Sat
25 Jun
16:50
Info for leavers
We've had a few emails from people who are finishing at Warwick, wanting to know what will happen to their blog. Just so everyone knows, here's the deal:-
- We won't unilaterally delete anyone's blog at all, either now or in the future. You don't need to contact us to ask us not to delete your blog, because we aren't going to.
- If you do want us to delete your blog now that you're leaving Warwick, send an email to blogs@warwick.ac.uk with the name and URL of your blog and we'll remove it.
- While the content of your blog will persist indefinitely unless you tell us otherwise, at some point your usercode and password will expire, and then you won't be able to log in to create new entries or edit your blog. Your blog will effectively become a read-only record of your time at Warwick.
- If you want to carry on using your blog after you leave, you need to join WGA. Once you've done this, we'll make you a new usercode and password to sign in to your blog with. You should be emailed a new username and password in good time before your old one expires, but if you find that you can't sign in at some point in the future, don't panic; your blog is quite safe and we just need to give you new credentials to carry on using it. Drop us an email at blogs@warwick.ac.uk, optionally berating us for our stupidity in not telling you your new username before your old one expired, and we'll sort it out for you.
Good luck with whatever comes next for you all.
John Dale
25 Jun 2005 16:50
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6 comments by 2 or more people
[Skip to the latest comment]I assume you'll restrict commenting on these read-only blogs at the same time? Not good to have a commentable blog that can't be administered…
02 Jul 2005, 18:05
For those of us who've joined the WGA, will there be an option to change the email address that comment notifications get sent to?
Also, what will happen to the Staff/Students category? Will it become Staff / Students / Alumni?
02 Jul 2005, 19:09
John Dale
Max, yes that's right; a read-only blog won't be commentable.
Mark, yes, when we make you a new username and password, there'll be an opportunity to specify where you want notifications sending to. In the longer term, we'll probably make this something you can change whenever you want using a web form, but in the short term we'll probably just ask you what email address you want to use.
And the categories will indeed expand to encompass staff, students and alumni.
05 Jul 2005, 12:06
Could you change the way blogs are presented so it's immediately obvious when you're looking at a blog, or is very easy to find out, whether the blog is written by a student or by alumni?
Over the next few years, it could get incredibly messy working out which is which, particularly for people who have chosen to turn their 'about me' pages off. Both sets of users will probably use the system for different types of blogs, and might well want, at certain times, to see only entries written by a certain group. This way, you could have an alumni blog community, a student blog community and a staff blog community co-existing at the same time, with people being able to navigate between them at will, and see blog entries by people they know they have something in common with, or will be interested in.
Perhaps you could have this as an option in the 'read the latest on warwick blogs' page – something similar to the category links on individual blogs down the side, where you can choose to see staff, student or alumni blogs only. This could be useful for freshers as well – I'm sure people just arrived at the Uni would appreciate being able to focus in on a 'fresher' or 'Y1' category so they can see blogs from people in the same situation as them. It would help the development of individual communities – at the moment, the number of posts can make it difficult to find posts you're likely to be interested in.
I know the functionality is there in the 'groups' system at the moment, but it's hardly obvious, and so I don't think many people use it.
Just a few ideas – I'd be interested to know what you think of them!
08 Jul 2005, 16:31
John Dale
Good thinking, James. Some of this is available already; when you read a post, hold your mouse over the little ID card icon next to the author's name at the bottom of the post, and it'll tell you whether the author is a student or a member of staff, and which department they're in. In time, this same icon will also say "Alumnus: School of Law, 2005" so that alumin posts can be distinguished.
And we will also at some point extend the "Read all recent entries" hyperlink on the home page so that it looks more like:-
Recent entries:
Staff | Student | Alumni | All
09 Jul 2005, 15:57
I like the ID card idea – it's very neat! Again, it's kind of obscure – I'd never realised it was there before. It's the kind of thing that would pop up in one of those awful Microsoft 'tip of the day' boxes if BlogBuilder had them, but that you'd never find otherwise without helpful hints from the development team ;)
09 Jul 2005, 19:35
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