Instructions on using the Forums

[imported_admin]

I want to explain some of the settings of the Forum.
1. Registration. With the exception of this the Feedback Forum, I have set it so that everybody can v iew the forums but people must register in order to make postings. This is to make sure that nobody else can post in your name without knowing your password.
2. UBB vs. HTML. The forums allow a choice of ultimate bulletin board (UBB) code or HTML. I chose UBB rather than HTML because it allows many options that inexperienced people can use, including message icons and text styles, images, etc.
3. Editing. I have set the forums so that people who have made more than one posting can edit his or her postings within 2 days of the posting. If there is a desire to lengthen or shorten the period, I can easily do that.
4. Attachments. These forums allow attachments of files with postings. I have turned this feature off. If there is demand for including attachments on the forum postings, I can turn the feature on.

Please post your suggestions http://sci.rutgers.edu/forum/images/smilies/smile.gif, recommendations http://sci.rutgers.edu/forum/images/smilies/tongue.gif, and complaints http://sci.rutgers.edu/forum/images/smilies/eek.gif here.

Wise..

[This message was edited by Admin on July 23, 2001 at 10:00 PM.]

[Sue Pendleton]

I love the "hop to" feature and the like. And the color scheme of the forums make keeping posts straight and easy to read. Two questions from someone who will never be a computer geek:

1.) How do you get to follow up pages of postings under one topic? Or will an option show up automatically when the number and size of replies flips to a second or third page?

2.) Almost the same as above but with topics. When the number of topic posts flips past what one page will hold will an option to look at the next 10 or whatever automatically appear or is it there already and I am missing it?

Posting replies and new topics is easy enough with the little boxes down on the left side of each forum. Just wondered where the arrows or whatever are for turning pages. Thanks.

Sue http://sci.rutgers.edu/forum/images/smilies/confused.gif

[Wise Young]

Sue,

I have set the forums to present up to 50 topics per page and up to 20 messages per page. If they exceed these numbers, the topics and the messages will be presented in separate pages. This does mean quite a lot of topics and messages on each page. I can change it relatively easily and for each forum.

Wise.i

[nedim]

I believe this forum is the best for sharing information about the progress in SCI treatment.
Is it possible to have a special forum page which includes topics about the current clinical trials and other treatment alternatives (4-AP, FES, stem cell transplants, etc.). Moderator of these forum articles can be the administrator and the visitors can post messages only. Such an approach might reduce the number of forum articles about the same subject and eliminate duplication of the information at various forum artiles.

[Wise Young]

It is a good idea. Let me think about how we can implement this... I agree with you that as this forum gets bigger, there will be a lot of postings on many issues on the Cure forum and people have to wade through a lot of postings to find the information that they want on clinical trials. There are several approaches. Your suggestion, as I understand it, is to set up a category of forums called clinical trials and assign a different forum for every major therapy undergoing trial. Another approach is to set up a page on the main CareCure site for each clinical trial, summarizing the trial and then showing all the postings that are relevant to the trial. The latter will save people the trouble of having to do searches which are often not that specific and allow us to link only those postings that are most relevant and contains the best information. What do people think? Wise.

[nedim]

Yes Dr. Young, what you indicated in your post is identical with what I wanted to highlight.
Regards,