The Reunification of Gallaudet: Healing Through Dialogue
A new discussion board (http://tinyurl.com/y8d6qq) has now been set up
to promote the healing and reunification of the Gallaudet community
through open, honest, respectful dialogue among people on ALL sides of
the protests (for, against, ambivalent). This discussion board,
entitled “The Reunification of Gallaudet,” welcomes all members of the
Gallaudet community including students, staff, faculty, parents,
alumni, former employees, loved ones, and members of the Deaf/deaf/hard
of hearing/hearing impaired/deaf-blind community at wide.
Topics may include, but are not limited to: brainstorming ideas for
promoting the healing and reunification of the wider Gallaudet
community, both on and off campus; racism and white privilege; audism
(toward BOTH Deaf ASL users AND ALSO toward people who were raised
oral, are hard of hearing, more comfortable with signed English than
ASL, etc.); issues related to accountability and governance at
Gallaudet; etc.
The most important rule is to demonstrate RESPECT toward others.
During the past few months. discussion related to the protests and to
Fernandes has often become polarized and hostile. So let me please
re-emphasize that “The Reunification of Gallaudet” discussion board is
meant to be a safe place for ALL people on ALL sides of the protests to
air their views without fear of being attacked. All those who
participate are asked to please respect the spirit and intention of
this discussion board.
This discussion board is located at free-association.net. The
short-cut URL is:
http://tinyurl.com/y8d6qq
(This takes you to the real URL, which is much longer.)
Anyone may read the discussions without registration. However, those
who wish to reply or create new topics will first need to register and
log in.
email contact: mishkazena@aol.com
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I actually wrote a long post, so be glad I deleted it.
Anyway, I checked that site out and while it’s a good idea, I don’t think the site is set up very well.
It’s not a “real” messageboard where it’s more organized and easy to use.
It’s all thrown in with other “noises” on one page.
I did sign up there, though, but… it’s too “hidden”, if you know what I mean.
Yeah, like porn under the random images part. Wow, that was a surprise while I was reading about audism.
Another problem with that website is that the “random pictures” slot often show sexually explicit stuff. I don’t think many will be comfortable perusing that website.
I haven’t checked this site out yet, but if it is inflriated with porno, I’ll pass the word to the person who set it up.
Thanks for letting me know.
I’m the one who set up the site. Apologies for the problems. You’re right, I didn’t look closely enough at this location before I set it up. Can someone recommend a better location, without these problems, that would be easy for a non-tech person like me to help run? And also user friendly for the participants?
Or, anyone want to help run it with me? (I think in the long run, this kind of discussion is probably better run by a TEAM of people from all sides of the protest working together, so that the team can model the kind of bridge-building that I hope this discussion board can help produce.)
Thanks,
Andrea
I was the one that suggested to Andrea to use free-association. They implemented a new gui last night and the random image thing has been a complaint all day from myself and some other users. They have changed it so it does not show if you are not signed in/have an account there, but we are still trying to get them to have it off by *default*.
Andrea – there are many messageboards out there, but one I can think of is here: Bizland messageboards
http://www.bizland.com/product/cybermessageboard.bml
It costs 35 dollars a year, though.
I haven’t found a free messageboard, but a messageboard is really worth it, easy to organize and easy to use.
Andrea, let us know when you find a good board. Your idea in getting moderators from different sides will help. This site was unmoderated for quite a while until two weeks ago when I was forced to go on moderation due to persistent vicious attacks and threats on the protesters. I went back to unmoderation three days ago and faced the same problem, so hence the moderation again
The problems of the not-work-safe images and links has been fixed unless someone looks around the site specifically for them. A new interface happened to be put up at free-association right after Andrea created the discussion group and someone thought it would be a good idea to have random images on the home page. This fix applies whether or not people log in.
Anyone who logged in and/or created an account yesterday might still experience the problem (depending on the exact time). This will not happened if you just visited as a guest and did not create an account there. If by chance you do still get the images you have any of 3 options after logging in the next time:
1) Click ‘home’ (near the top of the page), then click on the minus sign in the bar above each of the image ‘blocks’ to collapse them to just the bar. It will remember that setting the next time you login to the site.
OR
2) Click on ‘edit layout’ (near the upper right corner), change the following dropdowns to ‘No Pages’
‘Random Images’ (in 2 places)
‘My friends’ recent images’
‘Recent public member images’
‘Recent public association images’
Lastly, click on ‘Save Layout’
Like the first option, this will also remember your settings the next time you login.
OR
3) Delete your free-association account (’Delete my Membership’ in your profile) and create a new account.
I am sorry for the problem, we just had the bad luck that this just happened when the discussion group was going live. If it makes anyone feel any better though, the users of the site who also did not like having random images were in the overwhelming majority. It was the usual problems when any piece of software is updated.
Andrea and I will also be reviewing options for alternate sites in case she decides to move it. If anyone needs any help just leave a comment here and I will see it.
Thanks, kara. I hope it will work out eventually
I hope it will too. They continue to go through growing pains, so anyone following my instructions should modify them to whatever makes sense at the time. For example, today they added another place where the images could potentially crop up so option #2 now has 3 drop-downs for ‘Random Images’.
What would people think if I were to create a Yahoo Groups instead? That would have the advantage that people who prefer to interact via email can do so, but people who prefer to work through the web can do that too — though things wouldn’t be organized by thread as neatly.
Or, has anyone checked out free-association since they turned off the default random images? The problem is now mostly solved except for the few people who signed up during the 26 hours that random image was there, and Kara has described how to turn that off.
Thanks.