BARBELITH underground
 

Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
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A possible future

 
  

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gyrus
08:42 / 08.01.08
Ah, you've spotted the one point that was pitched as highly important offline, which I forget to include. Yes, a full, clear T&C-type page accessible by all.
 
 
Ticker
15:13 / 08.01.08
I think gyrus is on the money about Vanilla. It allows more custom tweaking than most phpbb stuff I'm aware of and comes preloaded with many features folks are interested in. 'Tis pretty kickass.

Check it in action at the dev community link here The colors and layout seem pretty tweakable you can see some of the shared designs here.

I'm sure people have a lot of input about what it should look like and function like but I'm digging the engine itself as a nice bit of flexible goodness.

sexy user role tour!
 
 
grant
15:28 / 08.01.08
I was looking around that dev forum last week and started feeling like a grumpy old man because I wanted larger fonts for text. And... well, I love Trebuchet font, but something seems odd about its use in their headers. Too weighty?

God, I'm doing it - talking about design. Stop me. This can't lead anywhere good.

This site's version does seem OK, though. Design-wise, it looks just like a phpBB forum. Not sure what the little "logged" icons are doing there, other than being distracting.

The renaming of roles seems like a powerful tool for social engineering.
 
 
grant
15:36 / 08.01.08
I think what I want is a gallery of Vanilla designs as they are actually used to see what potential is out there. The screengrabs in the Add-On category aren't cutting it for me.
 
 
Ticker
16:41 / 08.01.08
yeah I'm poking around looking for some examples but AFAICT you can customize the hell out of it via stylesheets and php. It's been around long enough to get good reviews and have a decent user base.

linkage:

purty german site

This forum stands on a different pedestal. It is not about post counts, avatars, signatures or smilies. It is simply about discussion. Think of it as a catagorised comments system. random Vanilla user comment.

some examples

I think we need to sandbox it sooner than later and let the designer element figure out what they like.
 
 
EmberLeo
20:14 / 08.01.08
Okay, this seems to be important to Barbelith, but it drives me up a frelling wall.

In my other main forum, Brunchma, people have sub-titles that are mutable. They have to earn the right to change it themselves, before which only Admins can change it, and in that context it's usually humorous, but whatever, that's Brunchma culture.

Around here, though, people's names change leaving insufficient trace of what they were called before, and while this may be an intriguing idea because of what Barbelith is for, I find it outright maddening.

If we have mutable aspects of people's self presentation, can it PLEASE be secondary?

--Ember--
 
 
Kit-Cat Club
21:04 / 08.01.08
Ember, that mutability on Barbelith probably a historical legacy of when people were playing around with multiple online IDs - "fictionsuits", inspired by The Invisibles.

You can always look at the profile number and then Google then, if you are desperate to know who they were.
 
 
*
17:56 / 09.01.08
EmberLeo, if the registration system is sufficiently fluid, people can simply kill their old ID and return with a new one (provided they haven't been banned...one hopes) if they really want to change a name for some symbolic reason. So I don't see a problem with your proposal, but likewise I don't think it will entirely dispense with the difficulties.
 
 
Gypsy Lantern
14:18 / 10.01.08
OK, I think Gyrus and XK are hard at work thrashing out the technical details of getting something suitable up and running, so parallel to that, I think we should have some more discussion of what we want from this. I'll start off with some thoughts:

1. Do we want tag-based content or do we want separate forums like we have on barbelith, or a mix of the two?

If we want separate forums, what sort of sub-categories might we want to see? I think an effective mix of the two formats might be really interesting, so long as it isn't too confusing. I like the idea of separate forums almost functioning as "rooms" where different types of debate take place, for instance there could be a members only room, or a room that's set-up for discussing direct personal experience that works a bit differently from the more critical areas, or a room that's specifically for providing practical support to people who are struggling with some area of their practice (a bit like what happens in the stupid magic questions thread). So when you start a post you can give it whatever content tags you think are appropriate, and also select what room you want the discussion to take place in.

Suggestions for different types of room/sub-forum or criticisms of this model would be really welcome. I think the best way of figuring this stuff out will be to get a basic model of it up and running, and a trusted pool of test users to start putting some content up and figuring out what works and what doesn't. I think it should be allowed to develop organically behind closed doors until we're satisfied with how it's working before we open it up to the wider world.

2. What sort of conversation do we want to see taking place on this new board?

What I'd like to see happening on this site myself is an evolution of the type of discourse that we get on barbelith temple when it's at its best. I guess the main overarching project that permeates all of my own work is a rehabilitation of "the occult" - out of it's deluded whack-job reputation that a lot of occult web forums seem to almost revel in - to get to the experiential heart of why these practices matter and why this lens on the human experience remains with us as a species in the early 21st century.

My premise - based on my own personal experience and that of others involved with similar work - is that these practices do serve a purpose and can provide a flexible and constructive toolkit for negotiating the physical, mental and emotional challenges of being alive on the planet Earth (in this century or any century). All cultures appear to have - at one stage or another - developed their own sophisticated technologies for navigating this sort of space, each with differing cultural emphasis shaped by social and environmental factors. What I am interested in is a sane, intelligent and reasoned exploration of this body of knowledge. A discourse that does not run for the hills when a critical, sceptical, scientific eye is brought to bear on it, but also understands that the heart of magic is perhaps in its powerful ability to fundamentally transform one's subjective experience of the world, and that this is an outcome that cannot easily be observed and measured in laboratory conditions. Moreover, I'm interested in a discourse that takes a rational view on seemingly unexplained phenomena resulting from magical experiments, but does not lose sight of the indefinable sense of awe and wonder that makes one's magic practice meaningful and "magical".

In a cultural climate where ever more visible battle-lines appear to be getting drawn between fundamentalist religion on the one hand, and reactionary militant atheism on the other - I think it is increasingly important that the manner of discourse on spiritual matters outlined above has a voice and is visible. The role of the magician or shaman has always been to explore the weirder edges of consciousness and to return back with something of value to the community and its survival needs, and I really see the promotion of intelligent dialogue about magic as an iteration of this same process.

To this end, one thing I want this site to take a hard line against is tradition bashing and other forms of "tribal war". I think it is important to understand that individual traditions of magic have their own integrity and to be mindful and sensitive to matters of cultural appropriation, but at the same time I think its really important to try and take a global rather than a parochial perspective on the world's magical traditions. Just because you are an accomplished ceremonial magician, doesn't mean you won't learn something from a dialogue with a pro-witchdoctor. Just because you are an initiated Houngan, doesn't mean your practice and understanding of the mysteries won't be broadened by exposure to Indian Tantriks. Just because you are a left-hand path sorcerer, doesn't mean you won't be able to have a constructive dialogue with a Christian mystic. This is the sort of cross-fertilisation of ideas and melting pot of influences that I'd like to encourage on the proposed discussion board.

One thing that may have characterised barbelith in the past is its combative climate and the sort of heated debate that used to take place here quite regularly. While at certain times I might have been responsible for driving some of that, it's really something I'd like to get away from on this new board. I think this would be achievable in a space that - from the outset - makes clear the level of debate and the sort of critical interrogation of one's ideas that should be expected. Also, I think that making the site invite-only/application-only should hopefully create a climate where it's understood that everyone present either has a developed practice/academic interest or is in the process of developing one, and should therefore be interacted with as valued peers and contemporaries, even if you strongly disagree with them. One of the problems with barbelith is that you have lots of people with really interesting and involved personal practices, who seem to spend half of their time battling with Billy Fnord and his dubious suitcase of half-baked and inherited ideas, instead of actually talking to one-another. I'm interested in what we can do to move away from the endless repetition of this drearily predictable scenario, and actually do something more constructive with our time.

Having said that, I don't really want to create an elitist culture where newcomers to the field are made to feel unwelcome and only those with a long established practice can feel comfortable posting. I think one of the things that barbelith does well, notably through the "stupid magic questions" thread, is to provide a supportive environment where beginners can get solid advice from other practitioners. I don't want that to get lost, as I think its really important. Magic can be dangerous. People can take this stuff in some funny directions and end up fervently believing all sorts of mad and self-destructive stuff that does nothing but bring harm to themselves and those around them. I think an antidote to this is simply being part of a supportive community that is committed to helping you keep your practice sane, healthy, responsible and geared towards improving your life and making you happier and healthier - as opposed to destroying your life and making you sick and confused. I don't want this community aspect of barbelith temple to get lost on the new site, or for it to be closed to those starting out on a practice. I'm quite keen on the site being open to contributors with various different levels of experience, and for that not to be a factor in the admissions procedure. More important than "time served under the hat" is a demonstrable understanding of the culture and ideals of the board and a commitment to promoting constructive and intelligent debate on magic and related subjects. No matter what level of experience we may be at - we are all still a students. There is no end point where you know everything, and every time you turn a corner in your practice, another infinite corridor extends ahead of you waiting to be explored.

To sum up, I think what I'd like to see from this is a space where we can collectively begin to grasp towards an understanding of the place of magic in 21st century society and discuss the various issues that directly arise out of that. Please respond to this with any thoughts or criticism you might have, as a space that does half of these things can only come into being organically out of a community's input and involvement.
 
 
*
15:01 / 10.01.08
If I'm understanding you correctly, you're suggesting a mixed tag and room system where tags would be for topics and rooms would be for the kind of discussion about those topics, which seems ideal to me. You could search or filter by tag across the board, or within a particular room, and the rooms would need to be visually distinctive to show that forinstance this is a beginner-friendly thread to be shown particular gentleness, or whatever we might ultimately make rooms for.

Will do a more thorough reading of the rest later, but on my skim it looks like something I can support wholeheartedly.
 
 
Gypsy Lantern
15:05 / 10.01.08
Yeah, that's about the shape of it.
 
 
grant
15:59 / 10.01.08
One thing I was thinking was that it'd be nice to have a kind of "hot topics" area for posts/conversations that were deemed valuable. It would revolve around tags and some of that voting stuff I referred to earlier.

Let me see if I can explain the idea. OK, let's say there's a top level page (like we have on www.barbelith.com) with between five and 10 categories. (My advice: keep it under 8 if possible - and make sure one is dedicated to off-topic tomfoolery.) Then, there's one special category called "hot topics" (or whatever - I'm not very fond of that name). Users can't start new topics in that category.

Instead, every new topic has a pool of... I dunno, call 'em hit points. Every post under that topic gives one HP, but users can also vote (once) to give a topic 5 HP if they think it's particularly good or thought-provoking or whatever.

So this "hot topics" (or "cream" or "shiny things" or whatever) category would contain only those topics that gain over a certain number of HP - say 50 - reflecting either a thriving conversation (lots of participation) or an admiring fan-base (lots of votes) or both.

This would:

1. Create a consensus around quality - what is good. Much easier to focus on goals of the community using concrete examples of shared value.
2. Make an easy hit-and-run area for readers who want to see "best of" without interacting deeply with the site (which would include prospective members).

And I *think* (as non-coder guy) the add-ons in Vanilla make this simple enough to do.
 
 
grant
16:08 / 10.01.08
I should also mention that the Christian-interfaith board where I used to spend some time used to have an area called "hot topics" that had a completely different function. It was where any argument that got overheated was shunted.

In phpBB, it's simple to move topics and "leave a shadow topic" behind, so you'd still see the title - say "Catholics and Abortion!" - in whatever forum it started in - Current Events or Bible Study or whatever. But when you clicked on the title, it'd open inside the "Hot Topics" forum (and would also appear in there if you went straight to "Hot Topics").

I'm not sure how well this worked to keep things non-confrontational, but it was one way to keep arguments sort of confined or sidelined while still in the public eye.
 
 
Gypsy Lantern
16:17 / 10.01.08
Yeah, I like that (that is hot topics as in interesting topics, not sure about it as a way of dealing with confrontation). So provisionally, leaving aside the content tags for the moment and focusing on the "rooms" architecture, we might have something like:

1. Hot topics
2. Off topic conversation and general social chatter
3. 'Hard' critical discourse lounge
4. 'Soft' personal experience safe space (member's only?)
5. Beginner's corner
6. Practical magic surgery (this and the above could be the same room)
7. Member's only area (should this be different from personal experience area?)
8. Community (for arranging social events, telling people about interesting stuff that's going on, plugging relevant stuff you might be doing, etc)

Any others? Remember that the rooms are for "types of discussion" and in addition to this we're thinking of having content tags (probably to be defined by user) where you can tag what your thread is about, i.e., Thelema, Tantra, Shinto, Northern Soul, Dancehall, Kung Fu, etc.

Gyrus & XK: Does this all sound plausible from a technical perspective?
 
 
Dead Megatron
16:21 / 10.01.08
As one who has absolutely jack to contribute, but however loves to lurk in, and to learn from, the Temple - and admires many of its usual posters - I'd say I'd miss you guys if you moved to that new, improved, hypothetical venue for online magick discussion and ask you one simple, humble, question:

Will lurking still be possible? Please?
 
 
gyrus
17:03 / 10.01.08
The content vision sounds spot-on to me.

"Rooms" (we can use Vanilla's "categories" for this) as well as tags is definitely a good direction. Tags = topics and rooms = ways of approaching topics is a good rule of thumb for thinking about them, too. Vanilla's fine for the tech side of that.

Not sure about "hot topics" tech-wise. (In any case, we definitely need a new term - that phrase just makes me think of Alan Partridge's radio ident for his "hot topic" phone-in, e.g. "Today's 'hot topic' is, which is the best Lord? Lord of the Rings, Lord of the Flies, or Lord of the Dance?".) Ahem...

Maybe for now, "Popular threads" - is this closer to what we want? As in, whole threads (or individual posts?) that have been voted (by views, responses, and/or deliberate votes), rather than topics that are popular (which technically speaking would be served by the "tag cloud").

There's a couple of voting add-ons for Vanilla, but the one that looks good is still in beta and the other looks a bit over-simple. We'll have to try stuff in our sandbox. But - should this sit alongside the "rooms"? Shouldn't it include popular threads from any of the rooms?

I think it might be good to just have one "members only" / personal experience room. "Members only" will mean "only visible to members", i.e. hidden from the public & bots. Just for anything people aren't comfortable with releasing onto the web.

For personal experience stuff that people don't mind sharing with everyone in the world, yeah, "Beginner's Corner" and "Magic Surgery" could merge and cover this, too. Appreciate the idea of having a gentler beginners-only room, but I'm still pondering whether it's a good idea.

Other than these question marks, feels like a good starting list for rooms to me.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
17:13 / 10.01.08
I think I aired pretty much all my useful input down the pub and it's all been covered here. I like the tags = topics and rooms = ways of approaching topics model. I think it might also be useful to have both "hot topics" (lots of views/posts) and "recently updated" categories.
 
 
grant
17:32 / 10.01.08
The word "architecture" makes me think of naming things after rooms or parts of a church - "Vestibule" being the catch-all off-topica, maybe things like "Choir" for UPG stuff and "Sacristy" for mod-only discussion. "Altar" or "Nave" for formal discussion? "Pulpit" for admin announcements?

Ehhh, that's too Christian, I guess. Might be worth it to use a related metaphor, though.
 
 
*
19:00 / 10.01.08
"Featured" would be my terminology preference over "Hot Topics," because I've seen the latter used other places as a term for confrontational debate space, as well.

For that matter, maybe we do need a space geared towards (constructive) heated debate. My instinct is to leave that open for later development, if needed.

I'd actually like to see a few featured topics found on the front page, nicely displayed. I was looking for this as an example not to long ago: Jewcy. Design-wise it's chaotic and confusing, I think, but what I like about it is that the front page incorporates articles, submitted by both users and regular contributors, as well as a comment feed, blog feeds, and forum posts. I think that helps people get engaged immediately when they hit the landing page, which keeps topics lively and moving.

I think that some amount of this must be automated; the newest comments come up automatically, for instance. I don't know how "jewciest comments" come about... it's certainly not the ones with the most replies. Anyway, I thought you developy people might have a look and see what inspires you.

If we could do something with a simple rating system, with a handful of the highest-rated threads appearing in summary on the front page, I think it would help people find quality content that would engage them right away. A certain amount of stagnation happens when people have to navigate layers of forums.

If this kind of limited distributed moderation is too complicated or risky to implement, we could do it informally with a sticky thread where people propose their favorite topics, and moderators pick a handful to be featured topics once a month or so.
 
 
*
19:01 / 10.01.08
Also on the topic of terminology... I've never understood "surgery." If I saw it used as proposed I would assume it was a dedicated forum for discussion of magical healing. Am I alone in this, or is it a US thing?
 
 
Ticker
19:05 / 10.01.08
It is important to have an open inclusive space for new members and new practitioners to interact with the community. In my mind it would require heavy active moderation while the rest would hopefully require less. It probably would be the most publicly viewable area as well.

I'm thinking it might be a good idea to get this thing up and moving with perhaps the least number of moveable parts to start with. As a beta site we could keeping changing it until we are happy with it. Figure it will be a few months of a small group of users beating the crap out of it before it is public.

I've PM'd GL and Gyrus with some ideas to get the raw server space going as early as next week and I think they are going to be discussing stuff over the weekend. I've thrown in my hat to get the foundation laid to avoid the absentee landlord issue in terms of getting able bodied and willing programmers access in a secure and sane manner. Sounds to me like Gyrus will be wrangling the UI level stuff while I crawl around underneath if that works for everybody.

Basically I'm advocating a linux dev environment setup to allow direct access for distributed server administration (this is not mods or users BTW). I'll probably set it up with Gyrus and document the pants off it. Eventually part of the secure site would include those docs so future developers would be able to tweak whatever they needed. I'm thinking of the first site as the sandbox dev site so it could have more access and eventual spin off a connected HA secure prod site but you know a working site is ok too.

Something I'd like to throw out for right now is that the first generation of server admins will all be vetted and vouched for by the Trustees of the site (that's GL and Co in my mind right now but you folks figure out who gets that responsibility long term). I think we may have some sort of pint exam (must appear in the Plough at least once for inspection). But eventually if the site is healthy and robust we may get server admin talent stretching beyond that. Rather than turn them away because we haven't met and chatted for years and years it would kickass if the structure enables secure access. It's a chunk of time to set that into motion underneath the software currently selected which in this case sounds like Vanilla. However if something better than Vanilla shows up next week the server structure should allow whoever the community trusts to go in and make the appropriate changes.

I think this is my roundabout way of saying there should be a section of the new Forum for site tech discussion around features and voting members access to the basement level and ground level.
 
 
grant
19:11 / 10.01.08
On a few music/band-related sites of which I'm a member, there are eyes-only areas that only moderators can see, but also areas most mods can't see where band members post things and where admins discuss security-related stuff.

Many hidden rooms.

---

oh and "surgery" is something I first saw used in its Barbelith sense on Barbelith, so I'm assuming it's those decadent colonial overlords warping the language they claim to have created yet again.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
21:02 / 10.01.08
"Surgery" is normal britspeak for "time and a place where you can talk to a guy who knows stuff about stuff," as in "the local Member of Parliament has a surgery from 3-5 every other Wednesday." However, confusion exists even in the UK. When I was a caretaker on a dodgy housing estate, the estate officer had a surgery in the site office a couple of times a week. Part of my unofficial duties consisted of explaining to passing gentlefolk in the freelance pharmecutical distribution line that, no, "surgery" didn't mean there was a doctor's office there, and no, there was no medicine inside. (Seriously. There are people who case the joint by asking the janitor if there is stuff they can nick.)

Sorry, topic.
 
 
Ticker
22:07 / 10.01.08
Vanilla has a Whisper function for private invite only conversations.

I'm thinking of eventual code repositories (I like Subversion) where members can check out copies of the site code to tweak on their test boxes and then offer up to test on a beta site. Mind you that code isn't the same as database content so this isn't copies of conversation or user data.
I seriously doubt we'd care if someone wanted our style sheets. ONOES THEY HAVE OUR LOOKZ AND FEELZ!!

Can you tell that I have this project on the brain?
I've got my finger over the shiny button of make-it-go.
 
 
EmberLeo
00:06 / 11.01.08
I like the idea of the types of conversations being the categories, and topics being the tags.

I don't mind open-ended tags, except I do worry about tag clutter, with too many people contributing to the exact spelling of, say, the "Kabalah" tag. A pull-down list of existing topics, or a link that produces a pop-up window with the list of existing tags might cut down on that sort of problem. I see how folks use tags on LJ and it gets ugly fast.

I think the categories I had in mind are similar, but not quite the same as those proposed, so I'll toss 'em out here. They fit into two sections:

* New To You (Q&A - nobody knows everything)
* Sensitive Stuff (Safe space for raw impressions)
* Discussion & Debate (Open for critique and analysis)
* Creative Pursuits (On-topic poetry, artwork, etc. - perhaps the only forum that would allow img src tags?)

* Community (off-topic socializing, meetup organizing, etc.)
* Members Only (for things you don't want searched by Google - Yes, I think this should be separate from Sensitive Stuff)
* Business End (Announcements, Policy, Suggestions, etc.)

As for the bit about people always being able to get a new name by deleting the old account and making a new one. Well, there's a limit to how much alts can be prevented, but if we have multiple levels of membership, and applications are required, we're already doing what can be done to reduce accumulation of alts, at which point not being able to change your existing name is plenty enough to prevent folks like me from getting frustrated and confused.

--Ember--
 
 
gyrus
09:17 / 11.01.08
Zippy: If you check out the Vanilla demo you'll see it's pretty much got its own layout out-of-the-box, in terms of what goes where. Add-ons can modify and add to this, for featuring different things on the front page, but I've not fully looked into what's on offer.

But, I think the site should have the Vanilla (or whatever) installation in a "discuss" or "discussion" sub-folder. I think we need a few public pages ("about", "contact", etc.) outside the forum area. This will leave room for future expansion (the original vision for Liminal Nation was that it would feature a shop for member's creations, and other non-forum stuff - and it'd be good to leave the door open for this kind of stuff in the future).

Then, the home page could be built by us, and presumably we could write PHP from the ground up to query the Vanilla DB and pull in absolutely anything we want (recently updated threads, featured stuff, popular stuff, etc.).

XK: Great that we've got you on the case with server stuff - my server knowledge really doesn't extend to getting a truly safe and collaborative space set up, and this project really needs that.

Ember: Tag clutter is an issue. My idea was that admins/mods would tag new threads as they come up, so it was controlled in that way. WordPress tag plugins have good tag management (for merging tags and so on), but I think Vanilla's tagging is quite rudimentary. The tag entry box does have an autocomplete that brings up existing tags as you type, though... Some duplicates may slip through the net, but this should help keep things relatively consistent. A shame about Vanilla's lack of "back-end" tag admin.
 
 
Unconditional Love
11:02 / 11.01.08
What would the policy be for links to embedded media? youtube, various soundclips, podcasts etc etc, as long as they are ontopic, also images?

Something i like about the yahoo groups are the member files area, a small ftp server perhaps? (no breach of copyright).
Also from yahoo groups is the ability to poll certain issues that may concern a group about the entire group structure or issues giving a much more democratic process to a group.

Another feature might be a page or several of recommended or useful links to other sites, resources for beginners, plus perhaps an open wiki which members could contribute too about various subject areas.

A place can seem very closed unless that space opens out to the rest of the web, it has a sense of not only being exclusive but excluding.
 
 
*
17:05 / 11.01.08
Thanks for all the information... gyrus, I was looking through the add-ons and there's this Thankful People one that could probably be modified to serve as way for people to vote for a featured thread; you'd need a script on the front page to call up the summary of the threads with the most votes or however we wanted to implement it.

Wow, there are an awful lot of interesting extensions...
 
 
Alex's Grandma
17:30 / 11.01.08
Will the new idea-space accurately represent thoughts to do with prudence? And thrift?

I ask this only because I suspect that some of you might have had dealings with the Old Ones. And not bought a many-angled set of roses, either.
 
 
*
18:25 / 11.01.08
Will the new idea-space be safe for those of us with diverse traditional practices that include hanging specific old women up by their toes without any gin?
 
 
Ticker
18:32 / 11.01.08
Yes so many features it can (and does) make one giddy with delight.
That's one of the reasons I'm pushing for an integrated dev site along side of a stable forum. I suspect it will keep morphing/evolving rather than pick one skin and layout forever.
 
 
EmberLeo
00:18 / 12.01.08
What would the policy be for links to embedded media? youtube, various soundclips, podcasts etc etc, as long as they are ontopic, also images?

Personally, I'd rather have simple text hyper-links to outside stuff, rather than embedded images and especially anything that makes noise in the body of the thread. The only exception I would want for that is if we have a forum or dedicated threads for showing off our own personal artwork and such.

I do like the idea of a place to upload such stuff - with personal space limits, or just moderator approval to prevent abuse of the privilege, or members of a certain level only, or what?

--Ember--
 
 
Haloquin
17:46 / 12.01.08
This project sounds great. I have no real technical skills but would like to help.

I think someone has already mentioned having a 'files' place members can upload to (which is something I also really like about Yahoo groups), but what about having a 'files' area where files about the site can be kept on-site for individuals to read, like guidelines (if there are set ones) and maybe a glossary, which would also act as a dictionary of suggested spellings to make tagging and searching easier?

Just a thought.

Love the idea of tags-and-rooms model also.
 
 
EmberLeo
00:58 / 13.01.08
but what about having a 'files' area where files about the site can be kept on-site for individuals to read, like guidelines (if there are set ones) and maybe a glossary, which would also act as a dictionary of suggested spellings to make tagging and searching easier?

I would think pages are more effective for those than files...

--Ember--
 
 
*
07:03 / 13.01.08
In Yahoo the benefit of keeping them as files (in the files section with everything else) is that they can be designated to be emailed to new members, or emailed periodically as a reminder to the whole group. That said, this is not Yahoo, a fact that actually rather delights me; I've often been somewhat bored by yahoo groups and annoyed by the fact that for many things they have seemed to be the most viable option.
 
  

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