Admin identification

When I post a message to bug collectors or other group groups I cannot tell if it’s an admin answering me. This is especially important in bug collectors because I don’t know whether to take answers as official. .

Does my name not have an L?

>2 timspalding: Oh I see. Thanks. I should have been smarter.

It only applies to staff, though. It does not apply to the admins of groups. Perhaps we need something for that.

>4 timspalding: We can mark messages if we want to. https://www.librarything.com/topic/384356#n9197953

Just most of the time most of us prefer to act as group members and not big authority figures.

>4 timspalding: I only wanted to know for who to believe when I put in a bug report. Now I know. I thought there was a system problem and it wasn’t just users’ caches when images using user html were not loading, and from what you wrote here I was correct.

>5 MarthaJeanne: And there's a long-standing bug that makes it so you have to refresh a page to mark a message from admin, so I only bother if it's something important.

https://www.librarything.com/topic/349162#

>7 amanda4242: oh thanks for letting me know. I didn’t even see this option ever.

>3 kjuliff: In my opinion, it was a good question :)

Also ... I've been here for just over a year, and I asked a lot of questions in a lot of places, and pretty quickly I noted the names of some folks who seemed quite knowledgeable. Some were a bit crankier, some admittedly came from one perspective or another, but all were clearly trying to be helpful and often succeeding. Fast forward to today, and I still find those names to be knowledgeable and helpful. One of my goals is to emulate them and pass the gift along.

So, keep asking! and trust your gut as much as the formal title or icon :)

>9 LeslieWx: Thanks Leslie

>9 LeslieWx: 'Some were a bit crankier,' And some of us have crankier days. When the old hands seem cranky, please bear in mind that
1) Some of us have been answering the same quesrions for close to 20 years. Even if we still want to help, it gets tiring.
2) Some of us have health issues, and the pain, tiredness... seep into our replies.
We still want to help.

I agree with you that you soon get to know the names of people you can rely on, even if they aren't 'official'. That is part of how LT functions.

>12 MarthaJeanne: I can think of many reasons *I* get cranky answering questions in various times and places of my life, including those you listed! And I did not promise that I would not ever be describable as "cranky" when replying, or as having particular angles that were more important to me than others.

I think many times the best examples are the human, imperfect ones who are obviously reaching out over and over again anyway. But sometimes we need a wee pointer to really see them.