I work on a computer everyday and design web pages for a living so I am very familiar with this technology. And when I see my 11-year old learning how to point and click his way around the web, it just confirms that this is pretty easy. As long as you can read (and type, no matter how slow), you can participate.

I guess one way this could be tested is to take someone who is not used to computers and show them how to access the discussion board at a public-access terminal, like at a public library or an Internet café. What do others think?

-- Anonymous, October 13, 1998

Answers

I like the idea. If one question leads to another, it would be nice to be able to create a "sub thread". Can subjects be linked in the form of hierarchical branching?

-- Anonymous, October 13, 1998

Hanavi

The discussion board gives the administrator the choice of operating in two modes - (1) a question and answer forum, and (2) a threaded discussion. To quote from the instructions:

"you have to choose whether or not this is primarily a Q&A forum or a threads-based discussion group. The user interfaces interoperate, i.e., a posting made a user in the Q&A interface will be seen in the threads interface and vice versa. But my software still needs to know whether this is primarily threads or Q&A. For example, if a user signs up for email alerts, this program will send out email saying "come back to the forum at http://...". The "come back URL" is different for Q&A and threads.(note: I personally greatly prefer the Q&A interface; if people liked threads, they'd have stuck with USENET.)"

So there you go. I'm not sure, but we can try both settings and see which configuration offers more advantages. I think it is important to keep threads on-topic and not let them be overly long. This requires some administrative work and human intelligence. Would you like to become co-administrator of this discussion board?

-- Anonymous, October 14, 1998

Advantages: it is small enough that it could feel like a fairly intimate "place" to have a discussion. Disadvantages: obviously not enough participation. Also, who is reading? can I have a list?

-- Anonymous, February 15, 1999