What's a Discussion Item?

A Discussion item is a thought, comment or view published in a Group's discussion section.

Who can read and comment on Discussion Items?

A discussion item cannot be changed by anyone but the owner of the item, but anyone who is a member of the Group can add a Comment.

Comments are attached to the Discussion items in chronological order.

The titles (but not the content) of Discussion Items you create will appear in your profile for anyone to see, as will the fact that you added a comment to a given topic (indicated by a "Comment on [discussion item name]").

Can you edit Comments and Discussions? How's it done?

Yes! Whoever authored the Comment or Discussion Item can edit their own Comment/Item.

To edit a Comment, click on the datestamp of the Comment (it appears on the first line of the comment, directly to the right of the author's name). This will open the comment up in its own page. In the brown nav bar at the top of the page are the edit and delete links to perform the desired action.

To edit a discussion item, please refer to the next section on what the links in the brown Discussion nav bar lead to.

What does the reply link do?

The functionality of the reply link is the exact same as the "add a comment" box at the bottom of the page with one crucial difference:

When you click reply, the entire text of the message you are replying to is pre-populated in the comments box, indented so as to stand out from whatever you type in behind it.

If you only want to quote part of the text, delete everything but that select part.

If, after hitting reply, you decide you don't want to quote any of the text, delete it all and your post will look just as if you'd entered it directly in the "add a comment" box at the bottom of the discussion.

Either way you choose to add a comment (as a reply or not), your words will appear at the bottom of the list, since we have the discussions listed in chronological order of posting.

What are Tags?

Tagging is a way to apply words, or “tags”, to items like comments to make it easier to return to them later. You tag an item by typing a word in the "My Tags" box underneath the item. All the tags you apply to all items on omidyar.net will appear in a list under the "tags" tab on your profile and at “my omidyar.net”/”my tags”. Clicking on a tag will show a list of all the items that you tagged with that word and let you link directly to them. You can also find interesting content by clicking on the tags that others have used - a list appears on the home page of this group.

What are the Tags that appear at the beginning of each item?

These are the tags that omidyar.net members have applied to that particular item. When you click on the tag, you will see a list of items that have had the same tag applied to it. This enables to you to find similar content on omidyar.net.

What do all the links on the brown Discussion bar lead to?

What do the links in a Discussion Item header lead to?

What's this feedback stuff I see?

At the end of each discussion topic, where you add a comment to the discussion, you also have the opportunity to leave feedback to the topic and/or leave feedback to the topic's originator.

Leave feedback to this topic? Here you can use one of your points in your feedback bank to give the topic a higher or lower score (by assigning positive or negative feedback, respectively).

If you feel the topic is one of importance to the rest of the group, you can assign it positive feedback, and the discussion will appear higher in the "highest rated discussions" list for your group.

Conversely, if you feel the discussion is off-topic or inappropriate for your group, you can assign negative feedback and that will push the topic down on the list.

Leave feedback to this topic's originator, NAME? Here you can use one of your points in your feedback bank to give the person who started the topic a higher or lower score (by assigning positive or negative feedback, respectively).

By giving feedback this way, you directly affect the value of the number next to the person's name (their personal feedback score). Positive feedback will push the number up. Negative feedback will push the number down.

For more information about feedback, please see the feedback help page.