Drupal consultants,<br><br>I've been away. Thanks for the thoughtful comments, advice, links etc.<br><br>Regarding tagging/usability and a knowledge base. I really appreciate the usability comments about tagging from Bill and other comments etc.<br>
<br>"Knowledge base" might be a bit too grand a word in my situation. Right now there is an active group of folks who gather around a list serve. A list serve is so limited. The users never go to the archive. Even if we were simply able to change the groups behavior to do the same kind of posting they currently do, but on a Drupal forum -- I feel the "knowledge base" part would be vastly improved simply with core's Drupal search and Core's node/comment threading. Though I plan to experiment with community tags, this group will likely be hiring a part time community manager who would be <i>paid</i> to tag content.<br>
<br>The first issue I'd deal with on this front is that it is a huge leap for people to switch from a list serve to a web forum. Now I'm investigating Mailhandler and Listhandler modules in addition to subsciption module/ comment_notify etc. to figure out the best way to replicate a list serve situation for those who are most comfortable with that and don't want to log in to anything or go to the web for this purpose.<br>
<br>Re <b>wikis</b>: I use a simple test to decide whether a wiki makes sense in a particular situation: thinking from the perspective of the user of the knowledge, is the identiy of the author and/or knowledge about the author's background relevant? If yes, it's not a good candidate for a wiki. If the answer, "no" the author is not relevant, then a wiki is likely a good idea.<br>
<br>In the situation I'm asking advice about, much of the knowledge/wisdom being presented is coming out of the personal life-experience of the person. By assoicating the content with its author in very clear ways, the users are helped to contextualize the "knowledge" and thus better apply it (or not apply it) to their own situations.<br>
<br>This is precisely why there is also a need for some of the functionalities of social networking, such as user profiles. Since the knowledge shared is so closely tied to the person from whom it comes, it is only logical that such a web site would make it easy for folks to learn about each other's lives -- <i>in the service of making the knowledge more useful</i>. And that is why some aspects of social networking functions on sites is so important -- even though Facebook, the mother of all social networking, will implement all of this stuff in a much more sophisticated way. It's worthwhile to replicate aspects of Facebook, <i>but only when there is a reason to do so</i>, as I believe there is here. In short, people are not connecting to become friends (thought that certainly happens), but because knowing users/contributers of the site makes the value of their contributions more valuable.<br>
<br>best,<br><br>Shai<br><a href="http://content2zero.com">Content2zero</a><br><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Fri, Feb 13, 2009 at 11:23 AM, Bill Fitzgerald <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:bill@funnymonkey.com">bill@funnymonkey.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">Some thoughts inline below:<br>
<div class="Ih2E3d"><br>
<br>
George Por wrote:<br>
> Shai and others,<br>
><br>
> Iım working with communities that have very much the same need as yours:<br>
><br>
><br>
>> A lot of the knowledge will come out of conversations... Include some social<br>
>><br>
> networking functionality as well. So Drupal, I believe, is an excellent<br>
> solution.<br>
><br>
> The difference is that in my case, thereıs a need for the kind of of social<br>
> networking functionality that Elgg or Ning provides but Drupal doesnıt. Does<br>
> anybody know of development in the Drupal community, going in that<br>
> direction?<br>
><br>
><br>
<br>
</div>We have been building social sites to support learning and collaborative<br>
knowledge building for the last several years. We used to work with the<br>
Elgg codebase, but discontinued it for two reasons: lack of client<br>
demand (ie, not many people were approaching us and saying "we need<br>
Elgg"); and, more importantly, as clients described their needs, other<br>
solutions were a better fit. In short, as we mapped client needs to a<br>
specific technical approach, Drupal was a good fit (as was Moodle,<br>
Mediawiki, etc, etc).<br>
<br>
We have had several clients come to us who started with Ning, and are<br>
frustrated with it's shortcomings. It has been a pleasure to build sites<br>
for people that help them escape the data hole that is Ning.<br>
<div class="Ih2E3d"><br>
>> So using community tags on advanced_forum is much more like what we'll do for<br>
>><br>
> the "knowledgebase."<br>
><br>
> Does advanced forum support the nodecomment module? Without it, we canıt tag<br>
> comments, which is a major shortcoming of the Drupal architecture, IMHO.<br>
><br>
<br>
</div>We did user testing on tagging comments with people ranging from middle<br>
school age to post-graduate students, and it FAILED. Miserably. The<br>
biggest question: when should I tag a comment? How will this be<br>
different than the tags on the original post? Where does this show up?<br>
<br>
In short, tags on comments confused the bejeezus out of people. And<br>
these were smart, reasonably tech savvy people.<br>
<br>
Cheers,<br>
<br>
Bill<br>
> george<br>
><br>
<font color="#888888"><br>
--<br>
<br>
Bill Fitzgerald<br>
<a href="http://funnymonkey.com" target="_blank">http://funnymonkey.com</a><br>
FunnyMonkey -- Click. Connect. Learn.<br>
ph. 503 897 7160<br>
</font><div><div></div><div class="Wj3C7c"><br>
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