Community Rooms: Definitions of Terms

Password Protected Web-based Computer Conferences

What is Web-based Conferencing?

First, let's define our terms. For our present purposes, conferencing is a form of group discussion that uses text messages stored on a computer as a communication medium. It does not include various types of real-time, or synchronous, communication, such as "chat rooms", voice-based teleconferencing, or video conferencing.  

A conferencing system is Web-based if it uses Web browsers and servers to provide most of its functionality. This is not as clear a distinction as it might sound. Most developers of conferencing software are hurrying to adapt their products to the Web, and the result is a lot of hybrid products that use the Web to a greater or lesser extent. Hence, the boundary between Web and non-Web conferencing software is a bit blurry. 

Features of Web-based conferencing:

Separate conferences for broad subject areas. Besides focusing on different subjects, different conferences often have very different atmospheres and social conventions. People become "regulars" only in the conferences that most interest them. 

Threaded discussions within conferences. This sometimes takes the form of a tree structure, in which each topic is the starting point for a branching tree of responses. A linear structure, in which each topic has a simple chain of consecutive responses attached to it. This form is easily understood by most people because it closely resembles "real life" conversation. On the Web there is an additional reason to use this structure: displaying a discussion as a continuous stream of text keeps interactions to a minimum. Since you don't have to click a button on every response, there are fewer delays while reading messages. 

Informative topic list. A reader should be able to easily see a list of the topics in a conference. At minimum, the list should show each topic's title and some indication of the amount of activity in the topic: the number of responses, date of the last response, or both. The topics should be sortable both by topic start dates and by last response dates.  

Respect for the integrity of topics. A reader should always be able to go back to the beginning of a topic and follow it all the way through to the most recent responses. Of course, it is necessary to clear out obsolete material to avoid clutter (and because nobody has infinite disk capacity), but pruning should be done by deleting entire topics after they have fallen into disuse. Some systems (notably Usenet) throw away older messages even if they are part of an active discussion. 

Support for both frequent readers and casual browsers. A browser wants to choose a conference manually and scroll through the list of topics, dipping in here and there, moving backward or forward sequentially through topics, returning repeatedly to the topic list. A frequent reader wants to cycle automatically through a customized list of conferences, skipping topic lists entirely and getting immediately to the new, unread messages. Most conferencing systems are biased toward one type of reader or the other; few support both well. 

Search and filter tools for readers. A reader should be able to search messages by date, author, or keyword. Word searches on both topic titles and message texts should be possible. Frequent readers should also have tools for controlling what they see; for example, a way to "forget" topics so that any subsequent responses are skipped automatically. 

Access control. Both public and private conferences are useful in different situations. A conference host or moderator should have flexible control over who can access the conference and what level of access each participant has. For example, it should be possible to give some participants read and write permission, others read only, and others no access. 

Host tools. The host of a conference should have good tools for managing topics: for example, weeding out obsolete topics, archiving those that are worth saving but no longer active, and moving a divergent thread of a topic to a new topic of its own. 

Speed. Frequently used functions such as advancing to the next message should require only one keypress or pointer-click and should happen instantly when selected. If the system is slow or cumbersome, people simply won't use it much. 

   
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