is that an option?"
That is a Blogger feature and cannot be removed.
I think there are tons of great ideas here. I really like the idea of Day in the Life from nanny perspective. From employer perspective, I'd love to see how employers have handled specific issues, even if minor. For example, how to navigate giving constructive criticism to an otherwise great nanny about relatively minor issues. Not just opinions, but real life anecdotes. Bad or good stories such as gut feelings during interviews and how that translated to later performance/relationship.
ReplyDeleteOne idea which I suspect may not be practical due to a smaller readership, would be putting together a survey like the Park Slope Parents survey and collating the data to get another perspective on salary and job duties in NYC. Right now, PSP is really all we have. It would be nice to get another cross section. But I think it would require another way to get quantity of respondents and a way to limit to one response per IP address.
Another idea, would be a nanny job board. Right now babybitesnyc does a great job for "nannies seeking jobs" which I think is so successful because it charges a nominal fee and requires employer submission. But it has no option for employers seeking a new nanny or nannies to advertise themselves. I wonder if it would be possible to build a classified job section, charge a small ($10-20) fee per listing to keep out those who aren't serious, and access the areas listed above that babybites is missing. It would be nice to have specialty nanny searches (short term; travel; must speak certain language; nanny shares - HUGELY underrepresented in nyc compared to West Coast). I think this would start really slow, but over 6-12 months could really build credibility, be a small income source, and a huge asset to nyc nannies and employers. I find sittercity great, but TOO overwhelming with the number of nannies on there (i assume because it's free for nannies). CL has too many scammers.
Thanks!
Hmm, I like the idea of childcare and child-development how-to advice features. I also like the idea of a "for mannies only" type of section specifically devoted to male nanny-related stuff though that might be a spam magnet :)
ReplyDeleteA comment about the new look is that I find it loads very slowly and is not very readable. Yesterday when the background image was darkened back it was easier to read.
Never mind. It just hadn't loaded properly so the image was not darkened, but now it is.
ReplyDeleteOK, it's official. Now I can't even read the board using AOL without it crashing, let alone post.
ReplyDelete