Hi to everyone
Having spent the last four years managing a large forum community comprising some 30 moderators, 30+ sponsors, a handful of admins, many group leaders, and thousands of members, the past 3 months with Open Goo have been somewhat of an eye opener.
The basic essentials are very solid in comparison to the majority of what is available otherwise, although I have to agree with the opinions expressed in this thread in that Discussions requires a greater level of functionality and formatting options. Formatting is the main concern for me, and like Thomas I have installed a good many options, and presently am trialling Open Atrium in my search for the ultimate web based collaboration suite.
Like so many of the users I have read along the way, via similar discourses, I am not a developer/coder/tech expert. The common denominator in these discussions is the wish for a straight forward way to input images, video, music files, and productive formatting, on the part of everyday users. Whether it be in a forum environment or concerning workplace collaborations. As has been suggested, a discussion is entirely different to note making, and comes into its own whilst facilitating brainstorming sessions - the heart of group collaboration?
Be it FOSS, Freemium, or paid for ware, of the options I have encountered there is none that hits the mark in my view, and it seems to me that poll position is still very much still up for grabs? If my interpretation is correct then OG/Feng are working to some iteration of the Freemium model, and it occurs to me that many following this model are missing the best of the opportunity?
Free users tend to be smaller concerns which have a limited budget to work with initially, however a healthy proportion of them grow to be among the Fortune 5,000,000; the staple businesses on the Web. These comprise the principal pool of available customers, day-by-day, the majority of whom are merely regular users of technology, and which are happy to pay a fair price for a good service as is regularly required. Therefore is it not good business sense to consider input from your free user base as seriously as that of paying customers, from the start? Surely a good slice of these will grow to be paying clients of the future?
Returning to potential features and formatting for the Discussions module. Whilst I have been unable to find a clear explanation of the distinctions between OG and Feng Office, I would suggest that developing the ideas discussed here would likely be of significant advantage to both? Open Goo is possibly the most bug free and stable collaboration tool available currently, and were it to expand the present forum-esque discussions element I believe it would surpass most of the competition.
Personally I prefer the option of a full wysiwyg (BBcode) editor, coupled with a quick reply box, as per the better forum CMS available currently. The latter sits just as for the existing discussion comments, below the last post/comment, with an 'add reply' button or similar by which to activate the full editor. Ideally beyond the regular formatting options this would also include;
1) Facility to quote text from prior comments.
2) Preview post/comment function.
3) 'Save as draft' facility.
4) When using the editor page reloads should not result in the loss of input.
Suggested additional functionality;
1) Comment ordering; ascending/descending.
2) Admin-side facility to split a discussion, for example; move one comment from an existing discussion to begin a new topic on the basis that the content warrants it's own focus.
3) Social media connectivity.
These are just my ideas and suggestions, and are merely intended to provide some further food for thought in this area?
All the best,
Jon
