CUNY Academic Commons

this is a use of the Commons that we might want to promote

The more I think about it, the more I disagree with this statement, and the uneasier I get about this feature request. For one thing, supporting separate but overlapping functionality is a nightmare from a user- and dev-support point of view. More important, perhaps, is the fact that "bypassing groups", in terms of the site as a whole, boils down to fracturing conversations. Such activity will not be tracked on activity feeds, will not have the advantages of our normal email notification system, and generally has the potential to cause user confusion.

Once we put a tool like bbPress on the site, and people start using it, the potential damage is already done - those conversations will forever be cloven from the rest of the site. So I'd like to consider it carefully before acting on it.

The alternative is to do something about the alleged confusing nature of the blog/group relationship. I know that people have found the connection confusing, but perhaps we could start to formulate some concrete suggestions about how we could improve it, either through better documentation and education, or through the development of tools that effect a more intuitive integration (insofar as such a thing is possible). See #653.

Can I raise this issue again? There is general agreement that the blog-group relationship can use improvement; see #653. If this ticket boils down to that one, then let's close it.

If there is also a general agreement that we need forum software over and above what we already have, please say so, as I'll have to map out a game plan with respect to the potential problems down the road (BP integration; merging back into the BP group forum infrastructure; data migration; theme compatibility; etc)

A few thoughts as I close this ticket:

-- I have not seen widespread calls for forum capabilities on blogs. Therefore, I'll close the ticket.

-- I do think that we need forum improvements in groups, but those are coming (at least partly) with upcoming projects

-- I do think we should continue to think about blog/group interfaces and relationships.