Frances Bell

Oh dear,

We won't be engaging Don Quixote in conversation as he has already disappeared as a participant.

Thanks Martin and A.T. It's always good to win a competition Seriously though, I will be happy to be joined by other facilitators in due course but will get on with things in the mean time.

Thanks Lesli,
It's good to be with old friends. My poor choice of topic name shows I have room for improvement .
Regarding guidelines, I have a completely open mind. Moodle lounge is not a class room (and we won't have parents' evenings like you have been through recently ). I feel confident that participants can work out ways of being together that maximise productive and fun discussions.
Martin (?) put this in the Moodle lounge summary
"This area contains forums for free-ranging discussion among Moodlers, sometimes it's meta-discussion about Moodle and the community, sometimes it's topics that may be fun, frivolous and often not about Moodle at all."
I have reproduced it here because I think people rarely read a course summary.
To me that summary has emerged directly from the wordy and sometimes painful discussion that went on over the last week or so, and is testament to the contribution that participants can make to community development here at Moodle.org.

Hello to those of you who don't know me but I am your new facilitator at the Moodle Lounge, having accepted the poisoned chalice I am very excited about this new development in the Moodle community and hope to work with you all to make it an integral component of Moodle.org.  I intend to spend some time thinking about how this space should be organised and there have been many helpful ideas already.  I plan to post some polls (Choices) about how this space is organised and made available but would like a short time to think about this, meanwhile inviting your ideas.
Summarising recent events I would say:

• removing a thread is not advised and something I can't anticipate doing
• there is a wish to be able to opt out of discussions that are uninteresting or distasteful to individuals
• this is a social forum where all sorts of things can be discussed (even Moodle)
  
• the to and fro of active threads can be a real asset to a community - as Dillenoburg & Traum say a little misunderstanding might be productive
• the Moodle Lounge needs to position itself with regard to Using Moodle

Without pre-empting any discussion on guidelines etc. I would just like to say that whilst freedom of speech is my aspiration, there are things I would not tolerate (see one of Debra Johnston's  'General Rules' of online discussion):
Do not deceive, defame or harass those with whom you communicate or who are affected by your communication.

Johnson, D. G. (1997). Ethics online. Communications of the ACM, 40(1), 60-65.
I will be posting some request for specific information but please don't hesitate to post your ideas, message me or email me on f.bell@salford.ac.uk

Ah well, time to sit back on that sofa with a nice drink

Postscript, this forum appears to have RSS (button visible) but XML file has no posts - why is this I wonder?