Threaded, Moderated Message Board

Rather than just relying on one of the one-size-fits-all free solutions, Gumbo includes our custom-developed Forum software. A powerful, multi-threaded message board with full moderation facilities, totally integrated into the rest of your website.

• Simple Interface

  We weren't interested in building a message board for a bunch of students already familiar with the internet to use, we wanted to build one that was easily accessible to everyone. So we designed our message board to be suitable for all levels of IT literacy.

• Flexible Threaded System

  Our flexible threading system makes it easy to keep topics 'on-topic', whilst preserving tangents and finer analysis of key points. Moderators can easily move posts in and out of threads to help keep the discussion on track, and avoid cluttering up topics with tangential arguments.

• Personalised Topic Rating

  Members can flag individual topics to ignore ones they have no interest in, and prioritise those that catch their eye.

• Total Sitewide Integration

  Because our Message Board is custom-written, we were able to tightly integrate it into the rest of the website.

  So forum topics can be individually connected to Issues and Campaigns.
  Individual member profiles list statistics about forums.
  Clubs and Societies automatically get an individual forum
  Sabbaticals automatically have full moderating privileges on the forums for the duration of their terms of office.

  And much more besides.

• 'Recent Topics' page

  A personalised page that lists topics that have had posts since you last logged in, available to all members.

  Recent Topics makes it easy for students to cut through the clutter of a forum, and see what's changed since they last logged on.

• Powerful Moderation Tools

  Appointing forum moderators is easy through the Site Administration interface. You can create as many moderators as you like, and key personnel like Sabbatical reps can automatically have global privileges to moderate all message boards.

  Moderators can edit and remove posts, change the title and audience setting of topics, move topics from one forum to another, move individual posts in and out of threads, pin topics to the top of forums to make them more visible, close topics or remove them from view, and link topics to specific campaigns or issues.

  Moderators can be appointed on a forum by forum basis, so you can spread the workload across several different people to make sure that everywhere is covered.

  To help with training, the system also includes a Moderators Guide which is available online to all appointed moderators. This includes a number of hints, tips and techniques for effective moderation, all of which have been specifically developed to meet the needs of a student community.

• Printable View for Moderators

  Each topic has a print button, available to moderators, that lets you see all of the sub-threads and posts in a neat, easily printable format.

• Powerful Search

  A full-powered forum search allows members to quickly scan the archives, looking for posts by certain members, at certain times, in certain forums and so on.

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