New Developments: Forum/groups

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Dearest Members and Visitors to the little Fountain Pen Nut house on the digital prairie,

 

Very recently, we were asked if it was possible to provide space for a research and special interest group, more specifically, for Mabie Todd aficionados.

 

As we have been thinking a lot lately as to the way forward, also because of new possibilities in the new board software we hope to upgrade to towards the end of the year, this fits well with the ideas to add structuring for different "social groups", essentially people who share a specific interest, and would like to do things, share things, post things in a community wiithin our community, to which other members can subscribe.

 

As this idea of a research/study/special interest group fits very well within these developments and the ideas we have, we thought it would be a good idea to take an advance, and start experimenting with this, be it in the current structure of forums, as that is all that is available in the current software setup..

The difference with a normal forum is that essentially the subcommunity itself does the moderating, by appointing moderators themselves. As before, we would want at least two moderators for these types of groups. However, their tasks are more limited, which may well be beneficial to these groups, as the moderators could therefore spend more time contributing to the forum group, rather than spend a lot of time just moderating.

 

Our first experiment just went live today, namely:

The Mabie Todd Research/Special Interest Forum/Group.

 

You may find it in the Brand Focus category for now, right here:

https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/forum/160-mabie-todd-researchspecial-interest-forumgroup/

 

Our new volunteers moderating this forum/group are Empty-of-Clouds, Greenie, and MarcShiman.

 

Let's all welcome them and give them a round of applause for being so brave to take on this new venture!

 

Enjoy!

 

Warm regards, Wim

On behalf of the FPN Moderator and Admin Team

 

 

[Ursus]

Mabie Todd made such great pens! I'm exicited to see if the new forum will get prices up...

[Chouffleur]

Mabie Todd made such great pens! I'm exicited to see if the new forum will get prices up...

If this is how economics works may I propose the abolition of the Sheaffer and Waterman forums for a period of two months? ;-)

[TXKat]

This is exciting news! Thanks for this!

[Betweenthelines]

How is this different from a regular brand focus subforum?

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How is this different from a regular brand focus subforum?

 

At the moment, very little, other than the way it is moderated.

 

With the new board software, when we switch to it, this will in principle become a group to which you may subscribe.

Essentially we will have the option to cater for groups of members who share a specific interest, which not necessarily requires or can be translated into a forum. This makes it possible to cater for smaller groups, and store the information here, f.e., for pen history study groups, members from a specific area who meet on a regular basis, or even those who share a love for a specific breed of cats and for pen, to name but an extreme example .

The idea is to be able to suggest a new group, get a minimum quorum of other members supporting the idea, and off you go. More or less anyway. We will need group moderators to do this, but these groups are essentially self-moderating, although we will obviously keep an eye on happenings.

 

We think there is a limit to what one can do with forums, so this would be a welcome addition to the possibilities we have here currently.

Essentially, this new group is an advance on what will be possible in the near future, be it in a different format. Just that for now, until the new software is stable enough and the most important add-ons are catered for, we had to mould it into a forum.

 

We have been looking into extending the possibilities for a long time, and had long discussions internally and externally as to what the way to go is, resulting in someone creating the option to do what we had in mind, as an add-on for the software we still have to upgrade to . As we got a request to cater for a specific study group, we decided to take an advance on the developments. After some more discussions with the potential subscribers to this group, who also volunteered their own moderators, we then went ahead and created this group. It is in Brand Focus because it comes the closest, at the moment anyway, to being a Brand Focus forum.

 

Exciting developments, if you'd ask me .

 

Warm regards, Wim

 

P.S.: As I see the term subforum used a lot: this is created as a forum not a subforum. Essentially the software has the option to create categories (e.g., Brand Focus), which allow the grouping of forums, such as all of the Brand Focus forums, Regional Forums, etc. Subforums are forums which are forums within a forum, as you may find, f.e., in Historical Sales.