Ben added this comment after viewing the recording:
Regarding functionality, communities should have a WYSIWYG toolbar and threads should be nested (i.e., reply to a reply to a reply...). But beyond that, everyone should be able to create a community that links content, individuals, live classes, etc. Teachers should be able to gravitate towards learners and learners should be able to gravitate towards teachers. As Harmon mentioned, everyone is a teacher! I think a teacher-centered approach to community creation is less desirable. If this is the only option however, allow communities to be an extension of teacher profiles. The value of any community is the linking of individuals, content, and classes. Specifically, individual content is of little value unless it becomes a part of an ongoing, live and active discussion that promotes both synchronous and asynchronous communication. The distinction between social and academic communities is valid, but since the goal is to get more learners involved in the discussions, I would leave it up to the creator of the community to decide what's appropriate and what's not. Let the communities emerge then decide what controls are necessary.
end of Ben's comment
Now me again (George)
So, if it desirable to leave the communities as teacher centric and hopefully more in depth (lengthy) postings, I still feel we need a bridging mechanism. I do question the sustainability of such a model as they are simply not posting to the existing "academic" communities. But, here is a compromise I see as viable:
1. If other forms of communities e.g. twitter and facebook, are needed to be a source of non-scholarly viewing and or input, one must be able to link said posting to specific portions within both a long article and/or a specific reply along the thread line. If we can agree that most would not want to read a long article (who are not part of the original discussion) but who would benefit from a specific part. Or, that might be enticed to join the discussion due to another blog's/media topic/subject. I can personally guarantee that most would not bother if they had to sort through all of it to find the pertinent parts.
Only after finding the exact citation, the context of that citation and the general flow of the discussion, would such a third party be inclined to benefit from the reading of the article in it's entirety.
2. Again, if the intent is to be scholarly (= mostly boring except for a few) then a way for non scholarly (non boring) and possibly even irreverent and fun loving (yes, like me) could participate without disrupting the linear flow of the discussion would be desirable. My thoughts about this type of dynamic has been discussed months ago, here:
http://project-management.wiziq.com/topic/153-how-to-popularize-this-community-more
Sorry this is a non hyperlinked referral. It is the second posting therein.
3. Finally, if the existing and future communities are meant to be scholarly and long, then some form of indexing and queries must be developed. It is very hard for non scholarly people like me to find pertinent items within our very small number of postings. Can you imagine what that would be like if we ever did grow into a large store house of scholarly topics and threads?