Dear SPS Sir, With the flow of messages, I feel that we should transform the proceedings of the group into a forum style where a subject can be assigned to a forum stream and people write related messages in that stream only. This way we will keep all related text about a subject at one place. As of now, I feel it is very difficult to search content in archives of the group.
@ Thiru - as you involved in similar activities, do you see any simple solution which can simulate a forum like pattern for discussions in this group.
I really appreciate the way we discuss things, and after the Sunday meet, messages are flowing like Kaveri during rains :). But other important task is to group these discussion in proper manner, otherwise we lose all what we discuss. And I feel it very difficult to search related texts in archives, I hope other members also face similar difficulties.
In this facebook age I don't think this should be a big issue, but unless everybody on to this, it would be difficult. Email is easiest communication anybody can make, that is why google and yahoo groups are still popular. Old habits die hard.
involved with. Though the people in the group are familiar with forums, they did not find it easy to use. No one complained, but the traffic came down sharply and we were forced to restore groups for communication.
Sirs, Forum is O.K But plan the format carefully. If permitted I can suggest a retired jornalist, now with BBC. He had been an advisor to a leading Website till an year back.
Why not vija, Saurab, Shashwath et.al form ateam and do it.
Kathie, vijay, shashwath are in FC. There are many disadvantages
FC limits blogs to 420 words.,
You cannot block a single entry. You can block a member.
Can we have a forum form format in FC. No it is not possible
Each of these - yahoo groups, google groups and forums - has its own plus and minus points. Yahoo group is ideal for those who want to access the group almost every day and are interested in most of the topics, but lacks in linking specific and related topics. Google group is good for keeping related messages in a easily accessible thread, but is a pain to access the latest message; of course for those who access the group frequently, this grouping is not convenient as each thread has to be opened and checked for new messages. A forum is ideal when topics lend themselves to classification - and users can quickly jump to topics of interest. I too feel that our group may not work well as a forum.
Hi, I would suggest that we should have separated forum structure other then group activities. Whoever starts a discussion should take the responsibility to create a forum topic and put all the related mail discussions into that topic. Yes it requires efforts but if you are serious about the discussion, you might do this.
Dear Thiru We have been through this every few years, but the problem is acceptability. inspite of repeated requests we still struggle to get members to change Subject to enable archiving but that proves difficult. In the days I had the time I used collate them together but that is the problem sri
If I can stop one heart from breaking,I shall not live in vain; If I can ease one life the aching,Or cool one pain, Or help one fainting robin, Into his nest again, I shall not live in vain. Emily Dickinson
I think it is time to take a stand on how we want to take the group forward. This model is not sustainable for a longer period.
Of course going to forum mode, the mail flow will be reduced, but the messages will be on topic and members will not put off topic contents. For eg., it is easy to send big chain of forwarded emails by just click forward and put ponniyinselvan@yahoogroups.com, but the same if we move to forum, they have to visit the site and click on create topic, copy the mail content, paste and submit, phew,. too much work, so they wont do it or will be very few
Of course we can auto post those emails to the forum but that defeats the purpose.
What's the real difference between forums and mailing lists?
a) In a forum, you have topics split off into subjects, while in a mailing list, the subject is for each post. Nevertheless, a good mail client organizes mails into threads (GMail does it for me, and I believe that Outlook and some others do too), so that particular benefit of forums is gone.
b) Moderation is supposedly easier in a forum; I have to confess that I don't see that as such a primary motive - extreme moderation to ensure that every post is on-topic is often counter-productive, as the conversation develops and side-topics can lead to interesting areas.
c) A mailing list has a much lower barrier of entry! It's convenient for new people to sign up to, and to view all posts on the same interface as their other mails. There's no need to go to a specific website to see everything. It's also easy to forward the discussion to people who are not currently in the list; and everyone can just do "reply all" to get mails to those outsiders. I don't think we currently use the list in this way, but the possibility exists.
d) It's easier to take the discussion off-line in a mailing list. Reply to the person/people you want to reply to, and the whole thing becomes private. This is _Very Important_, since often, you want to check with others before shooting off with odd theories and derailing the discussion.
e) Archiving is a little more difficult in a mailing list; archives are there, but are not categorized, tagged or easily searchable. Especially in Yahoo groups. A forum is probably better there.
I think the important thing to remember is that a forum or a mailing list is a record of a conversation, not a copper-plate edict. It's necessarily unstructured, and the more unstructured, the better, in my opinion. What we really seem to need is a way to distill and organize the results of the discussion into an easily indexed, searchable format.
How we're going to do that, I have to confess, is not something I have an answer for! I think, however, the answer may lie in more than one particular format for discussion and archiving. Maybe a forum as well as a mailing list? Maybe a button on the forum to send the topic to others? Maybe a wiki where we can paste data? Blogs?
I am relatively new to this group - but would like to put forth my views . Some of it might have already been discussed earlier in the group . However this may be time to relook at things in a different perspective.
If you look at the key requirements of our group ( as I have understood in the past 6 months)
1. Key interactions is thru email reply to a subject ( I agree with thiru - it is the most convenient form and keeps the traffic live and enables instantaneous output of what we have in mind )
2. Need to group the discussions into proper threads for future reference and coming to a conclusion on a research / fact
3. Use a Wikipedia kind of content management so that we have one single document / web content for all the collective thoughts on a subject ( with tracked refinements based on thread feedback and consensus
4. A document archive and Links
Like the geo-tagging initiative we decided on the last meeting, can the seniors identify a core group of 4 -5 web savvy peoples like thiru, who can discuss internally and come up with a recommendation for debating on the larger group for decision.
We can also explore Google plus / wiki frameworks to address the above requirements
I am working on the initial research / approach for the Geo tagging and will start the discussions with the core group this week
We tried several times and asked for contributions and support, but unfortunately no one come forward.
> Like the geo-tagging initiative we decided on the last meeting, can the > seniors identify a core group of 4 -5 web savvy peoples like thiru, who can > discuss internally and come up with a recommendation for debating on the > larger group for decision.**** > > ** ** > > >