The Forest Service is working on the employee directory and also the “current SOPA” link. They expect to have the employee link up by Thursday the 17th.
Note: while exploring this issue with the FS, I discovered that outside emails can look like spam, so may not get the attention of the FS individual you would like to contact. I ended up using the phone to talk to a human being. Lesson: don’t think FS folks are intentionally ignoring you if your emails are not returned.
Thanks, Sharon. I wonder how many important emails are missed because they are seen as potential spam? My college simply ads a warning about potential spam to incoming email from non-college addresses.
“I discovered that outside emails can look like spam, so may not get the attention of the FS individual you would like to contact.”
It’s irritating when the FS invites public comment be made by email and then can’t read the comment because its IT systems are inept.
I think my experience was just attempting to contact an individual, who didn’t realize I was trying to contact them. And my email address might look more like spam than if it were a name. I’m sure that if someone were looking and expecting the public to comment it wouldn’t be a problem.
FWIW, the employee directory was useful only if you knew the name of the person you wanted to contact. There was no way to look up, for example, the XYZ district silviculturist.
I agree — that was a major shortcoming of the directory. Frustrating, too, as the underlying data were in the directory; they were just not in a searchable format. I raised the issue with the FS, but made no progress. For those with access to former Microsoft programmers, the directory was downloadable on-line, including employee positions. The Forest Service tried to prevent entrepreneurs from doing so, but for several years didn’t realize that the same data were available, and downloadable, on USDA’s website. 🙂
Thanks for scoping this out, Sharon. Do you know what the employee listing will be called? Thanks!
I think they are just fixing the link to the same old directory we always had at the same place.
There is so much turnover right now that keeping up with positions (not just employee names) is a real challenge. And the FS does not make it easy for someone who moves to update their location in the email directory, so those are not necessarily correct either. A colleague of mine who has worked in Region X for 20 plus years still had that he worked in R8 on his “address card” in the email system because the process to change that is pretty arcane and not easy to figure out. In my region right now, 20% of the positions are vacant.
And yes, Sharon is right – we get a fair amount of “spam” email and we are routinely told that if we receive an email from a person or entity that we do not recognize that we should not open it for computer security reasons. So a phone call is definitely a good idea to follow up if your email does not get an answer.
I do know that if you send an email via a “contact us” link on a FS webpage that those are responded to and tracked to ensure that the person who emails us gets a response in a timely manner.
20 percent? Wow. How long have so many positions been vacant?
FWIW, as a journalist, I say that it would be big help if forests would put a list of media contacts on their web sites. Many do not.
FYI, the employee directory is back.
http://www.fs.fed.us/contactus/employee_search.shtml
Still limited to searching by name.
Looks like a Beta version, but it’s a start. The results glom first and last name together into one awkward looking string. On the plus side, the email address result can be copied as plain text and pasted into an email client or contact list. The last name search field hits only on correctly-spelled and full last names, i.e., no partial name searches allowed. Sub rosa data harvesting is no longer so easy 😬.
Andy, I’m not sure that being able to copy the names, while easier for us, is good for them. I’m going to suggest going back to the drop down menu for locations… do you have any other improvements to suggest?
My short-term memory problems find copy/paste is much better than trying to remember email to type it into a message.
It would be nice to find a person based on their job function and duty station, i.e., who are the wildlife biologists on the Blue River ranger district, Willamette NF?
That sounds more like what we used to call the “organizational directory,” the paper version of which used to answer those kinds of questions down to at least the regional office level, and some people at the forest and district levels. It looks like the public-facing version of that is now this, which has no names at all (but maybe they could combine the two in some way).
https://www.fs.usda.gov/organization
The organizational directory with names still exists. It is VERY dated, however, and I’m told that few know how to up-date their information.