THDL Discussion Forums: Introduction and Getting Started
The present page is an introduction to discussion forums and their use within THDL. If you are instead looking for an index to various discussion forums concerning Tibet and the Himalayas, see An Index to Discussion Forums concerning Tibet and the Himalayas.
We are urgently in need of moderators. We are also willing to open new forums if there are individuals interested in moderating them. Please contact us if you are interested.
THDL provides both discussion forums and mailing lists to facilitate communication within the field of Tibetan and Himalayan studies, as well as discussions and updates within THDL. The discussion forums are centered on topics under which postings are organized and held exclusively on-line rather than via email. All topics and postings are archived and can be searched. Mailing lists, in contrast, are not organized formally into topics beyond, but rather proceed via emailed announcements and questions, to which responses or comments can be emailed as well. All email can also be archived for later inspection. Both discussion forums and mailing lists thus have distinct virtues and limitations, such that at THDL we have chosen to employ both.
We have currently utilizing mailing lists largely for announcements and updates, and promoting the use of the discussion forums for most discussion and dialog. We have done this since we believe that discussion forums are a better organized and more coherent medium for tracking discussions, while mailing lists are better for announcements of various types since they are delivered directly into people's inboxes. Discussion forums are also referred to as "threaded discussion lists" or "bulletin boards". Their two chief advantages are:
- They don't intrude into the user's inbox; rather, they reside on the server until users read and/or submit posts at their discretion
- Topics can be posted, so that instead of one generic list the forum can be broken down into multiple areas, which users can ignore or participate in as they like without being overwhelmed with things in which they are not necessarily interested
Our discussion forums are hosted by the University of Virginia Library's Information Community initiative. In order to participate, one must first register with the Discussion Forums overall in order to get a USER ID and password — use the "Register" link at the top of each Discussion Forums page. Once one is registered, one uses that USER ID to log in to participate — see the "Login" link at the top of each Discussion Forums page. However, some Forums also require you to "join" them in order to participate fully. After you have joined a Discussion Forum through using the "Usergroups" link at the top of the Forums page, each time you login you will have full access to that Usergroup. The registration procedure is as follows:
- First: register — this creates your permanent ID and password
- Second: join user groups — this allows you to post to user groups that have a closed membership
- Third: login to the Discussion Forums to check private messages or make postings
The Discussion Forum area consists of a number of different spaces, each a permanent discussion forum with its own name, community of users, and focus. Thus joining a "user group" allows you to participate in that specific discussion forum. Each discussion forum is essentially a space for conversation in which users post "topics". The opening page has a list of "Topics", along with a new button for "newtopics". Clicking on the "newtopic" button will allow you to create your new topic for others to discuss. To read an already extant topic, click on one of the titles listed under "Topics" and you will see all the postings listed under that Topic. It will also give you a button "post reply" which allows you to post your own thoughts on that topic. All replies are permanently posted under the topic in chronological order, so that anyone can easily follow the thread of discussion from beginning to end. In addition, the "Search" link will allow you to search all of the topics simultaneously to find if any given person, item, or whatever has been discussed in past exchanges. Searches can be limited to specific forums. To summarize, the Discussion Forums have four levels of increasing narrowness in scope:
- Categories: Tibet and the Himalayas (the University of Virginia Library initiative also has other information communities with discussion forums)
- Forums: Areas dedicated to specific topics within Tibet
- Topics: users can specify without restriction unless the moderator deems something inappropriate
- Posts: The specific messages; users can specify without restriction unless the moderator deems something inappropriate
In this way, discussion forums can be used to have rich conversations with the results permanently archived in a topically organized fashion. In choosing topics, we urge people to do so when the topic seems productive of conversation, and not simply make announcements. For example, one might put up a new book as a topic for discussion as framed by some interesting questions, or an interesting historical problem, or issues of climatology in Nepal, and so forth. We also invite interested parties to contact thdlcommunity@virginia.edu about interest in creating and moderating new discussion forums.
Discussion forums have different levels of openness in participation. Forums can be "closed" or "open" in terms of membership _ "closed" means an adminstrator decides who can participate, while "open" means anyone can sign on to the forum. In addition, forums can be "open" for viewing, but "closed" for posting new topics and replies. The most open allow anyone to post and anyone to read. These are for general public use and allow anyone to utilize the discussion forum freely. However, this complete openness often renders the forum useless for more specialized communities of users, since their focused discussions are disrupted. Thus the most standard forum allows anyone to read the postings, but only members to post topics and replies. In this way the whole community benefits from the conversations and information, but only the people with the requisite knowledge are allowed to post within this forum. If you think you qualify for a specific forum, the "usergroup" link allows you to submit a request for membership and the moderator will either approve or explain to you how the group doesn't match your background. A third possibility is to have discussion forum that can not be read by the public, which may be suitable for controversial topics, or research teams that want to discuss their work outside of the public eye at this time. A final variable is "moderation", which means that messages have to be approved by a moderator before they are posted. No forum we currently have use such moderation. Thus forums may be "restricted" in membership, but "moderation" applies to the individual email messages that are approved rather than to the members who are approved.
We encourage people to use Unicode diacritics for representing Sanskrit and other languages that need special diacritic marks when represented in Roman script. These diacritics can be used in searches as well. See under "Unicode diacritic fonts" for help in setting your computer up with the necessary fonts and keyboards.