Tonight I received the following from a friend who makes his living doing computer conferencing. He said: ] Hi Joan, good to hear from you! ] ] I spend most of my time on two Motet conferencing systems: ] ] Cafe Utne http://www.utne.com/cafe ] ] NCO Web Cafe http://nco.northfield.mn.us ] ] I run Cafe Utne and am on the steering committee for NCO. Motet ] was built for the web and works fine with text-based Lynx but no ] menu/command text modes. ] ] The best resource for all web-based conferencing systems is David ] Woolley. See his home page at: ] ] http://freenet.msp.mn.us/people/drwool/ ] ] The freenet server seems to be down tonight, but check on Monday.

I looked quickly at the entry pages for the Motet systems, but did not yet register: http://www.utne.com/cafe About Caf� Utne: We use Motet, a state-of-the-art software platform designed from the ground up for Web conferencing. By "conferencing" we mean group discussion forums, similar to Usenet Newsgroups. Motet uses a structure that's more conducive to group conversation. It has features that make it easier to manage multiple discussions on multiple topics, including the ability to filter out topics and people! It's far different than an Internet mailing list or USENET Newsgroup. Caf� Utne is free. All that's required is that you complete a registration form. You must have a forms-capable Web browser in order to use Motet. We do NOT currently have real-time chat capabilities.

http://nco.northfield.mn.us Enter the Cafe here if you're already registered. Register here to receive your user ID and password. We want the NCO Web Cafe to be a safe, friendly place to discuss issues and concerns of particular relevance to Northfielders. We encourage dialog and debate, and know that it will sometimes become heated. Please use your best judgement in dealing with others online. If you'd like more specific guidelines, check out our Netiquette guide. We use Motet, a state-of-the-art software platform designed from the ground up for Web conferencing. By "conferencing" we mean group discussion forums, similar to Usenet Newsgroups. Motet uses a structure that's more conducive to group conversation. The Cafe is open all day and all night, but it's not a real-time chat facility. People visit at their convenience, read the conversations of interest to them since they last visited, and add messages of their own as they move from conference room to conference room, topic to topic. Here's a more detailed way to view the Cafe, using the metaphor of a real Cafe. Cafe Entrance You use your key to open the door to the Cafe and walk in (by signing on with UserID and password). The Main Page You walk into a big room at the center of the Cafe called the Main Page. Here's where you get a cup of coffee and get your bearings every time you visit. It's an area you can return to anytime while you roam the many discussion rooms ("conferences"). The Main Page is where you can: - Check the Conference Directory (list of all conferences) - Check/edit your Conference Hotlist (conferences you want to read) - Visit the Motet Help area - Edit your online biography - Edit your bozo list (people whose postings you choose not to see) - Change your password - Find other users - Go to a specific conference by typing in a name - Go to your first conference with new postings Conference Directory If you check the Conference Directory by clicking the "List all Conferences" button, you'll notice that the Cafe has many different discussion rooms ("conferences"), each with a name and description on the door to indicate the broad subject area. Enter a Conference You pick a conference room with a name that interests you and walk in. Each conference has its own central area called the Conference Home Page. A conference can have an unlimited number of topics. (A topic is like a wall with a bulletin board on it, with a one-line description at the top.) For example, the BridgeSquare conference had these topics on July 19: Topic #1. Sign in Topic #2. What's up with you today? This week? Topic #3. Summer, 1996 - Community/civic happenings Topic #4. Defeat of Jesse James Days - pros and cons Topic #5. Suggestions for new conferences in the Cafe Topic #6. Movies Each of these bulletin boards (conference topics) can hold an unlimited number of yellow post-it notes (postings)--messages placed by you and other Cafe visitors in chronological order. The Cafe can have any number of conferences and any number of topics: Conference A Topic #1. Posting #1, Posting #2, Posting #3, #4, #5, etc. Topic #2. Posting #1, Posting #2, Posting #3, #4, #5, etc. Topic #3. Posting #1, Posting #2, Posting #3, #4, #5, etc. Etc. Conference B Topic #1. Posting #1, Posting #2, Posting #3, #4, #5, etc. Topic #2. Posting #1, Posting #2, Posting #3, #4, #5, etc. Topic #3. Posting #1, Posting #2, Posting #3, #4, #5, etc. Etc. Conference C Conference D Conference E Conference F Etc. Postings Everyone's messages ("postings") are automatically stamped with the name and UserID of the author, the date and time of posting, and the number of lines of the posting. Usually you compose your posting to a topic while you are in the conference, typing online in the textbox. However, you can also compose it with your favorite word processor, then copy and paste it into the textbox. So, get in there and join the discussion! The Web Cafe is free. All that's required is that you complete a registration form. You must have a forms-capable Web browser in order to use Motet. We do not currently have real-time chat capabilities.

Motet is a good solution. I wonder what the current cost is for Motet?

Perhaps we could set it up on access.spring.com if it is within our budget.

] Motet is a good solution. Maybe - but let's check things out a bit before leaping into anything - one "strike" that it has against it is that it requires a frames-capable browser. This will leave people out. At this point I don't know what, if anything, it does about threading or linking - does anyone else? I would guess that it is probably not super-costly, or Northfield Community Online would not be able to afford it. (Unless they give price breaks to govt., education, non-profits, etc.) There may be other worthwhile options on David Woolley's page, too - but the msp freenet server still appears to be down.

My error! Forms, not frames! More from Griff... ] Nope, frames are not required. Only browsers that can handle FORMS. ] ]]] The freenet server seems to be down tonight, but check on Monday. ]] ]] Thanks - I will - do they have links to places where the systems can ]] be experienced in action? ] ] Yes. Their server may not be back up till Tues or Wed I'm told. ] ]]I meant to ask whether Motet permits attaching (or linking) of responses ]] to specific postings left by others or whether it is Caucus-like in that ]] you can only add a response to the end of the line. ] ] The posts get put at the end of the line like Caucus. But you can ] hotlink to posting 67 in the same topic, [post:politics.5.45-89] would ] be a link to posts 45-89, topic 5 of the Politics conf, etc.

Dang! Last paragraph got clobbered - had pointy brackets in the text: ] The posts get put at the end of the line like Caucus. But you can ] embed a link in the post to a previous post, or any posts/series of ] posts/topics in the entire conferecing system, eg [post:67] would be a ] hotlink to posting 67 in the same topic, [post:politics.5.45-89] would ] be a link to posts 45-89, topic 5 of the Politics conf, etc.

Last night I went over to the Northfield (MN) Cafe - which runs on Motet, and ran through the tutorial and the other help files, and I thought that I sent folks both the main Motet info page, and a follow up regarding something I found in the Northfield tutorial - but I can not find this in my sent mail folder, so I am not sure whether it went or not. The thing that I found (and quoted) was a section that said that though links were possible, html was not - and they gave a bunch of rationale about why not. After sleeping on it, though, I am wondering whether html might be an option in Moted that the Northfield people opted not to implement. Am going to try to find out about this - the interface (in the demo) was very nice and had some neat options - such as being able to "hide" a response that is very long, for example, so that people who were not interested did not have to wait for it to transfer, but they can elect to see it if they choose to. The main Motet page (by the publisher) is at: http://www.sonic.net/~foggy/motet/ And another option called "Focus" that advertises itself as being threaded is at: http://www.ukweb.com/focus/focus.html

Joan, you're welcome to install an evaluation copy of Motet on access.spring.com This machine is our testing ground for new software and a aplace to run disk intensive applications that are too big for barton.spring.com or www.spring.com.