Home page
         
     

WeMatter.com > Open Source Democracy > blog

Blog/Forum structure -- One key area of OSD is that allowing its uses to interact. This should be done via Blogs, Forums, Mailing litsts ...(I have recently been looking at the site Of by and For , OB4.org, and so this page both discusses some of these ideas and offers some suggestions as to how the OB4 site might be improved and I ma marking these in Red Italics).


In some sense a Forum and a Blog have some of the same structure, e.g. each has a set of "Top" level topics and then sub level comments. Thus once a user is reading or submitting to a topic I think that the structure should be the same, and they differ mainly in the way the "Top" level topics are inserted.


Marking # -- I would suggest that there be the capability for any item's author, or designated representative, to mark by default rule set and then individually all submissions IMMEDIATLY "re:" to the item's posting. (Note: In the case of OB4, all postings should be marked as "OK" Now and by default and then as authors want to "suppress" specific postings they can make them as "Not-OK") Note: If a second author posts a comment to another's post, e.g. a "Re:" then the first author controls whether the second's post is "OK" whereas the second controls whether sub "Re's" are OK. Thus the system allows a distributed content control which allows each author to control which comments directly apply to their posting are OK.

Note: mark set: I am proposing that the author of an item be able to mark any first level "Re:" to that item. Inder to make this tolerably easy I would propose:

  1. There be a defult that all items be initially marked as "OK", lower priority than GOOD and higer than ALL

    The author could designate anone else, as their representative to mark first level items.

  2. The author (or representative) could override that priority for all their postings, or a specific one, and the override rule could be a complex as we decide to make it.
  3. Finally the author (or representative) could speciffically change the marking of any first level "Re:"

 

Display # -- The key to being able to navigate around any blog/forum is the ways that the items can be displayed. (I would suggest some additional display flexibility be added to the OB4 system) and that the reader could select how they want the Forum/Blog item(s) to be displayed. The options I'd like to see are:


 

Home,   Issues,   Links,   About us,   Contact-us,  Blog,   The-book,   Site-mapmailto: support,Mail

October 17, 2004 16:24


DNNA, Gas tax, Numbers, Patio (Side) (Cover) (re-format)