As many of the crew know, we have some restrictions in these forums which are stricter than those on most BOINC projects. Anyone on the Internet can view the General Issues forums, but you must be a registered member of the crew to view or post to the Crew Issues section.

For I2U2 there will be further restrictions. Students can't post to the announcements forum. Teachers will have their own Teacher's Lounge. I have these restrictions working, but there is one thing missing.

Aside from telling people about the restrictions, there needs to be a way to immediately signal what restrictions are in place. When you are reading a forum, you should be able to tell that it's Crew Only (or Teacher's only).

So what is the best way to mark the page to show this? I've not given this much thought yet, and I'd like to see what ideas people here might have.

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-- Eric Myers

"Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire." -- William Butler Yeats

G'day Eric

I guess the best place would be next to the reply subscribe buttons, if possible next the reply to this post button. Don't know how difficult it would be to code, but in those locations it would be pretty difficult to miss or overlook.
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Free Tibet/ Tibet Libre Team Forum

I guess the best place would be next to the reply subscribe buttons, if possible next the reply to this post button. Don't know how difficult it would be to code, but in those locations it would be pretty difficult to miss or overlook.

How about adding a row above the table that states the area and participant status. Maybe red back with white text to be obvious.
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Click and enter your name for your BOINC Statistics

I have these restrictions working, but there is one thing missing.

Another idea I want to think more about is to change the background colors or general style. There might be several variations, but for example the teacher's only forums would just have a slightly different color scheme than regular pages. This could be implemented by choosing a different CSS file when the page is loaded, so it would not be that hard to code (except that I'm no good on picking good colors and such).

Along those same lines, I have wanted the glossary wiki to be better at indicating that you are viewing a preview of an edit. Several times now I've edited a page, been through several revisions, but then forgotten to finally save the edits. It's nice to have the preview on every revision (Twiki doesn't do that) but it can also help you forget you are still editing and have not saved your work.

Trac and Twiki are both better at this, with decorations or a background which show that you are looking at a preview, not a saved page. So I did some exploring and monkeyed with the CSS for the wiki, and now you can definitely tell you are still editing. Now it needs to be tweaked to be less obvious.

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-- Eric Myers

"Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire." -- William Butler Yeats

What about an option to let the user decide their own theme?
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I have wanted the glossary wiki to be better at indicating that you are viewing a preview of an edit. [...] So I did some exploring and monkeyed with the CSS for the wiki, and now you can definitely tell you are still editing. Now it needs to be tweaked to be less obvious.

What about an option to let the user decide their own theme?

Capt'n
Definitely start the pages of the students and staff as different backgrounds. Then let the individuals adjust the pages as they need too. I say need, as there will be members with visual handicaps. (not rum induced:)
The restriction could be added to the "Message" link at the top left say use 'Crew Message xxx', Officer Message xxx', 'Goats Message xxx', 'General Message xxx' any term could be tied into this line. This line could also include the schools name to limit it to the staff/students at a school.
I recall somewhere in these discussions that the schools name would be used as part of the matrix of identification for access. Adding in the school name might seem to be redundant but, if forum review access is granted to others not of the school, this would be help full in generating a new topic in a 'General Forum', outside the school, that could link back to the original topic thereby generating thoughts from outside the original school.
Of course, somebody from the originating school would need to link to this outside discussion topic to bring it full circle. Likewise the school administration could block the generating of the link to the outside discussion but not block the outside discussion itself. A higher level, outside the school would need to block the outside discussion.

Oh the circles we weave when under the influence of rum. My head hurts:>}
Roark

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May you always have clear skies,
Following seas
And the wind at your back.