Reorganization

I think "Politics" and "Rants and Raves" could potentially be made into one subcategory, since many rants and raves could potentially be regarding political issues.

Also, maybe combine "Dining," "Outdoors," and "Social Advice" into "Bellingham Life" or something of that sort?

And would someone mind explaining what "Missed Connections" would be?

I think Bellingham Life is a way better subcategory than dining, outdoors, etc... Good idea.

I don't think Rants & Raves, however, would be the same subcategory as politics. There are some threads right now that fit R&R but arent necessarily poltical (WTA Bus thread for example).

"Missed connections" is something that briefly came up in an advisory board meeting. A more appropriate title would probably just be "social connections" or "personal connections". It would be a forum that the V-day thread might fit into.

missed connections is a craigslist thing, its not so much of a personal ad than a way to contact someone if you're too shy or forgot to get their number or something. For example, if the same girl makes someone's coffee every morning and he wants to see if she's interested, he can post a "missed connection", the title might be something like "cute coffee girl at tony's in haggard, 10 am" and inside he could describe her so she knows he's talking to her. at least that's what craigslist does. the v-day thread is a bit more of a personal ad i think than what missed connections is supposed to be.

Yes. That is why a "Missed Connections" subcategory was just something that we had explored and not set our minds on.

Missed Connections seems kinda neat. I probably would never use it, but I always liked reading those "I Saw U" things in The Stranger. Maybe combine that and personal ads into one category? Or something?

Hey Jamin, and others,

     Just wanted to say that I'm liking the forum -- it's a great way to keep dialogue going and keep the campus connected.

     I had a few thoughts about organization...

     When I log in, it feels somewhat annoying to have to click on "Go to all the forums" from the main page (the one that shows the latest forum updates, etc).  It'd be cool to have all of the forums displayed below the "latest..." section rather than accessible only by clicking on stuff.  Or even better (and please excuse me, I'm just throwing off some thoughts but I have no idea if they're feasible!) -- rather on the "All forums" page, it would be awesome to be able to see the lastest posts for every category.  So in other words, instead of just seeing "Open Say / President's Corner / " etc, we could see 'Open Say' with 3 or 4 bulleted posts indented below it in a different color, then 'President's Corner' with 3 orf 4 bulleted posts below that, etc...  

   And I don't know about other people, but for me, "Search" is a huge thing.  The orange "Changes in the forum" box says that there is "now a "Search available at the top of the screen" -- but I can't find a search anywhere.  I feel like I'd use the Exchange section, for instance, a whole lot more if I could search for specific things rather than browsing hundreds of posts.  If it were possible to do, too, it would be very cool to be able to have a search box under 'Exchange' specific to each Exchange category: so, like, from the main forums page a person could (in a search box under 'Rideshare' type in Wenatchee or something and get results specifically within the rideshare category).  I hate to say "you know, like Craigslist," but, you know, like Craigslist! :-). 

   And like I said, I haven't a clue if any of this stuff is possible to do or how time-consuming it would be to do it.  But if it's possible, here's another tought: having expanding/collapsing boxes. So, when a person is in the "All forums" area, rather than having to click on Open Say to go to Open Say and click on President's Corner to goto President's Corner and etc., they could click on something that expands each category's box -- then collapse it.  That might sound like total computer laziness, but, I think there's validity.  As I see it, some of those categories which you mentioned as having little or no usage might be better served if users can more easily see what's happening in them: by having 3-4 bulleted preview posts shown below them and by being able to quickly expand/collapse without having to actually click on the category.  Because, honestly, it's hard to imagine that most users will want to explore "University Planning and Budgeting Corner."  But if there's a few posts immediately shown beneath it, one may catch their eye -- "Football team cuts" or such; and if they can quickly expand/collapse, they could more easily get an idea of what's inside without having to actually click and go inside, which I know (at least for myself) seems like something not worth putting the effort into. Haha, technology has evolved to the point where "having to click and go inside" actually sounds like too much work :-)

Just some thoughts!

Thanks for the work you all do with the forum---
- Dave

Thanks for the ideas... we'll be playing with some of these ideas and putting a new organization in place by Spring Quarter, I hope! 

As for the search option, it disappears in Internet Explorer, but appears in Firefox.  I know why it is happening by haven't had time to focus on the solution.  I hope to have this fixed by Spring quarter as well. If time allows, I should be able to put private messaging in place too!

Your help in pointing out these things is helpful.  If anyone with Drupal expertise wants to volunteer to work on the Village, adding functionality, fixing little issues, I would welcome that as well :-)

New Revised Layout:

-Dialogue
     -Open Say
     -Arts & Music
     -Raves
     -Bellingham Life
     -Lost & Found
     -Politics
     -Academics
     -Missed Connections (?)

-Feedback
     -Administration
         -Presidents Corner
         -University Planning & Budgeting
     -AS & Student Organizations
     -Viking Village

-Exchange
     -Book Exchange
     -RideShare / Transportation
     -Roommates & Housing
     -Trade

I like it. *thumbs up*

 I was going to just start a new thread, but I figured I'd just dump my thoughts here. For the most part, activity on this forum is becoming increasingly pointless. Normally, a more active and visible moderator group can keep things focused and stop spam/flame threads before they even start. If the purpose of the forum is to encourage campus wide dialogue then most of the sections should be cut down. The Open Say section doesn't have a whole lot of a point. In my opinion, if your comments don't fall into any of the other categories regarding academic, administrative, or AS related concerns, DON'T POST ANYTHING. You lose the purpose of a community forum when your most active topics are "Should I have kids?"/"Obama is a terroris"/"Stop blowing your nose". 

Simply suggesting that the forums should be repurposed... to what they were intended to be in the first place.

Well, Obama is a terrorist.

The thread about having kids had potential to be a genuinely thoughtful topic. But in general, agreed; there's about five-ish 12-year-olds running rampant in the Open Say forum now and it's pretty irritating.

All you need are active moderators. That's it. :P Let people volunteer for it, having moderators does not limit the dialogue you intend to create.

It was intended to be thought provoking, which is why I wrote it. I can be serious, but I like to make fun of things, myself especially. I don't understand why people aren't allowed to joke here. Look, what is the real intention of this forum? Is it an ultra-serious place where we can strum guitars and talk wistfully about our lofty goals, ideas, and ambitions?

Thanks for your input a.L and Jon Bash.

The issue of having a visible moderator(s) is something that the board is definitely talking about.
As soon as we make any final decisions (hopefully soon) we'll definitely let you know.

Speaking of which, with the new reorganization, shouldn't you also make the "Guidelines for Participation" box in the left side of the window a bit flashier?  I'm thinking red font, flashing background in black & white, 36-point font, all bold.

We were actually considering making every user sign a guideslines contract using their own blood as ink.

Haha no, but in all seriousness: The board is leaning in favor of having each user agree to a forum guidelines "contract" when creating their account. Exising users will also be required to agree to the guidelines (by clicking "I agree" or something) before posting on the forum. Each user will only have to agree to the guidelines once but the guidelines box will remain at the side to remind people.

I see there is a new raves section here, and I thoroughly enjoy that, but why not have a raves section for all of us who like to piss and moan about all sorts of things? A place of concentrated negativity and dislike, perfect for folks who feed on that stuff and would rather have it at a buffet table instead of having to hunt for it.

Should this post go in its own thread?  Probably.  This seemed like a relatively appropriate place for it.

First off, embedded forum = lose, each time, every time.  I'm guessing the mindset in designing the forum is more friendly/community-oriented/inviting, which is fine, just don't alienate the more advanced users.  I created an account two days ago for the sole reason of making a post.  I've been here a number of times before but just don't want to use the forum because of how unintuitive the entire interface is (from the standpoint of a frequent forum user).  On a sidenote, why is this immune to Firefox's spell check?  That might be something to look into.  I'm guessing it's related to why you can't directly paste and how the entire forum is embedded.

Dynamic Width: static page width, coupled with the Guideline for Participation side banner and user information (which I'm not complaining about but is just a relevant factor), on my screen (1280x1024) I've got about half the screen for the actual post body.  I realize this is more difficult because of the embedded aspect; this isn't earth shattering, just annoying.  Furthermore, the post box (what I'm typing in right now) is set wider than the space allowed for it, creating a horizontal scrollbar.  Again, not critical, just annoying (more annoying that the previous page width bit).  It's the little things that matter.  An alternative is a set of options that determine the page width (IPB uses this, see below for example).

Guidelines for Participation
Move this. There really isn't a justifiable reason to force this in front of me every single second.  There are guidelines.  I get it.  If I'm going to follow them, show me them once and tell me where they are so I can check if there are disputes/questions; if I'm not going to follow them, shoving them in my face isn't going to make a difference (and might even strengthen my resolve but that's a weak claim).  A popular solution is requiring the first post to be in an intro forum and restrict posting everywhere else until then.  This could get a little tricky from a technical standpoint because you probably want the entire forum still visible.

Reply Button: reply right align, along with the other buttons such as page number
http://img6.imageshack.us/img6/8845/replybuttonc.png
Considering there is a quote button, what is the point of a reply button on each and every post?

Bookmark & Share button: http://forum.wwu.edu/sites/all/themes/whitejazz/images/button1-share.gif
Does anyone actually use this?  I wouldn't think so.  This is (along with other things) something I consider junk but possibly because I am not a casual/new forum user as I would assume many of the users here are.  Yes, this sounds pretentious but it's how it's worded.

Universal Bulletin Board Code (UBBC): why is this not enabled?  The built-in options (very Wiki-like, I might add) are effective but very, very limited (hotlinking pictures etc?)

The icons you use in front of threads:
How is it that for "Forum Contains New Posts" you knew to use icons with color (though light blue and gray for "Forum is Locked" isn't a real good choice) but for "No New Posts," "New Posts," etc the icons are black/gray/white? In my experience I've discovered nobody cares if a thread is "hot" or just a normal thread (there's a reason the number of responses is listed) so I would suggest eliminating the two "hot thread" icons but I would really suggest (since that's what is used elsewhere anyway) adding color to the star for the "New Posts" icon: http://forum.wwu.edu/sites/all/themes/whitejazz/blue_lagoon/images/topic-new.png

Proboards uses these icons: http://img22.imageshack.us/img22/3103/proboardsfolder.png
Blue dot = new posts, folder = no new posts, red pin = sticky, gray padlock = locked, fire = hot thread, fire + red folder = super hot thread (though I would again reiterate I have found the "hot" differentiation to be useless).

Moderating: Good rule of thumb: never delete posts.  Ever.  I would actually suggest that nobody except top level adminstrators (assuming there are more than one) can even have the capability of deleting posts.  If a post needs to be moderated, try editing it to read something along the lines of : "this post has been removed" in red.  On a related note, it'd be nice if posts included when they were last edited and by whom at the bottom of each post (see IPB example).  Also, disable the ability for people to change their display name more than once.  This (as it already has begun to here) just becomes a clusterf***.  Advice: inform your users who the moderators are, but keep a stance of "moderators = moderators, not invisible, omnipotent beings."  If someone makes a post, that post should remain for eternity.  If it is inappropriate, it should be explicitly edited.  The users need to understand there is a governing body (who thought it was a good idea to start a forum without moderation?) so this forum isn't viewed as lawless land (like it has been/still is) but also realize said body is absolutely transparent.  Discussion between staff (usually in a Staff Only restricted section) is obviously not subject to this kind transparency, but actions committed on users should be (if you're wondering, I've taken part in the moderation/administration of four forums: two past, two present).

The header links: Login/logout, home, forum, profiles, blogs, media gallery, about.  Nevermind that they're in an odd order (login/out is typically last or second to last on the right, second to About, or is right next to the username (see the IPB example later)) and that "Home" doesn't take you to Forum Home but Viking Village home (I expect forum.wwu.edu to take me to a forum), I think these could be better placed if center-aligned (similar to how Proboards does things: http://support.proboards.com/) but not how IPB does (I like IPB more).  After typing all that out, I guess things could be less clunky if there was a "Logged in as: ___ (Logout)" bit on the left (like how IPB does it).  Related note: why wasn't existing forumsoft used, with the authentication modified to go against Novell? Internal developing when there are free, existing solutions seems like a rather odd choice, especially for public sector.

Sidenote: Why is the post count broken? If it's intentionally set to never update or always display zero, why not just remove it altogether?

IPB example
I made this today (yes, everything is default): http://jasper.ipbfree.com
Here's what a post looks like:
http://img517.imageshack.us/img517/5374/ipbr.png

1. This changes the page width.
2. This is informative and useful (next to it are Administrator's Control Panel and Moderator's Control Panel, a setup unique to IPB that I like very much).
3. Tells me when I have new messages and is only one click away.
4. Having a New Topic button is easier and also makes the Reply button less lonely.
5. These buttons are all useful, but clear yet unobtrusive.  I would suggest changing "Flag as Offensive" to "Report this post."
6. This is the "edited by" bit.

Edit: forgot to mention threads should have the page navigation at the top as well as the bottom.

Are you talking about how the forum is embedded in the site and has the "blocks" around it? This we did on purpose. There are several different content types that we want to show in concert with the forums that all use the same content management system. From your post I'm guessing that you feel that this gives the forum less screen area (which is true) but we feel that we need to have these blocks shown along with the forum. The guidelines "block," for instance, can be hidden on the edit tab of your user page. Just uncheck gudelines. The default is to have this block alway shown because we want everyone to know that we take them very seriously (which you might realize, but others do not).

The script editor that we use on the post comment page and the user profile page does have some issues (including the paste issue, width issue, and spellcheck issue that you noticed). This is something that we are working on but will take some time since there is a very limited number of people that have access to admin controls (and "Viking Village administrator" is not their main job description).

Same reason as above. The program that we use to run the text fields around the site has some issues and disadvantages. We are looking into a solution for this.

These are just defaults for the forum program that we are currently using. The logos are definitely something that we can improve but are definitely not on the agenda at the moment. Right now we are mainly focused on getting our moderator system up and running before the second week of spring quarter. More of the minor revisions will take place further on.

This is one of the main aspects of the moderation system that should be in place soon. In the past we had only one user (the admin) that could do any kind of moderation on the forums. Since there will be a few more moderators online in the future we will have more time and resources to perform this kind of "visible moderation" you are describing.

This has not been a big issue that we have had to tackle because users are unable to edit posts. The only posts that are editable are those that have no posts following them in a thread. For instance, you were able to edit your post and add that sentence at the end. But as soon as I posted this comment you were unable to edit that post anymore.

This is a good idea that I have not had time to explore. Users constantly changing their names is an issue. The thing we hav to balance is the connection between Western's user system (CAS) and our own user database for the forum. We want users to be able to change their names away from their universal ID. We will take a look at a "one change limit" though. Good idea.

Again: moderator system coming soon. Users will know who "advisory board members" and "moderators" are by the badges give to users in those groups. Check out mine cool looking one. haha

We are not using an internal development but rather an very customizable (and sometimes hard to administer) program.

It's spring break. Give us some slack, man! Hopefully next week we will have our post counter running and updated with a retroactive post count (since it was just added yesterday).

I agree with you and I am pretty sure this is a minor template tweak. Again, I cannot change it but I'll see what I can do.

I hope I addressed all your concerns. Let me know what you think and if there is anything more you wish to see on the site. Thank you for taking the time to document all this!

Endnotes:

http://img523.imageshack.us/img523/1236/guidelineswut.png
Perhaps you mispoke and the checkbox which you speak of is in a different tab (that in my brief double-check I again missed).  (I also took out my email).

Making it yourself = internal development.  Also, Drupal /= forumsoft.  But enough of that.

The thing is, these are all issues that should have been addressed before release, not after.  That's why testers exist. Oh well, public sector strikes again.

Thanks for your feedback.  I'll be reviewing your suggestions for the next rollout, which will be over the summer, though I may try to look at adding some additional editor functionality before that.  If there are things that really don't work, please let me know, and provide enough information that I can troubleshoot the problem.  For example, you state: "...(besides actual URLs, which works inconsistently)."  Could you elaborate on this?  You should be able to type something in, click the hyperlink button in the options above and add a url.  

http://www.library.wwu.edu

Is that what you are doing?  If so, let me know when this seems to be breaking for you and as much information as you can so I can attempt to replicate the problem and fix it!  

I was specifically referring to inherent recognition of URLs and making them hot. In my first post in this thread: http://forum.wwu.edu/node/1799#comment-5886
as well as my previous post (right above yours), you'll notice some of the links are hot while others are not.  I didn't actually use the editor URL feature (highlighting text and adding a URL via the Insert/Edit link button) but just pasted the URL.

Whenever I do use the editor feature, however, I haven't noticed a problem.

This is no longer true.  Test edit.

I have not read this entire thread but want to pose a question:  I see that some topics have been moved to appropriate subcategories since the new changes took place.  The one i am thinking about now is politics.  Is there a way for us to transfer some topics from Open Say into the Politics section or is the advisory board in charge of that?  I posed a political question last fall and think it might get some more hits if people saw it in the Politics section, since a lot more users have joined since i first posted it. 

Hi Jesse. The moderators are in charge of moving threads to the correct forums if they are initially posted in the wrong forum. Feel free to PM any of the moderators and let them know if you feel a thread should be moved.

Thanks
Jamin

How about a tech forum to help other western people out with general tech questions, buy/sell tech stuff, complain about western's e-mail migration, help setting up wireless networks, gaming stuff, things like that.

also, i'm tired of the the wysiwyg posting box.  It takes a second to load which is mildly annoying.  It's a small annoyance, but it's there.  Why not a plain text with the option to use this?

I have passed the tech forum idea by some of the people resopnsible for technology on campus, and will consider this for the next upgrade!

I'm curious to know if others experience a delay with the wysiwyg box as well -- I have never noticed it myself.  I will be looking at a variety of changes / upgrades to the editor and will keep this in mind!  Thanks for the suggestion.

whats a wysiwyg box?

The comment box that you type in is a wysiwyg box -- It has option to bold, italicize, make a list, create a url without having to enter html or any type of code -- this done by using another another program, a "What You See Is What You Get" editor that generates the html for you... 

So, I am wondering if a lot of you are seeing a delay when entering a comment in the box? 

Open say is awesome. Freedom to say whatever is awesome. Mods do a pretty good job of letting people express different views, over moderation would totally kill the whole point of the forum imo. Diverse communities are strong communities and people who think that their kids are blowing their nose like a terrorist in the oval office have just as much of a legitimate claim on this forum as anyone else.

that being said I agree with the guy who said something about having too much navigation to get to threads, but I overcame this by bookmarking opensay (because all the other topics are dreadfully boring to me). 

Also, might be cool if the search showed up on the mywestern page next to the (seemingly) random threads that pop up.

I still think you should have a no holds barred section where insults/trolling/flaming was encouraged. Or maybe just a humor/jokes section?

oh yeah, the wysiwyg is a little effed up huh. like it doesn't quite fit so I have to scroll left and right to see everything I typed, plus my auto spell check on my mac doesn't work... and yes, I do see a bit of a delay.