August 6, 2004 @ 08:08am
SO: what needs work? I'm particularly concerned with identifying areas of confusion in the use of the site (for example - registration now tells you how many characters your password needs to be). Anything that feels particularly unintuitive, confusing, etc, I'd like to know about and get suggestions on how I could make it clearer.
Email me any thoughts, or, better, post them in response to this message! Please, feel free to mess around and try things out on this forum - don't worry about coming up with real questions, etc, we can clean up (remove test messages, etc) before we open the forum up to a wider audience.
August 6, 2004 @ 08:08am
Hi, Ross,
I am posting this to the site to get practice. I have been looking at the site and I REALLY like it. It works nicely. I posted one other reply, and all went well. The only confusing thing to me still is navigating on the main page between the 3 columns: Topics, Author, or Last Post. It might help if Topics were first, then Last Post, then Author, since the Author column doesn't give so much info and seems more like a techical column than an integral part of the forum. Just a thought.
August 6, 2004 @ 08:08am
Hi Ross -
The site is great, but I'm having trouble with some of the terminology. For instance, what is a sticky and how is that different from a post?
Also, what's with the "popular" categories? What does that mean? Perhaps we need a FAQ or a set of definitions for the site software and navigation terms.
Thanks!
-- Trisha
August 6, 2004 @ 08:08am
Thanks for the suggestions - I'll try and clean up the columns, either reordering them or at least making the Author column not a link to a page that will provide no meaningful information... I'll also take a look at clearing up some of the terms used - some of them I can change to more meaningful altenatives, and those that I can't, I'll try and associate some meaningful explanatory text with them... Thanks!
August 6, 2004 @ 08:08am
Well, just personally, I can't stand red text on grayish backgrounds. I know that the main page red text is the beta warning, but OUCH! The font is displaying a little small in my Netscape 7.1 browser, too. What are you using for the default size?
Overall, a great site. I've replied to a couple of postings with no trouble. Pretty soon you are going to have to look into categories for the postings I think.
I'm going to try the RSS feed next!
Thanks!
August 6, 2004 @ 08:08am
rhedreen: thanks for your comments, and thanks very much for getting involved :D I hope you'll stick around :)
I do agree about the hideousness of the red text on gray (#ff0000 is a truly ugly red, too)... Very much want to make sure that people *see* that warning, though - I'll try to come up with a slightly less unattractive but still attention-catching device :) I'll see if I can bump the text up a couple of points as well without making things stop fitting nicely :)
Thanks for all of your comments, and welcome all - please stick around and keep talking!! :D
August 6, 2004 @ 08:08am
Posting is easy; nice job on that. My claim to having some authority is that I am the copyright specialist for my university. From my side, while the discussions may be useful, I would be cautious about accepting advice from non-lawyers as the final word. From your side, even if you have legal counsel to respond to people's questions, I think that you need a disclaimer prominently posted somewhere, perhaps as people log in to the forum and again on the main page. The disclaimer should state that this forum/site is only informational and that if people need specific legal advice, they should consult a lawyer. On GigaLaw.com, which has lawyers as members in the forums, they still avoid giving specific legal advice in that publicly accessible e-space. The wording our University Counsel suggested to me for a disclaimer is on the home page of the copyright site: http://www.fhsu.edu/forsyth_lib/copyright/
Thanks,
Suzanne Araas Vesely
August 6, 2004 @ 08:08am
Over the last 20 years, I have spoken on copyright several times to library and education groups in Minnesota and to four years of graduate students in library and information science. These are my observations.
Very few people know much at all about copyright. I believe that after a one hour presentation to them, they know more than 99% of the population.
I think copyright is a keystone of our civilization and we have failed in making it known.
Many people routinely violate copyright because they do not know the basic requirements. Many others express that since they are small and poor institutions or that since their abuse is minor or infrequent, it doesn't make any difference.
The way that organized abuse, such as was the case with Napster and similar systems, is justified shows that the fundamental principles of copyright are not well understood.
I think that helping people understand the principles of copyright is essential, but most people's questions are about technicalities, especially those that are on the edge of new technologies where the courts have not ruled and the law is not settled.
Very few school and public libraries own some of the basic texts on copyright, especially those designed for educational and library use.
It seems to me that the balance that the Constitution places on copyright is ignored by most people--both creators/producers and users want copyright for their own advantage to the exclusion of the other.
I do not believe that most people will seek out copyright answers on their own unless they face a real problem, threat or quandary over what is legitimate use. A lot of this motivation has to come from informed policies that educational institutions and libraries adopt and make known to their faculties and employees so that information can be shared with students in their learning and library patrons in their use.
Good luck and thanks for your efforts.