[IAWA Forum] IAWA Forum migrating to new interface

From: "Lachenbruch, Barb" <barb.lachenbruch@oregonstate.edu>
Subject: [IAWA Forum] IAWA Forum migrating to new interface
Date: Wed, 16 Sep 2009 16:57:51 -0700

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(Apologies if you receive this e-mail more than once.  We will be
sending it in revised form to several venues.) =20

The IAWA Forum is moving to a new interface, a board onto which
registered users enter to view and post messages.  Postings are in two
categories:  Discussion (topics for which feedback is desired), and
Announcements.  Users can view postings, respond to postings publically
(where your response will be visible on the board), or privately (where
your response goes directly to the post-er, if that person has enabled
this option).  You can also enter a new topic.  When new topics are
entered, all users receive an e-mail alert.  When there are new posts to
old topics, however, no e-mail alerts are sent (unless you have signed
up for alerts for that particular topic). =20

We have posted the IAWA Forum messages from the past month to the new
board so you can see how it works.

The old forum will close on Friday, Sept. 18.  You will need to register
for the new one.  Go to http://www.cof.orst.edu/org/iawa/bb/. Click on
"register" towards the top and right.  After you agree to terms, enter
your username (which will show when you post messages), your e-mail
address, a password, your name. If you wish, also enter your
institutional affiliation. The reason we can't simply migrate everyone
is that we want your name to be retrievable when you post a message, and
this can't be done without you signing up yourself--many of your names
aren't obvious from your e-mail addresses, which is what our list has
right now. =20

Once you are successfully registered, you can go to 'user control panel'
and enter your other preferences.  One of the tabs there is 'profile',
and to the left there, one can find a tab to enter one's signature
(i.e., name and affiliation, or whatever you'd like on your postings).
Once you've entered a signature, you can chose whether to use the
signature for any particular posting.

A couple of other cool features: =20
1) You can delete or edit any of your own postings (which can save
embarrassment).  If you want to prove it to yourself, post a response to
an existing topic, then delete it. =20

2) Your postings can have attachments and can include URLs.  Your text
can use color and other formatting. =20

3) You can see who posted a message (and their affiliation, if they
entered it when they registered) by clicking the username associated
with the posting. =20

Why are we doing this?  The main impetus was to have a forum in which we
can have more discussion and interaction, but without swamping our
inboxes and without the problem of our embarrassing personal messages
being irrevocably posted.  You may remember the week in which we set the
IAWA Forum default so that replies went to all users (rather than
replies going just to the person who posted it).  Many people disliked
the reply-to-all, and half the members dropped!  [We gradually grew
again, to about 500 people now.]  The original setting, which we
reverted to, made it so that no one but the post-er saw most of the
responses, which decreased the utility of the Forum for discussion.
Luckily, software has advanced.  Unluckily, we have to use usernames and
passwords; sorry about that. =20

Feel free to invite other interested people to join.  Also, if you have
suggestions or need help please contact me
(barb.lachenbruch@oregonstate.edu). =20

I want to take this chance to acknowledge the help of Terralyn Vandetta,
the IT person in my building who has done all of the work to set our up
our new Forum, and who has been supporting our forum since its inception
7 years ago.  The banner is a stylized version of a Piper section from
Elisabeth Wheeler. =20

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Barb Lachenbruch
Dept. of Wood Science & Engineering
Oregon State University
Corvallis, OR 97331
541-737-4213; fax 737-4213; barb.lachenbruch@oregonstate.edu
http://woodscience.oregonstate.edu/faculty/lachenbruch/

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