NEW USERS START HERE

Forum Primer 07: Forum Subscriptions

William Bruce — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 23:25:30 GMT

The system used by this site allows for automatic emails with any new forum content. If you would like to be sent an email when a new post or thread is submitted to a specific forum, you can use the forum subscriptions feature of the site to set your preferences...

From any forum page, you should see a "Shortcuts" section at the upper left area of the screen.

Just click the "Forum Subscriptions" link in the shortcut area and you will see a new view of the forums listing similar to this screenshot:

To the right of each forum, you can see the current setting for the subscription. If you want to enable or disable the subscription, simply click the appropriate "Yes" or "No" link in the "Subscribe" column.

Forum Primer 06: Public Profiles

William Bruce — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 20:54:32 GMT

Now that you've read all about editing your profile, you may want to know how this information is displayed to others. Even though it may be called a "Public Profile", the system is set to require a user to login before viewing the information, so it really is limited to community members.

Some of the profile information is displayed next to each of your posts in the system. The full profile can be viewed by clicking on any user's name in the system. The profile screen has three sections: an overview section, and "Options" section and an "About" section.

The overview section:

This section shows basic information about the user.

The Options Section:

This section will let let you take specific actions related to the user who's profile you are viewing. Users only see the "Edit my profile" options for their own profile.

The About Section:

This section shows the user's bio and any recent activity from the user.

Forum Primer 05: Edit Your User Profile

William Bruce — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 20:41:38 GMT

The community system has a rich user profile feature that will allow users to set user specific settings for their account. To access the profile editor, simply click the "Edit Profile" link in the top right corner of the page.

The Editor has six content tabs: Signature and Bio, About, Email, Site Options, Password and Statistics, and Favorites.

Signature and Bio:

Use this tab to add a signature that will appear at the end or each of your posts. You can also add a Bio that will display in your community profile.

About:

Use this tab to add basic "About You" Information.

Site Options:

This tab contains settings for various site options. Some key settings worth discussion are "Forum Posts Default View", "Enable Display Name", "Enable Collapsing Panels", and the "Control Panel" Options. Each are discussed further below.

Forum Posts Default View: This setting lets you pick how forums are displayed. The "Flat" view is the default view and will result in forums displayed as a list of conversations. The "Tree" view will provide a view similar to the "Windows Explorer" in most computers. This vie lists conversations hierarchically on the left and posts on the right. Because of its large horizontal layout, this view is best viewed on computers with wide screen monitors and higher resolutions. Below is a screen shot of that view (reduced to 75% for reference)

Enable Display Name: This setting will change how your identity is shown within the site. When it is set to "Yes" the system will show your identity based on your Name as set on the "About" tab above. When set to "No" your identity will be displayed as your username. Because most usernames in the system are the twelve digit member number, this can become confusing and is therefore not recommended. For example, instead of "William Bruce", I would be listed as something like "000000123456."

Enable Collapsing Panels: This setting will let you customize the display of forums groups. If you would like to reduce the vertical screen space on the main forum page (www.communities.org/forums), you can turn this setting on. Below are two screen shots showing a how this works. Forum groups can be collapsed or expanded by clicking the small button to the left of the forum group title.

First, a screen shot of the panels shown as expanded:

Now, a screen shot showing the General Members Forums as collapsed:

Control Panel options are for administrators and moderators and should will have no effect for most users.

Password and Statistics:

This tab will show basic statistics for your account and provide a button to change your password.

Favorites:

This tab is used to manage your favorites. You can share them with everybody on the site and delete items from your favorites here. (no image)

Forum Primer 04: Replying to a Conversation Thread

William Bruce — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 17:30:41 GMT

Each post within a conversation thread will display a “Reply” button. You can reply to the first message in the thread or any of the replies that may already exist within that thread. The reply button will present you with a form similar to the “Write a New Post” form, allowing you to enter your reply. When you are done, you simply click the “Post” button to submit the reply to the thread.

Forum Primer 03: Creating a Conversation Thread

William Bruce — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 17:29:50 GMT

To create a conversation thread, first decide what forum the conversation should be in. If you want to have a conversation with the Assembly, then the Assembly’s Open Floor forum might be the best place. Navigate to the Open Floor forum and click the “Write a new Post” link. This will present you with a form to enter a subject for your conversation and the message or question you want to post. Once you’ve written the message, click the “Post” button and the message will be placed in the root of the forum you’ve selected (in this example, the Open Floor forum).

Forum Primer 02: Forum Access and Security

William Bruce — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 17:26:47 GMT

It is common for an online community to have sophisticated access models for their individual forums. In our case, we may end up creating a forum for the Executive Committee of the Board which can be used only by those members who are part of that committee. Separately, there might be a forum for the rest of the board to use for their communications.Security and access in our system is managed through the concept of a user “role” or group. When a user is created, they can be added to the appropriate roles to gain access to the appropriate set of forums. Additionally, access can be controlled on several levels for each forum or forum. Role access options that can be controlled are the ability to view, read, post, reply, vote, and attach files. Here is a breakdown of what those settings mean:

· View: User can see that the forum exists.

· Read: User can read the contents of the forum.

· Post: User can add new posts or conversations to the forum.

· Reply: User can reply to posts or conversations in the forum.

· Vote: User can create and participate in polls that are posted in the forum.

· Attach: User can add an attachment to their replies.

The Role structure we have implemented assumes a cascading set of access privileges based on the actual role that a user may have within the APA. For example, all members will have access to view, read, post, reply, vote, and attach to all General Member forums. Additionally they may be able to view and read all Assembly forums, but not post, reply, vote, or attach. Above the general member role, would be the Assembly role. Users in the assembly role will have full access to all member forums and additional access to Assembly specific forums. Here is the model we are currently using for cascading access:

· Public: This role is not used, but it is important to understand that all forums are closed to the public.

· Member: This is the lowest access role allowing users in that role to have full access to all general member forums in addition to the ability to view and read other forums where appropriate.

· Assembly: This is role will have all the access of the Member role and additional full access to general assembly forums.

· Assembly Committee Roles: These roles will allow users to have all the access of the Assembly role and add access to additional forums specific to the committee they may be a member of. ACOP is one of these roles.

· BoT: This role is intended for members of the Board of Trustees and will have full access to all assembly forums, member forums, and general BoT forums.

· BoT Executive Committee: Intended to be used by members of the Executive Committee of the Board, this role will have full access to all forums in the site.

· Staff: This role is intended to be used for the staff of the APA. Staff will have access to all member and assembly forums.

· Executive Staff: This role is for the APA’s executive team and will have access to all forums except the BoT Executive Council forum. The CEO / MDO will be also have access to this forum.

· Admin: This role is reserved for site administrators and will have full access to all forums. Access to this role is extremely limited.

Users can be members of multiple roles, allowing access any forum that requires their participation. There is no limit to the number of roles or the number of forums in the system. Primary Roles will be used to broadly categorize users based on their highest level of participation and will display a graphic badge next to posts indicating the primary role that the user is a member of.

Forum Primer 01: Overview of the Forum System

William Bruce — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 17:19:16 GMT

The forum capabilities of the system are similar to those in most online forum systems and will be familiar to many who have participated in online communities. For those who are new to online forums, this section will be a good primer.

Forum Structure

Forums have a clear hierarchical structure based on the following model.

· Forum Collection: This is the root level for all of the forums in a site. In our case this is literally what you see when you navigate to http://communities.psych.org/forums

o Forum Groups: A forum group is a logical grouping of forums based on arbitrary criteria such as topic, audience, function or other as appropriate. In our case, we are initially grouping forums based on categories of users. (e.g. General Members, Assembly, B.o.T., etc.)

§ Forum(s): A forum is a group of conversations or threads.

· Threads: A thread is a conversation consisting of Posts or messages.

o Posts: A post is the actual message being submitted to the system or site.

So in our case the page at http://communities.psych.org/forums is the forum collection. On that page, you can see several forum groups such as “Site Support…”, “General Member Forums”, “Assembly Forums” and more. Within each forum group, you can see individual forums. For example, within the Assembly Forums group, there are currently two separate forums: “Open Floor” intended to be used as an open forum for all assembly members to use, and “ACOP” intended to be used only by members of the Assembly Committee on Planning. Inside the ACOP forum, you will find a list of the current conversation threads such as “Welcome to the ACOP Forum Pilot!” and “Another quick note about the profile...” These conversation threads will contain posts which are the actual messages submitted b users of the site.

This image shows two forum groups (General Member Forums and Assembly Forums) and the individual forums within each group: