Reactions to Penguin Talk
Posted May 20th, 2006 by Steven Norton
Post your comments about the discussion forums here. Like it? Hate it? What works? What doesn’t work? How could it work better? What would you like to see here? Help shape our community project!
Comments
ferdonroad
this should be a great website where we can discuss whatever we want to discuss about BP. But, I would like to start a new topic – class photos – and i see in plain language that we are not authorized to start a new topic. why not? and how do you serve the community when we can’t begin topics of concern?
looking for some feedback here.
thanks.
Creating topics
Welcome to Penguin Talk, and I’m glad you feel it’s a good idea. We’re still working out some of the kinks, but we felt that it would be good if a group of moderators (primarily PTO officers and chairs) took responsibility for creating forums (umbrella topics) and specific discussion topics. However, all you need to do is ask. I can take a comment you leave here, and elevate it to be a discussion topic in an appropriate forum. So just post your idea here and we’ll go with it. Please remember to explain what the discussion should be about, and try to leave as much room for digressions as possible. Thanks!
[Actually, there is now a place to suggest forums and topics, called Discuss this! I hope you find this useful.]
Steve Norton
parent of Jamie (1) and Alida (K)
PTO info tech co-chair
Everyone can create topics
To help jumpstart things, all registered members can now create discussion topics at their own initiative. Moderators will still set up the organization of the forums inside which the topics live. The moderators also reserve the right to move and/or edit user-submitted topics to enhance clarity, organization and civil discussion.
Topics ought to be somewhat narrowly focused: for instance, “Attending Burns Park” is a forum which can cover many discussions (topics), and “Coming to kindergarten” is a specific discussion (topic) inside – or underneath – “Attending Burns Park.” If you’d like some guidance, just post a question on the “Discuss this!” topic.
So go forth and post!
penguin talk is a great idea!
hi all, i wish this had been around when we first started at Burns Park. A great idea.
This is great!
I think this is an excellent way for the BP community to communicate with each other. Having two little children of my own I am not always able to attend after school and evening meetings. I now can use “Penguin Talk” to stay in the loop and have a place to comment.
This tool is just one more positive for Burns Park!
Thanks!
Thanks Molly! I hope more of the Burns Park faculty will join us as well, so that we can bring the whole community together. There’s no shortage of things that would benefit from wider discussion among parents and teachers. So comment early and often!
comments and threading
Nicely done, Steve.
The first thing I did to the site to configure it
for myself was to set the comments to “flat”, not
“threaded”, and to put the oldest ones first.
That’s the most similar configuration to Confer
and the one I’m used to.
Let's try this...
Thanks, Ed. I didn’t know if people would want to see threaded or not (can be useful), or have oldest or newest at the top. I’ve changed the defaults as you suggested — this still gives users the choice to configure their own. I have to admit that the Confer-style listings are most comfortable to me, but then I cut my teeth on MTS! (In between hunting for wooly mammoths…)