Jose, everything you want for a discussion plratform and more was aavaiable in the EIES system from 1975 to around 1995. See the network nation book by hiltz and turoff, for a complete description. The only product today able to do all this is the system many universities use for teaching on line courses which was built by a consortium of those universities, but it does not have a simple interface and a lot of overhead to handle administration processes for faculty and students. some message system software is modifiable and professionals have modified it to create special functions such as voting on how good a comment is when people are asking others to solve problems what you are talking about would be further improved if followed the principles of the Delphi method for example, allowing anonymous or pen name input. see the first two chapters of the delphi method book free on my website by linstone and turoff. http://is.njit.edu/turoff Message: 1 Date: Sun, 25 Sep 2016 12:24:13 +1000 From: Josie Anne Reade <j.reade@student.unimelb.edu.au> To: "air-l@listserv.aoir.org" <air-l@listserv.aoir.org> Subject: [Air-L] Discussion platform suggestions? Message-ID: <D3A9A953-E42D-41C2-B6F4-576A197FC002@student.unimelb.edu.au> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Hi all, I am wondering if anyone on this mailing list is able to suggest a third party discussion platform that meets the below criteria. FUNTIONALITY: Allow group members to create a new post, comment on existing posts, add photos and videos/voice recordings. Allow administrators to perform all group member functions as well as approve and/or delete group members posts when necessary. ACCESSIBILITY: Accessible on a range of devices such as desktops, tablet computers and smartphones (Android and iOS operating systems). Easy to navigate user interface. PRIVACY: Discussion needs to remain private and only visible to group members via log in. Group members must be able to either create their own username or be assigned a username, without it having to be their full name or connected to any of their existing social media profiles (hence even though a secret Facebook group would be convenient and easy to use for participants, it is not suitable as group members are able to see each other’s names). I am a research assistant on a project that seeks to use this method to elicit responses from a cohort of 530 participants and augment the project’s existing use of interviews and workshops. I have looked at Reddit, Muut and Google Groups but they don’t seem to quite tick all of the boxes. Also in conversation with EthOS. Any suggestions or tips welcome. Thank you in advance! Josie -- *please send messages to murray.turoff@gmail.com <murray.turoff@gmail.com> do not use @njit.edu <http://njit.edu> addressDistinguished Professor EmeritusInformation Systems, NJIThomepage: http://is.njit.edu/turoff <http://is.njit.edu/turoff>*