Subject: Re: PWG> Re: IPP> Alta-Vista Forum: improved e-meeting approachfor PWG, PMP, JMP, IPP, and SENSE? -R

From: Raymond Lutz <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 04 Dec 1996 10:36:37 -0800

At 08:33 AM 12/4/96 -0700, Scott Isaacson wrote:
>Ray,
>
>Is it possible to view only unread postings as in some of the news group
>interfaces? 

If you are a subscriber, all new postings are sent to you via email. All
new postings are marked with "NEW". Other than that, the facility you are
mentioning is not available.

>Maybe it is just the fact that I don't use it every day, but I did find
some of
>the forum interfaces difficult to follow.  I ended up posting a message to
>the wrong issue and so forth.

The concept of issues (or "tasks" as I was using the term) is something
that I was trying to set up since I noticed that the typical web-browser
type forum tended to have many scattered tiny threads that weren't very
deep. This means that the system still does not "self organize". Indeed, we
are asking the submitter to be more careful to "Add Message" when reading
the message to which a reply is intended, and thereby post it to the proper
thread. It is not possible to "Add Message" at the "Top" (or root) of the
forum and then specify which thread it belongs, but the forum moderator(s)
(who can be anywhere and anyone assigned to this job) can move the
submission to the "right" thread or page as appropriate. Sometimes a "tag"
submission is left in that spot so that it is possible to find the
relocated submission from the old location.

Some problems do exist for the submitter, such as "What if my comment
applies to more than one thread".. Then that person should break the
message up so that the appropriate material applies to the given thread.
Far too often, a submitter will submit a long treatise of this and that
which applies to a number of topics.

If no thread exists for the given topic, the submitter can create a new
one. There is no sin against submitting to the wrong thread since the
message can be moved, as I mentioned.

-Raymond

>
>Scott Isaacson
>
>>>> Raymond Lutz <[email-masked]> 12/03/96 11:17pm >>>
>MFPA has set up such forums, and can be made available to the PWG or
>others
>for free. Check out
>
>http://www.mfpa.org/forums.html
>
>Although this is only just recently set up, I think it fills the needs that
>Tom refers to. The administrator of a "forum" can be anywhere, and
>users
>can subscribe to a forum, or even a single thread in the forum.
>
>See the Projects Administration forum for links to the collaboration
>research pages, where a gazillion different approaches are proposed. I
>do
>agree, Tom, that this will be the standard way of distributed collaboration
>in the future.
>
>One nice thing that isn't implemented yet in the MFPA forums is that after
>subscribing to a forum, it is supposed to be possible to reply to any
>posting notifications via email and have the email posted to the correct
>thread as part of the web page. We are working on that one now, and it
>should be fully operational soon.
>
>-Raymond
>
>At 05:31 PM 12/3/96 PST, Tom Hastings wrote:
>>I've recently learned of a tool that Digital offers, called Alta Vista
Forum.
>>It provides a distributed structured electronic meeting capability.
>>Its a web-based tool that allows threaded conversations to take place
>>on any number of topics.  Any participant can add a new topic, such as
>>an issue or a question or an action item.  Any participant can reply to
>>the topic and a running thread is kept for each topic.  I used such a
>>tool at Digital for 15 years called Notes (Lotus turned it into a product).
>>Its great for keeping track of discussions.  Its much better than e-mail
>>in which all of the threads are mixed together.  Each user can have
>replies
>>e-mailed to them if they want or not, their choice.
>>
>>I checked out http://www.alta-vista.software.digital.com and found that
>>they offer an "electronic business tower", where you can go and "rent"
>>rooms for such meetings, free for a month and can extend for another
>month.
>>Then if you like the results, you can have Digital setup a server for you
>>(for a fee I haven't discovered).
>>
>>I suggest that someone from the PWG investigate the web page more
>and
>>propose that we try it out.  I suggest that each PWG project be a
>separate
>>forum and have a general PWG forum for general topics that affect all
>projects.
>>So we'd have separate PWG, PMP, JMP, IPP, and SENSE forums.
>>
>>If this is as good as it sounds, we might want to propose using it to the
>>IETF for other WGs.
>>
>>Comments?
>>
>>Can we discuss briefly at tommorrow's IPP telecon?
>>
>>Thanks,
>>Tom
>>
>>
>>P.S. If its really good, we may be able to cut down on the number of
>meetings.
>>
>>
>>
>
>/***********************************************************************
>** Raymond Lutz                             Voice: 619-447-3246
>** Director R & D, Cognisys, Inc.           Fax:   619-447-6872 
>** MFPA EC Chair                            MFPA:  1-800-603-MFPA
>** 1010 Old Chase Ave., Suite B             EMail: [email-masked]
>** El Cajon (San Diego Co.), CA 92020 USA   
>** WWW:   http://www.cognisys.com           http://www.mfpa.org
>***********************************************************************/
>
>
>

/***********************************************************************
** Raymond Lutz                             Voice: 619-447-3246
** Director R & D, Cognisys, Inc.           Fax:   619-447-6872 
** MFPA EC Chair                            MFPA:  1-800-603-MFPA
** 1010 Old Chase Ave., Suite B             EMail: [email-masked]
** El Cajon (San Diego Co.), CA 92020 USA   
** WWW:   http://www.cognisys.com           http://www.mfpa.org
***********************************************************************/