What next for Student Voice?
13 05 2008Can students be trusted to be polite and constructive in their comments? Can you resist the temptation to be personal and insulting? At the moment, all comments on the blog are moderated and only two have been censored! It is possible to set up a forum on the blog but I need to remove the moderation. (ie I will not vet your comments before they are posted.) To do this, you will all have to become members of Edublogs in order to join in. Its quite simple, you just follow the link at the side of the page and register for a username and password. Is this too much hassle or greater freedom? Let me know what you think of this idea!
It’d be nice to have a forum, but I think that moderation is needed, especially if more people are going to use Student voice. Plus, it’d be too tempting for me not to spam it all the time, as people have pointed out to me (”oh It’s that girl who posts pointless things on that website”) [My comments must be so interesting to read.]
I didn’t mind registering – Takes two seconds – and you can upload spiffy pictures to use as an icon thing. Maybe it ought to be encouraged that people registered with their school email addy too (Can the admin, i.e you, see people’s emails?)
M’liking the new layout by the way. Is there a rainbow template? That’d be funky.
~Esta Kerrs-Farmer 9R
I reckon a forum is a great idea, and registering isn’t that much of a hassle. Don’t we always have to register for other forums anyway?
Moderation is pretty much ESSENTIAL – I’ve visited a few unmoderated forums and each time I pretty much walked away with a lower IQ. Perhaps people would like to volunteer to become mods? Y’know, ease the load on the Admin maybe. And there should be an extra-special BAN button the mods could use. In a bright red box. With flashing lights. And a drumroll with every click.
It shouldn’t be too hard, right?
So this is the reason Slater’s starting a forum, ‘was wondering where he got the idea from.
i couldn’t agree with you less. Moderation is a BAD idea as i bet the teachers wipe out all of the comments that people really want to see. This makes it all the more boring. Isn’t this supposed to be a fun and enjoyable page!????!!!!!?!?!?
And why has nobody from 9U joined this blog? you may think that it’s sad…but could be an MSN in waiting…?
I have to say that moderation is essential in the up keep of forums. I agree with Passive, I’ve been on un-moderated forums, and with every post my IQ halved.
I also agree with your ban button idea. But it should be a hammer.
We would call it: The Banhammer!
Ahem…
This blog is using a system called Wordpress, which is not designed to be a forum. A forum would have to use a different type of system, let that be paid or opensource.
The trouble with Wordpress being used as a forum, is that the pages end up getting too long and struggle to load, user groups can’t be created, users can’t create their own threads (which seems a problem on this blog), the list goes on….
In terms of moderation, it is vital that this process is carried out, however not in the format which this blog currently uses. Other forums have moderators, however they also use the community to moderate their forum, allowing them to ‘Report a Post’ to a moderator who can then take the appropriate action. Discussions need to be almost real-time and not just until the moderator of the site reads your comment and approves it, which could be days.
Some examples of popular forums include:
phpBB, vbulletin (widely used however costs), Simple Machines Forum
Just some points to consider!
Thanks Anonymous, you have some valid points, Wordpress was not designed as a forum. It does, however, have the facility for a simple forum that could be useful. As for user moderation, I am happy to allow some users this privilage, but I would need to know who they are! The first step is get an edublogs username and then come an see me. TTFN.
Hm.
I can’t seem to find the podcast anywhere.
Help?
Appreciated.
x)
Ah, forums would be a well good idea!!
But the moderators should be chosen wisely! Abuse of power and all that.
How do you get an edublogs name thingy-ma-jig?
Hey,
You need a quote button u geek
gettin confused.
=)