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Forums > General Discussions > General Site Discussions
Subject: Permalinks and Consistencies in Editable Discussion Threads?
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melaclaro
Posts:17
11/28/2006 12:44 PM Alert 
I'm cross-posting this here as a new topic. It's a point that was touched on in the Chapter 10 discussion forum but I think is more appropriate to detail in this forum.

I'm trying to focus on my contributions to the content of the book. Unfortunately, I'm I'm finding that I'm getting bogged down in functionality of the tool.

For the Community Manager: Would it be possible to add the following to the hit list?

a. Activating permalinks and html for postings in the discussion forums. Justification: This helps to easily "point" community discussion on specific topics that authors need help with in the book.

b. Linking the Discussion Tab for each wiki page to the appropriate Discussion Forum. Justification: Helps direct a central location where the community can view and give feedback on book content.

c. Linking the Comment tab for each wiki to the appropriate Discussion forum. Justification: same as item 'b' above.

d. (New item.) I've noticed there are some thread postings in the discussion forums -- which are mine -- that are editable and others which are not. Can this be set so there is consistency? Or, it may just be a point of education on my part about conditions under which they're editable. If so, please respond here.

Thanks in advance! :-)
joe_flum
Posts:151
11/30/2006 1:59 PM Alert 
Mel,

I don't know about you, but much of this is related to a number of usability issues in the interface of the software. What you are identifying here, relates back to a number of key assumptions that ingrained in the interface:

1) The Forums and the Wiki are presented as two distinct applications. This results in a split within the community in the moment in which you either choose to navigate through the wiki or through the forum.

2) Once inside the wiki, we are presented with redundant input methods. As you mention in your item 'b', this creates a number of sub-spaces in the site where a conversation can occur, thus increasing the difficulty in finding things.

3) As David Truss has identified in his "Tagging" thread, the current search mechanisms are primarily focused on the forum (as far as I've seen). This makes it difficult to zero in on the areas of the wiki that are most active regarding a particular topic, and so limits the speed at which a user can jump into a area of interest.

4) There is currently no form of looking at the site in its holistic form. With the large number of threads, posts, pages and users, this means that it's difficult to see the preverbial forest for the trees. Assuming that tagging is implemented at some point, a relatively simple way of getting a conceptual overview of the site is through interface mechanism like the (sometimes hated) tag cloud.

5) Continuity is an issue for many, the ability to see where changes are being made. The forum has a number of useful tools ("not read", "active topics" etc), but the wiki could also benefit from this sort of tracking capabilities. The main thing is the active encouragement for maintained interaction with the site. Keeping the interest of the users high and allowing them to easily switch between modes of interaction. One of the key technologies (that members have suggested) is the use of RSS for being able to keep tabs on what is going on. Feeds are incredibly useful for this sort of thing, and can provide a very quick subscription method for multiple users to stay up-to-date.
iphazard
Posts:87
09/06/2007 3:01 PM Alert 
Mel,

It's been some time in coming, but we didn't forget about your suggested site improvements. See the comments in-line below...

Posted By melaclaro on 11/28/2006 12:44 PM

a. Activating permalinks and html for postings in the discussion forums. Justification: This helps to easily "point" community discussion on specific topics that authors need help with in the book.

==> Adding certain types of HTML tags is now allowed in the forums. You can do 'a href="(your url)"' for instance to make live links like this: GOOGLE

b. Linking the Discussion Tab for each wiki page to the appropriate Discussion Forum. Justification: Helps direct a central location where the community can view and give feedback on book content.

==> We are not using a wiki for the first 2 phases of this project. Once we do get to the wiki portion, which is mainly for editing purposes only, the discussions will be set up correctly.

c. Linking the Comment tab for each wiki to the appropriate Discussion forum. Justification: same as item 'b' above.

==> Chances are, we will simply remove the comments capability from the wiki pages and use the discussion forums only. If not, the comments in the wiki will stay as is, but we will include some better instructions on when it is appropriate to use comments, and

d. (New item.) I've noticed there are some thread postings in the discussion forums -- which are mine -- that are editable and others which are not. Can this be set so there is consistency? Or, it may just be a point of education on my part about conditions under which they're editable. If so, please respond here.

==> This are consistent now.




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