7.8 Participating in group discussions

When group discussions have been enabled for the group via the “Group Discussions” switch at the “SETTINGS” screen, see Section 7.2.4, then the group will have a “DISCUSSIONS” tab available to group members. Discussions can be convenient for purposes such as:

• Teachers provide information to a class group.
• Group members share tips, strategies, and questions (when the group’s “Group Discussions” switch enables “MEMBERS” discussions).

When “DISCUSSIONS” have been enabled, then at the “DISCUSSIONS” screen, a list of the group’s discussions will be displayed. If you are a manager of a group with manager-generated discussions enabled, or if you are a member of a group with member-generated discussions enabled, then a “NEW DISCUSSION” button will be present, allowing you to create a new discussion; see Figure 7.50.

Clicking the “NEW DISCUSSION” button will bring up an “ADD MESSAGE” pop-up screen, see Figure 7.51, at which you may write your message, and then click the “POST” button when you are ready to post your message. (Note that the HTML markup options for group discussion messages are similar to those available for object comments; see Section 5.11.1.)

Note that the creation of a new discussion thread, or the addition of a new comment (post) to a discussion thread, for a group of which you are a member will generate an entry on your account “ACTIVITY” screen (and hence increment the new activity entry count superimposed over your member icon on Polar Cloud screens).

The initial message in each discussion thread will be displayed on the “DISCUSSIONS” screen. This display is generally in order from the most recently active discussion thread (at the top) to oldest (at the bottom) – unless a discussion thread has been pinned to stay towards the top of the display.

Clicking on a discussion thread, see Figure 7.52, will bring up the thread of messages in that discussion, see Figure 7.53.

In Figure 7.53, note the following features.

• At the left top, the title of the discussion thread.
• A group manager will see along the top of the discussion thread two or three buttons:
  • a “PIN” or “UN-PIN” button (to pin or un-pin, respectively, a discussion thread to the top of the discussions list),
  • for a recently posted thread an “EDIT” button,
  • and a “DELETE” button (to delete this entire discussion thread – all the thread’s postings will be removed, but a placeholder saying “Deleted” with the thread creator’s name and the date the thread was deleted will remain).
• Running down the right hand side, the list of discussion threads, generally ordered to list those with more recent activity first (except that PINned threads always stay at the top); click on a thread to switch to displaying that thread.
• On the left hand side, under the thread title, the initial post in the discussion thread.
• A count of the number of additional posts to the discussion thread.
• One’s own member profile icon and “Display Name” and “Add a comment...: click this area to reply (add another comment) to the thread; see Figure 7.54 and Figure 7.55.
• A list of other messages in the discussion thread, in order from oldest to most recent.
• To the right of each other message in the discussion thread, three vertical dots which may be expanded to open a menu.
  • Group members, on their own postings, have the options to “Edit” (for up to two days) or “Delete” (indefinitely) their own postings.
  • Group members, on other group members’ postings, have the option to “Report spam or abuse” postings.
  • Group managers, on other group members’ postings, have the options to “Report spam or abuse” or “Delete” postings.
• A “RETURN” button, to return to the listing of discussion threads (as in Figure 7.52).

Whether creating a new group discussion thread, or adding to (replying to) an existing discussion thread as in Figure 7.55, the HTML markup options for group discussion messages are similar to those available for object comments; see Section 5.11.1.

Note that non-members of a group cannot view the group discussions.