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Carmen163

Dear Kirsten, Violet and all the other helpful forum users,

I wonder: don't you get frustrated and bored by explaining the same thing over and over again? I'm at this forum for on and off a year now and during that time I've seen you answering dozens of times about how long an email takes, about how to set up an account for an inmate, about Jpay and so on. My first question on this forum was: "Is there a manual?"; you replied "No, basicly we are the manual" and then you were kind enough to explain to me all those things probably hundreds of people asked before me. 

And now I find myself wondering the same thing: Isn't it better and much more efficient to manufacture a manual? I'm sure you guys can put this together in a heartbeat, as you've explained it already so many times. WAP states they receive hundreds of emails every day, well no wonder. The lack of structured information is so time consuming for them and you guys, I think it such a waste of energy that I would love to see it change. I also think that it puts people off, or at least distracts them from what WAP at its core is about, namely making a meaningful connection with a prisoner. 

I'd really like to know your thoughts on this issue. And also, if I can help in any way, shape or form with offering more structured information, please know that I am very willing to do so. 

Kind regards,

Carmen

 


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VioletGrey

 

@Carmen :D thank you, I try my best to put a friendly voice out here! 
 

@Liw - here's the thread Kirsten is talking about - I'll bump it up as well so it's easier to find 

https://writeaprisoner.com/prison-forum/general-prison-talk/pp-matchmaker

And here is the Write a Prisoner FAQ on the site: 

https://writeaprisoner.com/home/faq

 

 

 
Liw

There should be a "frequently asked questions" somewhere where everyone can see it. I believe that would be helpful. :) 

 
Carmen163

Thanks again for all your responses. @VioletGrey: I love that you are one of those people who take action instead of complaining, that you are walking your talk. Very inspirational. I love the expression "Be the change you want to see in the world" and you litterally did this!

@ Kirsten: I was refering to this thread you mentioned  as I would much like to read it.

"As for myself, I think I'll be less on here soon and be more available via email. Carmen, you might want to read the thread "penpal matchmaker?" to get an idea why."

 

 
Kirsten

@Carmen: Which thread were you referring to? If I knew which one you meant, I'd give you a link.

As for the part of the brain searching for emotions and safety versus logic and information, I think that differs as well. While everyone wants to feel safe and secure, I think that the amount to which we need or prefer one (logic) or the other (emotion) and even the way we prefer to process information is varying widely, counting for a large amount of miscommunication because most ppl unconsciously tend to believe that others do it just as they do.

 

 
VioletGrey

When I joined 4.5 years ago, it was a means to an end. I was trying to find out something - the phone call thing - which was totally new to me despite having been a pen pal for 8 or so years already. None of my other pals had requested to speak on the phone, or if they did (can't remember) then I likely said no to due living in a flat or with one of my parents. I was not welcomed in the forum, I was given no advice and told I was "a silly little girl" and scolded by several forum members - which led me to be a lurker and only post if I really had something to say, or something nice. 
Hence my reason for being here and giving responses when I can is to be the friendly voice I wished had greeted me when I asked my first question. And it is hard, because there are answers to a lot of questions found easily in the forums, and I have to remind myself of the time I joined and was snipped at, and to answer with patience without coming off fed up of answering the same question lol. 
Ultimately, we're all here by choice - except Webmaster - and non of us are affiliated with Write a Prisoner except for our "fringe" hobby/pastime/activity/whatever label you want to add in here which best describes writing to incarcerated people's. And when it no longer serves us in the way we benefit from it, we'll move on too. Like EarthMother, SunraysWench and Good Dog etc. all did. While I'm here then I intend to be be friendly and helpful, start people off on their journey and hope they get hooked so they go and do some more research, go and find all about the rules and ins and outs of prison and maybe one day want to come back and join the community that helped start them off too. This is all super cheesy, I know. 
I would love a blog page where you could just link people to it and it would answer all the most common queries, but that halfway exists with the WAP FAQ and people don't go looking for that. I think maybe a better way to do it would be to send an automated email with an overall outline when you register your account with WAP. You sign up, straight away you get an email that details the WAP email, the basics of writing letters, and the difference between institution emails. Then you'd have that information before you chose an inmate to write to and would make using the site a little more easy. That'd cut a little bit of the repeated questions out surely? Or would you disregard something like that too? 
 

Anyway, I stay here cause there are some awesome kind caring smart funny talented people who turn up to post on the forum too. I think I might've given up a little sooner if it wasn't for the regulars making things a little warmer place to visit and stop by. You all are awesome in my book anyway, just for reaching out to inmates :) 

 
mjuran

You know, it's like if you're standing by a crossroad nulti-intersection and someone pulls up and asks which is the right turn to get to Timbuktu, I'm more than happy to point in the right direction (if I know it).  Even if the signpost is right there, or somewhere nearby I could show them, too.  But if someone pulls up and wants turn by turn directions, with recommendations for overnight accommodations along the way, and actually, they'd rather take air transportation instead and why isn't this available on demand?  I would love to be able to hand them a link to a travel guide or just tell them to stay home.

 
mjuran

I enjoy coming to the forum, reading and posting here, for the social/community aspect of it.  Most of the time it's not to get information on a specific question or problem, but to be around other people who share this same "fringe" interest and activity that I do.  While I'm here, when I see someone with a question I can easily answer, I try to, in the spirit of being generally helpful.  As people were here with me when I started.  I don't mind that at all, even when there's a lot of repetition involved.

But there are some questions posed--the truly cluless ones from people who aren't trying to read the info already available, when it's clear that this is the case--that I'm just not willing to spend my time trying to answer.  I don't think there's a way to help those people because they're not looking for help (a specific spoonful requested) but asking to be fed everything, start to finish.  I don't know where to begin with someone whose post is simply "Hello?" for example.  Would a quickstart summary guide (with a link to it) be helpful for such a person?  Maybe.  If that is the idea, for a manual, I'm in favor of it.  I'm in favor of removing or refining the confusing language that up to recently was on the site regarding the WAP "email" option.  I personally expect to continue to answer the reasonable questions I see posted, when I can, by giving that person the specific guidance or info they're asking for, the next "step" on their path.  

 

 
Carmen163

Hi Kirsten, thank you for condolences and ST4 too. 

Oops, now you are coming on dangerous grounds with your comments hahaha. Because I have 2 diplomas of different studies at the University of applied sciences in Amsterdam (Fachhochschule) so I think its safe to say I am not stupid. I also know that I'm good at looking up stuff on the internet. But somehow I had to ask some questions too when I first started at WAP. For instance, I remember I could not find how to add an inmate to my favorites. And I also had no clue when they would sent my email to my future PP. And I assure you, I visited this website multiple times before I decided to actually write to an inmate. I was more than able and willing to search for, read and process information, yet I needed the help of you, kind people. 

Like I tried to explain, it's not so much about willingness but more about being capable to deal with information if emotions are involved. Our brain is always more interested in emotions and safety than in information gathering and being logical. As I am sure you know. So why not take this into consideration and take newbies by the hand? You are spoonfeeding them anyway, by answering their questions extensively. 

But then having said all this, I can see how the aspect of personal answered questions makes a stronger forum community. Since I am not the one answering, it's really not my bussiness. I admire you all for your patience, I think you are doing a great job. Without you guys -and I mean all the loyal forum members; you all know who you are- this forum would be a shadow of what it is now. It's all very outdated, but because of the friendly atmosphere I do enjoy coming here. 

And I am almost ashamed to admit it, but I have searched and searched for the thread you mentioned and I can't find it. So would you please help me???? LOL

 

 
ST4s

Hi Carmen, I’m sorry for your loss as well. Covid has hit every member of my family and most of my pen pals too. One did not recover. It’s awful.

Re: your topic, I’m also a big fan of clarity, but this is what I see as the challenging part – that rules and procedures for so much of this are highly variable among jurisdictions, or even facilities within jurisdictions for that matter, and they can (and do) change with the wind. In that sense, I think the “local knowledge” Q&A thing is helpful and necessary since many times these rules aren’t even published via official channels.

That said, I think it’s clear that the prison world is opaque by design. We all need a hand navigating it – I sure did back when I started this (and still do sometimes) and this forum was, and still is, a goldmine of information. As for the same questions coming up all the time – yeah, well – but I’ve come to see it as having a foot in two realms, somewhere between a flaw and a feature. I think the flaw part could be addressed with this manual idea on information that’s reliably static. But the feature part – I think it sponsors connections too, out here, among those of us with this fringe kind of pastime/hobby/mission/whatever – a kind of community of explorers out here in terra incognita, comparing notes, and not feeling so “fringe” after all.

 
Kirsten

First off, Carmen, sorry for your loss. That virus is a stupid crap thing, costing way too many lives.

Second, I'm not too surprised on WAP reaching out to you. They may not be very present on the forums, but they can react fast, if need be or the subject is calling for it. Didn't happen for the first time. ;-)

Third; I tend to disagree on the matter that a newbie ought to be spoonfed. Taken care of, yes, always. But I expect of adults wanting to dive into writing that they are able and willing to search for, read  and process written information.

 
VioletGrey

How funny that they reached out to you... there wouldn't be any reason someone couldn't put all the frequently asked questions or a how to, or a manual on the internet, as a blog or website. Then we could just link people to that resource. Or what a YouTube video about it. 
The thing is, that this information, generally, is already out there. And people just don't want to do the work to find out for themselves. It's much easier to ask, and I can understand that. I'm hoping one day, I won't need to visit the forum to answer questions because my pen pal and I will be able to hang out, in real life and the spare moments I have at the end of my day will be filled with real face to face conversations not sending an email on Corrlinks, and checking the forum. Until such a time I get bored of helping whomever I can with the knowledge I have, I'll be around, trying to connect people by making things a littler easier to understand. 
Thanks for sharing though Carmen :)

 
Carmen163

Thank you all for your input. I am sorry I didn't respond any sooner, but some personal things happened; one of them being a very close friend and his wife dying of Covid 19 within 3 weeks. 

Something suprising happened concerning my post, WAP has sent me an email within hours after I posted it. I had no idea they were following topics, but apparently they do sometimes. They told me that all the information is at the website. I replied by saying that it just was not easy to find or comprehent for people and they then said they would pass my suggestion on to their management staff. Hopefully they will consider changing some things. 

I don't agree with the idea that people will always keep asking, no matter what, simply because they don't want to read. I think there are way too many people asking (the same) questions for that to be true. The information that is available is in my opinion scattered, not complete and has misleading names (like the problem with understanding what the email service actually is). People might be less inclined nowadays to actively search for information, but you have to take into consideration that people today are bombarded with so much more information than before, that it's actually very difficult to make the right selection of what's important and what's not, since everyone is presenting their information as nothing short of life saving.

Another thing that should be taken into consideration, is that people are a bit apprehensive, excited and that becoming a PP is so new for them, that they are not very open to information about procedures. In their mind, they are thinking about how to select the 'right' inmate, how to find an inmate that can be trusted, they are looking at new faces, they think about what to write, how to introduce themselves, maybe they are conserned about being judged for their actions by family and so on. There are a lot of emotions involved and that means that 'dry' information about procedures is not the main topic for our brain. 

I think the new PP has to be looked after, has to be guided. If you make a manual, it will give people direction. It will make them more secure and thus more able to actively look for any information they need. I've been a teacher at college for many years, I have set up several educational programs and I am a co-writer for non-fiction books, which are frequently complimented because they are so accessible. I just love to clarify theory. Of course I have offered my help to WAP in this matter, but so far I did not get any response on my offer.

Thanks everyone, I very much enjoyed reading all your comments. Thank you Kirsten for sharing how the WAP forum started out and I will for sure look at the thread you mentioned. And Mjuran and Violet, I also think that very simple changes like you've mentioned will make a big difference. 

 
mjuran

Agree with you there, Taurus.  I think that's exactly what should be done--rename the email forwarding service, if it's going to be kept at all.  Instead of "send an email" it could be "have us forward your first letter to the inmate."  And be clear those go out twice a month, are only good for the first contact, where you'll get your reply back (to what kind of address), etc.  The way it's presented now is just too prone to confusion.

The info Is already mostly all there on the site, true.  But it's not always presented fully or well.  I'm someone who does read the FAQs and there are still things that are unanswered for me, and it does take some searching.  It's not ideal.  But it's also not prohibitively hard to figure out, either, in my opinion.  I did manage to do the things I came here to do, without too much trouble or asking for help.  I think most people could similarly manage on their own, if they had to, if they were more willing to read before asking their questions.

Kirsten, what you're talking about is the desire for passive reception of knowledge, as opposed to the active seeking out of knowledge.  Today so many of the forms of information and entertainment are passive--watching videos and TV shows, having someone perform for us and just watching, passively taking in the info.  Reading (a book, an FAQ page, a how-to article) is active, instead.  Active consumption of info doesn't seem very popular these days, passive consuption takes much less effort. 

I get irritated no end with the people who post dating profiles (for themselves?  For an inmate they know?) on the forum, with not the slightest clue, apparently, of how illogical and lazy this is. Time spent reading before posting=approximately none, to all appearances.  True, none of these people would be helped by a manual, because they will not read a word of it.  

But I think the "send an email" feature should be renamed or re-thought-out.  

 

 
Taurus_ISTJ

It is down yet again, or I would have quoted. I wish WAP would just rename the darned thing, take 'Email' out of its name entirely (as it is not an emailing service), or remove the feature altogether. I think they have likely bitten off more than they can chew with its upkeep also, as they were never and are not charging for their message forwarding service, but they do have to provide the materials needed for it and go that extra mile.

But—Gracious. Remove or rename. (Or get clearer on what the service is, exactly, and start charging for it.)

 
Kirsten

So, now that I'm finally able to log in on here again after getting an "Unknown user" msg. since Friday morning (had a good laugh about being "unknown" here :D) let me share my thoughts on this as well.

When this website started, the founder and his ex-wife were both pretty active here. Especially she did a lot of valuable posts on the forums that are still there and that helped me to gain a lot of clarity when I started. I read 200 thread or so, about any and everything that interested me. The questions I had thereafter were those few these threads didn't answer. Yet, that's me. I "eat" books, articles and any piece of info upon a topic that I find interesting and (to myself) meaningful. I was always like that, I'm wired like that and I'm used to research information and things I want to know. When I get curious and the subject is meaningful (to myself) then I'm pretty much a self-driven explorer. Much to my astonishment and wonder, many ppl are not. Personally, a life without learning, exchange and growth would be dead to me, useless, meaningless. Not worth getting up.

As I said, when they started, there was a lot of bristling energy here and I regret to not have been part of it, but it was visible through reading. Yet, when the founder and webmaster and his ex-wife seem to have divorced (I'm not too sure of when exactly that was), but there came a time she drew back, stopped posting, seemed to have stopped caring about the forums. (Or maybe she didn't stop caring, but it no longer seems to have been her "project") that's when the board started to decline. The shrinking meaning of message boards (with the coming of "social" media- debatable how social these are- ) didn't help,either.

Plus these "social" media - perhaps better described as "fast interaction media" - did encourage just snippets of information and just flooded ppl with it.

Since any brain just has a limited number of "attention units", much of the attention of many ppl was bound by the flood of info pouring in. What didn't emerge proportionally with the number of info, was an ability to discern and filter important info from unimportant one. But the attention span of many ppl has become shorter due to lack of silence, real darkness (light pollution is a serious problem for biological rhythms) and constant overstimulation to the brain which is rarely able to process all of it. 

The results of this is what we see today and deal with on threads like these. Many ppl are simply no longer able to discern important info from unimportant one, to comprehend what they perceive and to put it into any kind of context. They don't and can't connect the dots between information. Ought to be taught at schools or in families, but when you're busy to make ends meet, you've got no time for this kind of care.

And even if someone or each of us here wrote a manual - it's missing the point. You have to get ppl to read it. And contextual reading is less and less popular.  I worked three years in schools, I know what I'm saying. "Can't we have a video on that?" "Can we see a film today?" "Do we really have to read the whole book?", etc., etc., etc.

I'm not speaking of learning disabilities or any other developmental difficulties I'm perfectly ok with that.

But if you want to engage in writing with inmates, you will need to read. And to write. And to understand situations and contexts. Mostly some that are foreign to you, assiming you have not been in prison or worked in one previously. Now, if you'e unable to find info or to read it when it's right under your nose, how o Earth are you going to navigate penpalling?

If anyone wants to write a manual, I'm 100% in to copy,paste or edit the tempates I've made. I'm just not too optimistic it'll solve the problem.

As for myself, I think I'll be less on here soon and be more available via email. Carmen, you might want to read the thread "penpal matchmaker?" to get an idea why.

I'll post an update there.

But if a WAP manual would help, sure, count me in.

Kirsten

 
VioletGrey

Hey Violet, don't you think that one of the big confusing things to new users is the WAP "send an email" feature?

Mjuran - yes, totally. It is one of the most commonly asked about topics on here. Also Taurus just hit on something I have been wondering myself, if the information is provided when you've clicked on it. I've never used the feature myself, but it was 2008 when I wrote to my first pen pal, and to my 19 year old self + 2008 Write a Prisoner website, it made the most sense to just write a handwritten to the address on the inmates profile. And that's the way I've always done it from then on. The only way I know all about the email feature was from lurking on here, going to the FAQ and reading things for myself. 
Taurus - is it plainly stated that it's a forwarded letter? Or is it in conveluted language which might leave English as a second language people a bit confused?

I personally think clarity is not this particular websites strongsuit. But I also see they have to distance themselves in certain aspects, as there are legal issues and I guess ethical issues involved. First being having people under the age of 18 use their service, which creates problems everywhere. Then there's JPay & Corrlinks which aren't in  anyway way related to Write A Prisoner, so they can't put "how to's" on their website. As for the FAQ page, that should probably just be the Home Screen, it's an easier format to understand than the current "about us" which is "TL;DR" (that's a new one for this dinosaur Taurus). If the FAQ was a tab at the top, or the home page I think things would be a little easier to get a better understanding quicker. 
 

Then I also agree with Taurus that some people do want to be spoon fed answers with minimal effort. I always appreciate a lurker who's done a bit of reading before coming to the forum to post their question, or someone that has done some of their own research. I only joined the forum part of WAP 5 years ago, and didn't post for 3 years in between. Now I'm regularly on here trying to help people if I can, and a lot of that is the same information I found out through research and my own experiences - which I did prior to even knowing about the WAP forum. Of course a lot of the time I wish people would take the intiative to do the research and have a good foundation on which to start out with before choosing to write to someone. That's maybe the difference between just how enthused/serious/committed certain people are with writing to prisoners  than others. And to me, it's always worthwhile to spoon fed some people in the hopes that they'll stick around for their pen pal as long as it takes. We've seen people come and go, and I just don't mean from the forum, but from their pen pals lives too. So that's why I just don't let it get to me, keep a few answers on my phone ready to answer those FAQ and hope that by giving some little bits of information that I can help two people solidify a good pen pal relationship. 

 

 

 

 
Taurus_ISTJ

I think, the problem isn’t that the information isn’t available. The problem is that people are failing to take time out to read and comprehend the information available. (Or I understand there to also be a language barrier existing for some of those overseas who may not speak English as their first language, which is understandable.)

Moderators pinning the info to the top (or the few forum users you pointed out making a manual) would still result in the same questions being asked over, and over, and over, and over, and over, I guarantee, because hardly anyone would take the time to read it. They don’t now, when there is, in fact, information available to them. What would change? 

(Because people ask about it ad infinitum, I have a time or two before clicked on the misleading ‘Contact by Email’ option WAP offers, to check it out myself, and the information that is always having to be repeated on the forum is typed out right there on the page. Had always been. Although I do think it was more clearly put before the more recent updates.)

I do not personally see this site as being all that hard to navigate, and in efforts to make it less so, there is an FAQ page (which people pointedly do not read, even if you link them again and again and again) that will answer and answers many of the commonly asked questions.

From what I see, most just want it all in bite size pieces. Easy to digest, easy to swallow, dummy easy to comprehend. They want it spoon-fed, or they want a TL;DR (too long, didn’t read) version, instead of taking the initiative to actually set aside some time to read and comprehend FAQs (JPay has an FAQ page, CorrLinks does, as I mentioned this site does, and just about any website which offers a service), go to official government/DOC websites and look for some of the information they seek themselves (it is there, but half don’t even look first before they are asking by posting x20 threads), utilize search engines (Google, Bing) to see (just see) if they can find a relevant, pre-existing, not-outdated thread which might answer or clarify their query (which works just as well as an actual search function on here would, I have found). When people ask, they aren’t asking, “Hey, I read this. Could someone help me understand what I have read?” They have not read anything prior to, they are just wanting everything explained to them by someone.

It is not my aim to be Negative Nancy, but I find too many are standing in their own way. It doesn’t have to be this complicated or complex to start writing a prisoner. It doesn’t need a manual, even. There is simply not much reading being done, at all, and not much initiative being taken. And I suppose some are just not tech-savvy/computer-friendly.

 
mjuran

Hey Violet, don't you think that one of the big confusing things to new users is the WAP "send an email" feature?  It seems like this has to be clarified again and again, that it's not an "email" (and prisoners don't have internet access or "email" as we use it) and that it takes a good deal longer to send out, and is good for just the first initial contact?  And isn't actually necessary at all, people can also just write a postal letter?  Yes there are all the changing rules about what gets rejected, how long it takes to get an answer with the various platforms, and so on, which are more to do with the facilities and less to do with WAP...there isn't any way WAP can publish info to keep up with those other common questions...but they could clarify their "send an email" feature better, I think.  Making it clear upfront that it's a one-time deal, and that it's really just an email that gets printed and mailed to the inmate like a regular letter only done for you by WAP.  I've never seen someone not confused by this issue, starting out, including myself.

First people don't read that these emails are kept for a while and only printed and mailed out twice a month, so they wait longer for a reply and don't know what's going on.  Then there's the way we're encouraged to write our own "profile" here for such letters, and that's confusing too because it sounds like we have a "profile" on here the same as the prisoner profiles, or as if the prisoners or anyone else could read our :"profile" and contact us.  None of which is the case.  Then it also gives people the idea that prisoners have "email" and aren't sure how they're gong to be answered (to an email address?  A postal mailing address?  No return address needed?  It's really unfortunately very confusing at first glance.  I think WAP could do a better job of presenting that their "email" feature is just a one-time and not at all necessary option.  Most people would be better off skipping it altogether, I think, and would have less confusion about first using the site. 

Not that this is really an answer to the original question, but I just wanted to suggest one thing WAP could do to make its site more user friendly and comprehensible to the uninitiated...

 
VioletGrey

Hi Carmen :) 

For sure you've made some good points. And I would love to be able to just send people to one place that is has it all answered, like a manual :) I have some of my answers saved on my phone now for when those repeated questions come up, since I want to be able to help people connect with an inmate easier, but it is tiresome to write out the same answers multiple times. From my view of WAP, the design & layout of website confuses people, it's difficult to navigate and there's way too many long paragraphs of writing which don't make it very newbie friendly. Then the other trouble is each prison in each State all do things differently, some are more lenient, others are much more strict. Prisons can change policies at the drop of a hat, and the only ones really clued into all that is the inmates in the prisons being relayed information. 
Mjuran is right too, that the threads we start for newbies/essential helpful tips dont stay at the front, and I don't know many people that would go back through all the threads to find ones which are helpful. It would be great if we could find a simple solution to it, but I just don't think there is. Perhaps an independent website which had all the information in an accessible & easy to understand format that we could just copy the link to, maybe that would be a solution. But I'm not tech savvy or have enough time to create that myself. 
In the mean time I'll just keep copy pasting until I can't do it anymore. 

 

 
mjuran

I think it would be wonderful to have a manual, or something similar, posted permanently where all can find it.  The issue I see happening all the time (as you noted) is that all the helpful posts end up in the archives, where no one sees them.  I don't know how or if there's a way to post something that always stays somewhere available for easy viewing and reference.