regional forums?

[Geoff]

Often we discuss topics that only affect a paticular LEA or region. For example, this post illustrates the issue perfectly.

 

http://www.edugeek.net/forums/showthread.php?t=15192

 

I think it would be a good idea to have forums for each area of the country (subject to demand of course). You've already began to implement this with the International forum. The idea just needs extending a little.

[alan-d]

This was suggested in the ancient past, but was never implemented.

 

However I agree it's time to revisit the concept

[OutToLunch]

Couldn't this be done via the "social groups" instead? Just join/create one for your area, and make any comments only relevant to that area there...

[Geoff]

There's no threading support in the social discussion page.

[GrumbleDook]

I wouldn't normally have posted things this way, I just needed to get some information out quickly to as many people as possible via a number of different methods ... this was just one of them.

 

As an LA we are trying to set up a regional communication model, but with a variety of success ... erm .. ok, with little success.

 

Regional forums are an idea, but it takes away from finding out what is going on in other areas ... and that is what the site is about really.

[alan-d]

OK - what about a regional noticeboard for LEAs and users to post to.

[MkII]

I agree with GD in that I think people could seperate off into their area groups - start social links, discussions within the region group that then wouldn't extend into the wider community - so EG loses out.

 

And for that reason - I'm out!

[Dos_Box]

There were several quite valid reasons we did not do regional forums, and I shall list the ones I can remeber below:

 

• It would possibly water down the content of the main forums
  
• Some regional information should not be posted on an open internet forum
  
• We would have had to create a seperate forum for almost every single LEA in the UK
  
• And moderate them!
  

 

Whilst it does seem like a good idea it is quite unworkable in reality and I suspect that should any sensitive info leak out on one of the regional forums we would be open to leagal action.

[russdev]

An idea if concerns an la then tag the post with the la names?

[SimpleSi]

@russ

You'd should go to work in the diplomatic core - great idea

[ZeroHour]

Another option possibly could be the use of thread prefixing (like the site problems area) in certain forums.

Like tagging it would be searchable but also it could help users spot possible threads of interest. Not as closed off in the social sense, as forum for the region/la as well.

It cant really be a big list though, we dont want to water it down to far and it would be annoying as a user to have to hunt through a large list.

I was looking at possible ways of using thread prefixing in other forums as I personally like the idea of prefixing. Just my $0.02