I'm curious to know how others think we might build on the excellent improvements to the forum recorded here.
For example. Consider the difference between the problem-solving use we ourselves have used here from the use our students at the Free University have eagerly put the forum to this semester when arranging events for the student strike. Our problem-solving use recommends a chronological order, with the most recent post put on the bottom, so we can follow the discussion as it unfolds. But the business of arranging a demonstration, for example, might recommend that we reverse the order with the most recent suggestions first. That is, there is a sense of urgency and consensus building such that users would be primarily interested in finding the current stage of the debate put right on top.
My more general concern here is with how we conceive of functionality, which when learning programming I considered in terms of control structures, data structures and all the rest, but when following user interactions I see functionality in very different terms, operating according to a different, even compulsive logic: "I want to find what I am looking for and not what I'm not looking for, and I want to see it on top and in a form that follows the logic of the my needs." Thus, the building of a consensus features an ultimate crisis, so to speak, a decision, where users check the site with increasing frequency, then the time is passed, and the thread is of no more than historical interest. This is very different from the current thread, which is more casual, many of us chirping in with advice and support, building community, good work is done, and the discussion sort of peters out.
Might others have illustrations of specific uses of the forum that confirm, contest, or offer other kinds of uses that we might eventually draw on for modelling this perhaps most fascinating of all portlets?
Bruce
