<div dir="ltr"><span id="docs-internal-guid-f61c03cf-3373-5d87-5461-eec3b7a469e4"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.15;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:15px;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;background-color:transparent">Dear IES-VE community,</span></p><br><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.15;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><a href="http://ibpsa.us/" style="text-decoration:none"><span style="font-size:15px;font-family:Arial;text-decoration:underline;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;background-color:transparent">IBPSA-USA</span></a><span style="font-size:15px;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;background-color:transparent"> and </span><a href="http://bigladdersoftware.com/" style="text-decoration:none"><span style="font-size:15px;font-family:Arial;text-decoration:underline;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;background-color:transparent">Big Ladder Software</span></a><span style="font-size:15px;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;background-color:transparent"> are pleased to announce a new, free online community resource called </span><span style="font-size:15px;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-style:italic;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;background-color:transparent">Unmet Hours</span><span style="font-size:15px;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;background-color:transparent"> (</span><a href="https://unmethours.com/" style="text-decoration:none"><span style="font-size:15px;font-family:Arial;text-decoration:underline;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;background-color:transparent">https://unmethours.com/</span></a><span style="font-size:15px;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;background-color:transparent">), a question-and-answer (Q+A) website for building energy modelers.</span></p><br><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.15;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:15px;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;background-color:transparent">What is a question-and-answer website? It’s a new type of resource that has emerged from the programming world as an alternative to mailing lists or forums. But it’s super simple. You ask a question. Other modelers answer it. The best answer gets voted to the top. Or you can search on your topic and you might find that your question has already been asked and answered. And it’s always good to give back to the community (while showing off your expertise and earning good “karma”) by helping other modelers with their questions.</span></p><br><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.15;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:15px;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;background-color:transparent">At </span><span style="font-size:15px;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-style:italic;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;background-color:transparent">Unmet Hours</span><span style="font-size:15px;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;background-color:transparent">, you can ask questions about any modeling topic or software tool, including <a href="https://unmethours.com/questions/scope:all/sort:activity-desc/tags:ies-ve/page:1/">IES-VE</a>. Numerous experts are standing by, eager to help, and ready to answer your questions--big or small. There are already more than 240 registered users, more than 90 questions, and more than 170 answers on the website.</span></p><br><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.15;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:15px;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-style:italic;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;background-color:transparent">Unmet Hours</span><span style="font-size:15px;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;background-color:transparent"> offers many capabilities that make it a powerful resource for the building energy modeling community:</span></p><br><ul style="margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><li dir="ltr" style="list-style-type:disc;font-size:15px;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);vertical-align:baseline;background-color:transparent"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.15;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;background-color:transparent">Each individual question is kept together with its answers on one web page that can be easily referenced with a unique URL.</span></p></li><li dir="ltr" style="list-style-type:disc;font-size:15px;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);vertical-align:baseline;background-color:transparent"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.15;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;background-color:transparent">Answers are peer reviewed and voted on by the community to reach a consensus on which ones are most likely to be helpful or “correct”.</span></p></li><li dir="ltr" style="list-style-type:disc;font-size:15px;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);vertical-align:baseline;background-color:transparent"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.15;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;background-color:transparent">Questions are easily searchable on the website. All content is indexed by Google and other search engines.</span></p></li><li dir="ltr" style="list-style-type:disc;font-size:15px;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);vertical-align:baseline;background-color:transparent"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.15;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;background-color:transparent">Questions are tagged with category labels such as ‘</span><a href="https://unmethours.com/questions/scope:all/sort:activity-desc/tags:infiltration/page:1/" style="text-decoration:none"><span style="text-decoration:underline;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;background-color:transparent">infiltration</span></a><span style="vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;background-color:transparent">’, ‘</span><a href="https://unmethours.com/questions/scope:all/sort:activity-desc/tags:daylighting/page:1/" style="text-decoration:none"><span style="text-decoration:underline;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;background-color:transparent">daylighting</span></a><span style="vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;background-color:transparent">’, or ‘<a href="https://unmethours.com/questions/scope:all/sort:activity-desc/tags:ies-ve/page:1/">ies-ve</a>’ making it easy to find topics of interest.</span></p></li><li dir="ltr" style="list-style-type:disc;font-size:15px;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);vertical-align:baseline;background-color:transparent"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.15;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;background-color:transparent">Questions can be tagged across multiple categories for cross-cutting problems, for example, ‘</span><a href="https://unmethours.com/questions/scope:all/sort:activity-desc/tags:ashrae-90.1/page:1/" style="text-decoration:none"><span style="text-decoration:underline;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;background-color:transparent">ashrae-90.1</span></a><span style="vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;background-color:transparent">’, ‘</span><a href="https://unmethours.com/questions/scope:all/sort:activity-desc/tags:hvac/page:1/" style="text-decoration:none"><span style="text-decoration:underline;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;background-color:transparent">hvac</span></a><span style="vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;background-color:transparent">’, and ‘<a href="https://unmethours.com/questions/scope:all/sort:activity-desc/tags:ies-ve/page:1/">ies-ve</a>’.</span></p></li><li dir="ltr" style="list-style-type:disc;font-size:15px;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);vertical-align:baseline;background-color:transparent"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.15;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;background-color:transparent">Tags or individual questions can be “followed” to receive email updates when there is new or changed content. You control your email update preferences.</span></p></li><li dir="ltr" style="list-style-type:disc;font-size:15px;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);vertical-align:baseline;background-color:transparent"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.15;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;background-color:transparent">Comments are used to discuss or make suggestions about a question or answer without distracting from the main content.</span></p></li><li dir="ltr" style="list-style-type:disc;font-size:15px;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);vertical-align:baseline;background-color:transparent"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.15;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;background-color:transparent">All content is actively moderated and curated by the community. Questions and answers can be revised at any time to be clearer and more helpful, or to be updated as new information becomes available. It’s a living knowledge base.</span></p></li><li dir="ltr" style="list-style-type:disc;font-size:15px;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);vertical-align:baseline;background-color:transparent"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.15;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;background-color:transparent">And it all works conveniently in the web browser on your smartphone!</span></p></li></ul><br><span style="font-size:15px;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;background-color:transparent">You can find </span><span style="font-size:15px;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-style:italic;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;background-color:transparent">Unmet Hours</span><span style="font-size:15px;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;background-color:transparent"> at </span><a href="https://unmethours.com/" style="text-decoration:none"><span style="font-size:15px;font-family:Arial;text-decoration:underline;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;background-color:transparent">https://unmethours.com/</span></a><span style="font-size:15px;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;background-color:transparent"> It’s a resource for the building energy modeling community, built by the community. We are counting on </span><span style="font-size:15px;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);text-decoration:underline;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;background-color:transparent">your</span><span style="font-size:15px;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;background-color:transparent"> support and participation to continue its success.</span></span><br></div>