What is the purpose of Dapol Digest?

[Finsbury Park]

Apologies (a) for a potentially contentious topic and (b) for not posting it in the Dapol Digest News & Information area for topics (which does not have the facility for non-Dapol staff to start topics) but... as the title asks... what actually is the purpose of Dapol Digest?

When it was set up (with a degree of fanfare), I thought it was for (a) Dapol to post updates on products, (b) for users to engage with Dapol on product development and (c) for consumers of Dapol to engage with each other.

(a) and (b) started off brightly enough, but it seems the company has already lost interest in that side of it. I can understand a reluctance to promise delivery dates which may slip, but - on the 00 scale side at least - post from Dapol are so few and far between now, and questions going unanswered, that I wonder what the actual point of it is?

The Class 122 was completed, shipped and it wasn't even mentioned. Surely it's shipping was cause for an announcement on the Digest to ensure as many people knew about it (and placed their orders) as possible? It has since arrived with the major box-shifters, but there has been no mention of when it will arrive at other model retailers. Everything has gone quiet on the GWR railcar and Class 121 front. Not only that, but the development stages as quoted on the main site are out of date.

I understand that, for what is a relatively small company, everybody is no doubt very busy. But the Digest home page claims it's "The definitive source of Dapol product news".

Writing as someone who has worked in communications and PR for the better part of 20 years, having a facility which promised much better communication, yet having evidently lost interest in it already, unfortunately makes the company look worse than not having it at all.

[JeremiahBunyan]

I've always found it useful to tag them in posts...that way they are notified about it. As with everyone we do tend to miss out on things sometimes.

So do try tagging them if you do indeed have anything urgent or important.

Cheers!

[Finsbury Park]

Really frustrating that Neil @ Dapol took the time to delete a 'troll' post (which is fair enough), but didn't take the time to reply to my question (which isn't).

[JeremiahBunyan]

As I said...best to tag them if you need a quick reply...

Do remember if you wish to tag someone put "@" in front of their forum name eg: Neil Dapol

[JeremiahBunyan]

Apologies (a) for a potentially contentious topic and (b) for not posting it in the Dapol Digest News & Information area for topics (which does not have the facility for non-Dapol staff to start topics) but... as the title asks... what actually is the purpose of Dapol Digest?

When it was set up (with a degree of fanfare), I thought it was for (a) Dapol to post updates on products, (b) for users to engage with Dapol on product development and (c) for consumers of Dapol to engage with each other.

(a) and (b) started off brightly enough, but it seems the company has already lost interest in that side of it. I can understand a reluctance to promise delivery dates which may slip, but - on the 00 scale side at least - post from Dapol are so few and far between now, and questions going unanswered, that I wonder what the actual point of it is?

The Class 122 was completed, shipped and it wasn't even mentioned. Surely it's shipping was cause for an announcement on the Digest to ensure as many people knew about it (and placed their orders) as possible? It has since arrived with the major box-shifters, but there has been no mention of when it will arrive at other model retailers. Everything has gone quiet on the GWR railcar and Class 121 front. Not only that, but the development stages as quoted on the main site are out of date.

I understand that, for what is a relatively small company, everybody is no doubt very busy. But the Digest home page claims it's "The definitive source of Dapol product news".

Writing as someone who has worked in communications and PR for the better part of 20 years, having a facility which promised much better communication, yet having evidently lost interest in it already, unfortunately makes the company look worse than not having it at all.

(a) Dapol do post updates when they do have them. It can be seen clearly. Eg: livery diagrams for the LSWR B4 etc. So yes they do post when they have information to share. If there's no updates what are they supposed to do? Lie to us? I see that causing more vicious posts.
(b) We do engage with Dapol, yes communication is a little slow but there's recently been a lot of shows etc and Dapol has been busy. Again they'll update us when there's something worthwhile.


The Class 122 was completed and shipped...yes, but why the complaints about a lack of a posting here? The Dapol Digest has a small number of people compared to RMweb and N Gauge Forum. The release of a product is so well covered all over the place. Dapol not posting about the release here is hardly a loss. So many people pre-order items anyway, for those who don't they get their news from those who did. Retailers use every form of social media to advertise new releases. So yes, it's hardly a loss. And I fail to see how Dapol not posting the release news here is going to affect people's orders.

Dapol have clearly and cleverly divided the work amongst themselves as you can see Joel, Neil, Andy and Richard each look after their own respective projects. This isn't all the work that they do. They have look into much more than that and attend various shows etc. It's not an easy task for a small company. One person was too ambitious and now others have to do some cleaning up.

There's always more that goes on behind the scenes than we know of, it's best to ask why rather than accuse.