Sticky Forums... Useful?

Sticky Forums... Useful?

by Williams Castillo -
Number of replies: 11
I DO think so. Do you?

There are topics that people ask again and again, or there are topics that are important enough to have at hand all the time so I think that the addition of Sticky Forums would be great.

When I said Sticky Forums I meant to say forums which are located always on top of all others, and you can clearly tell those ones from the regular topics (is it clear? Can't find a better way to express myself right now, sorry.. sad)

All the best,
Will
PS: If something come out of this, I volunteer
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In reply to Williams Castillo

Re: Sticky Forums... Useful?

by Martin Dougiamas -
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Yes, useful and easy to implement - just need a new field "sticky" in forum_discussions,  a little toggle button in forum/discuss.php to turn it on and off, and a modification to the SQL to make the timemodified a secondary sort to the primary sort of "sticky DESC".  Oh and a little icon for the forum listing.

I'd also really like to see the paging_bar function used on the forum listings ... 
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In reply to Martin Dougiamas

Re: Sticky Forums... Useful?

by Przemyslaw Stencel -

Will students also be able to create 'sticky' messages, or will it be a teacher-only option? Or, should there be a setting (on the course or forum level?) to allow/not allow student to create sticky discussions?

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In reply to Martin Dougiamas

Re: Sticky Forums... Useful?

by Williams Castillo -
Yes, that's almost exactly the way I had in mind... However, I was thinking to allow at least three level of "stickness" (?):

- The first post ever (the first post of the thread)
- Important posts (post that should be prior the regular posts in the thread)
- Regular posts (all the rest)

Thus, and answering to Przemyslaw, I think that it should be a teachers-only feature...

Regards,
Will
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In reply to Williams Castillo

Re: Sticky Forums... Useful?

by Przemyslaw Stencel -
Hi Will and Martin,

Sorry, but I'm confused thoughtful Are you talking about sticky posts in discussions or sticky discussions in forums?wide eyes

In most (actually, I can't think of any that would work otherwise) web forum systems I've seen sticky discussions and not posts. If individual posts are made sticky, how are you planning to deal with the different discussion views (nested, threaded, flat)?
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In reply to Przemyslaw Stencel

Re: Sticky Forums... Useful?

by Martin Dougiamas -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Moodle HQ Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers
Oh, yes, sticky discussions. Sticky posts wouldn't make sense, would it? I'm not sure what Will is referring to - I must look at the code he's already sent me!

Later, teachers will be able to "break off" branches of discussion and promote them as new discussions so they could always do that before marking it sticky.

Lastly, I can't really see a need for students to be able mark things as sticky - it's a moderator's job really.
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In reply to Martin Dougiamas

Re: Sticky Forums... Useful?

by M Ghazaly Abdul Rahman -
Hi...

I was wondering whether this feature is already implemented into the Moodle Forum module? I'm asking because this post is over than a year old, and I don't see the "stickiness" feature being used on this site.

Like many other Moodlers, I also think that this feature is a very important feature for any online forum or discussion board. For example on this site, the only place I was able to find any basic information about the different modules is from this page (apart from the documentation). I think all discussion forums for each module should include at least three sticky posts at the top.... these posts would include:
  • the basic overview of the module, its features etc...
  • changelog post, with links to different versions (if available)
  • a tips & tricks post (or useful information post for that specific module)
  • add your own sticky post here
The tips & tricks post should not include actual tips & tricks, but simply a collection of links to useful threads in that specific forum (plus some description). All of this I think could easily be implemented if the "sticky" feature is already available.

big grin

UPDATE: I just thought of another example where it would be very useful, in the themes forum, there should be a sticky post that links to all of the custom made themes available for download
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In reply to M Ghazaly Abdul Rahman

Re: Sticky Forums... Useful?

by Martin Dougiamas -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Moodle HQ Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers
I'm not big on sticky posts myself.  It's really a hack started by discussion board software because they don't have any alternative.

A better approach IMHO is to create a Wiki where all of this collected knowledge is formatted in an organised way (rather than a haphazard collection of old postings), and put a link to the relevant page from the forum description.  You can do this today in Moodle.

For Moodle documentation specifically, see this germ of a plan.
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In reply to Martin Dougiamas

Re: Sticky Forums... Useful?

by David Byrnes -
Using a Wiki might be a better way to do it than sticky posts, but "stickies" do have their uses. As an example; I'm building a site where the courses are Topic based, and where the enrollment is open. That is to say, open timewise. Students will be joining constantly. It would be nice to be able to place a Sticky as the 1st post in the main forum for each course, specifying what materials are needed, as well as resources such as Adobe Reader. The majority of my students aren't going to have the slightest idea of what a Wiki is, or why they should look there to find the information. Of course, I could simply select the first topic, and add a resource that would specify this information. But I'd still like to be able to make certain posts Sticky.

Just my $.02 worth.
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In reply to David Byrnes

Re: Sticky Forums... Useful?

by Charles Grapski -
I like the sticky concept - but I think there is a better solution to this problem.

I like to create a forum for a class - or for a topic.

In that forum - what I would like to do - is to raise a set of questions, each to be given its own topic, so that students/participants go answer that question - as if I were in a live class and asked it. They will be in a context in which others too will be talking - but only in regards to that question.

I also like to ask a set of questions - in a particular order. So I get the students reflecting on one point - then move on to another, related, point. And they can build from there.

This is what I do in a "live" classroom.

In a forum - I can try and replicate this - if I can have some control over the ordering of questions. As it is now - any topic that is new is added on top of all previous topics. Thus the second question I ask - comes first - rather than the other way around. Furthermore - if a student starts a new topic - it now comes on top - and the questions could be all the way at the bottom.

The solution I think is simple.

Like with phpBB - you can have the forum administrator (the teacher or designer) create different categories. Each category having different rules.

THe first category - could be used, in my example, for my questions. Under that cateogory - only the questions I pose (as topics underneath the category) will appear.

The second category - could be used for new questions raised by students. And they could add them one by one - and have them listed chronologically (the newest at the top).

At the same time - I would want to be able to EDIT the forums - as the administrator/teacher. To be able to edit in two ways, at least: 1) to edit the order of posts - so in my example of the first category - I could go in and reorder the topics in the order that I want the students to read them and participate; 2) to be able to edit content - for inappropriate materials. This function should only be granted to the teacher/administrator.

The stickies concept could be added too - for the kind of "rolling" forum used in the second category - whereby some topic is of such importance, that it can be designated to remain at the top of the list.

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In reply to Charles Grapski

Re: Sticky Forums... Useful?

by Martin Dougiamas -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Moodle HQ Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers
Don't do this within a forum, set up a series of forums, one for each question. One of the forum types is "single discussion".
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In reply to Przemyslaw Stencel

Re: Sticky Forums... Useful?

by Williams Castillo -
Hi P,

Sorry, it was my absolute fault... sad I have been able to moodling only late at nights so my usually lack of grammar in english get even worst at that times. I apologize for that...

I meant to say "Sticked -or sticky- discussions in forums". A sticky post must be quite confusing! smile

Regards,
Will

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