New Discussion Forum Interface -- please try it out

[JenMazz]

Dear Mappers & Modelers,

Our Map Your World community is the first to use a new discussion
forum interface, and I invite you all to check it out, try using it
and give us feedback:

New community interface @ http://sites.google.com/site/mapyourworldcommunity

Give us feedback @ http://sites.google.com/site/mapyourworldcommunity/map-your-world/discussion-forums-feedback

This new interface is an embedded version of our Google Groups
discussion forums in a Google site. Initially, it has roughly
equivalent functionality to what we have today at our current group
(http://groups.google.com/group/map-your-world).

You have the option to continue using the Google Groups interface, or
the new embedded interface. We are eager to hear from you about what's
missing in the new interface that you need, and what you want to see
that will help our community thrive.

Cheers,

Jen

P.S. You'll see in the site that I've copied and pasted into Google
Docs some of the Groups Pages that you've created to document mapping
practices for specific regions. For now the documentation is in both
places (obviously suboptimal), but having it in Google Docs means that
people using the new community interface won't have to switch contexts
back to Groups, and also that people can use all Google Docs formats
for content. Again, let me know your thoughts!

[ixboat]

Howdy!

You mentioned a new interface...
Can we, currently, view this Group, (or any group?!) on the GE globe
interface?
I'd like to try that...

thnx
ixboat

On Jan 27, 11:44 am, JenMazz <jenmaz...@google.com> wrote:
> Dear Mappers & Modelers,
>
> Our Map Your World community is the first to use a new discussion
> forum interface, and I invite you all to check it out, try using it
> and give us feedback:
>
> New community interface @http://sites.google.com/site/mapyourworldcommunity
>

> Give us feedback @http://sites.google.com/site/mapyourworldcommunity/map-your-world/dis...

[Mark Nelson]

Jen, just curious--why the change from groups, and what are you hoping to accomplish with the change?

I ask because we use groups for a lot of things, and if you're aware of some issue that is served better by this sort of forum (an interface type which we find tends to kill re-engagement simply because people forget to come back) then we'd definitely like to know.

Cheers,

Mark

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[jenm...@google.com]

Dear xboat,

There's no way to view Map Your World discussions via Google Earth today. There's a separate Google Earth Community (http://bbs.keyhole.com) where some discussions are visible in an "information" layer on Google Earth. I'm not sure if that's exactly what you had in mind, though...care to elaborate on your idea?

Cheers,

Jen.

[jenm...@google.com]

Dear Mark,

The beauty of this new discussion forum interface is that it's actually not a change from Groups, at least not fundamentally, in the sense that the two interfaces (both the new one and the Groups one) operate off the same backends. So, at least for now, if you prefer the old Groups interface, you can use that just as efficaciously as you could before.

I'm curious -- is there anything about this new interface that you find particularly "chilling" from a community engagement perspective? Which interface do you prefer?

Cheers,

Jen.

[Mark Nelson]

Hi Jen,

I do appreciate that both interfaces are running off the same back end, tho the "for now" caveat is a bit of a concern.  I was just curious about what motivated the creation of a different interface, and what the desired outcome is?

In our research, because groups are a default push medium (to your inbox, where most people still seem to live) and forums are by default a pull medium (you have to remember to go back to check them) a whole lot of people who would actually care, if they were reminded by incoming email, simply forget to come back.  More formally, it lacks a re-engagement loop.

Robert Kraut at Carnegie Mellon has done a lot of work on what strengthens and weakens online community, and Byron Reeves at Stanford has done a ton of excellent stuff recently on engagement in virtual environments.  I highly recommend both their work, if you're not already aware of it.

Best,

Mark

--

[catamountain]

When you sign in to use the new UI, you will get the same email
options as Groups.

The new UI uses a striped down version of Docs as the editor. So
there are many more options to layout and organize a post, including
adding images. People also can finally add attachments. Images and
other file uploads are important to to discussions involving SU.

Some things which are missing is editing and deleting one's post.
Also some thread layout options are not remembered.

The limited functionality and sparse appearance of Groups caused a
notable number of SU people to boycott a Group-based forum and move to
another forum format a few years ago.

[Mark Nelson]

Thanks Catamountain--the extra functionality of the google docs editor seems like an excellent reason for changing interface.

Will this new UI be available to other people currently using other google groups for other purposes?  Or is it a custom-built one-off?

Mark

2010/2/3 catamountain <imcatam...@gmail.com>

[ri...@google.com]

Hi Mark,

The new UI will definitely be available to other groups for other purposes in the future.  This one is just the first.  :)  We'd love to continue to get feedback on it.

Thanks,

Rich