Re: Forums

On 27.07.2004, at 15:44, Dustin Machi wrote:
> Originally we were going
> to use OpenExchange to do so, but we would prefer to use OGo because 
> there
> things we would like to enhance (such as adding basic gant chart 
> generation
> for projects).  In the more closed system of OpenGroupware this will be
> difficult.

What do you mean by "more closed system"? OGo is far more _open_ than 
SLOX? (with SLOX being built on a proprietary groupware component).

I can see various options for adding something like a Gantt chart to an 
OGo project.

> However, in our pilot tests, one of the most used and requested
> features were the threaded discussion forums.

OK.

> Our users use this to have
> discussions among multiple people that are automatically archived and 
> thread
> on the system and done so in a secure fashion.  While we could use 
> mailing
> lists to accomplish some of this the security would be lacking, it is 
> much
> more difficult to archive the mailing lists and ensure that only the 
> correct
> people have access to the archives of a particular list.  
> Additionally,  it
> is more difficult for the "users" of the system to add and maintain an 
> ad-hoc
> list...in fact since most of the discussions are science related and 
> are
> trying to establish _new_ collaborations and contacts, most people 
> wouldn't
> even be able to say who should be on a mailing list.  In a forum, they 
> could
> allow anyone that is a users of the system read and begin to follow a
> particular forum or thread (or to limit this to a particular group if 
> the
> material warrants it).

So far that sounds like projects are a pretty good match to the 
required functionality. They can be created and maintained by anyone in 
the system and they provide the mentioned access control facilities.
Actually I assume that it is pretty cool for a science "project" to be 
able to place versioned documents related to the discussion in the tree 
and tracking associated tasks shouldn't be too bad either ;-)

So basically we mostly seem to miss the facility of "threaded notes".

> While I understand that we can do notes through projects, this isn't 
> really
> suited to what we want to accomplish, and would seem to be 
> counterintuitive
> to the users in this case.  Most discussion are occurring outside the 
> context
> of a particular project.

Hm, maybe you are confused by the term "Project". Rename project to 
"Point of Discussion" and add threaded notes. Would that cover your 
needs?

The "Project" is just an ACL protected container for documents and some 
more specific relations to other objects (like tasks or notes), but 
doesn't need to match to a real-world "project".

best regards,
   Helge
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http://docs.opengroupware.org/Members/helge
OpenGroupware.org

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