Caucus
Conference Organizer
"How To"
Last revised: 4 April 1996
1. Introduction
This "How To" guide describes the details of how a Caucus conference organizer administers a conference. For more general information about the whys of conference management, see the companion Guide for Conference Organizers.
Note that Caucus has both a World Wide Web interface, and a "text" or command line interface. The instructions in this guide usually refer to the Web interface, although instructions for the text interface are shown in parenthesis at the end of each section.
When the Caucus administrator creates a conference, he or she also assigns someone to be the primary organizer -- the person in charge of the conference. Caucus gives this person special abilities.
The primary organizer may in turn give other people these special abilities in order to share the power and responsibility of managing the conference.
2. Starting a Conference
To create a new Caucus conference you (or the Caucus administrator for your site) must run a companion program called cv2start. Login to the "caucus" userid on the Caucus server host, and type "cv2start". The program will ask several questions about the new conference. These include:
* what is the name of the conference?
* what is the userid of the primary organizer?
* should this conference be open to everyone?
* permit this conference like another one?
* make this conference LISTED or UNLISTED?
* should this be a CONFERENCE or a LIBRARY?
* who are the other organizers (if any)?
* which groups should be allowed to use this conference (if any)?
Once you have answered all the questions, you also are given the opportunity to edit the conference user list that controls who may join the conference.
Conference names may be up to 20 characters long but cannot contain any blanks. You may use underscores to link words, as in "MY_CONFERENCE". (Conferences may not be named CHECK, HELP, STOP, or LIST, because these are key commands for the text interface.)
The "CONFERENCE or LIBRARY" question determines the type of the conference. A CONFERENCE is a traditional discussion conference with items and responses. A LIBRARY is a conference that is organized as a file library. File libraries are not currently available for use with the Web interface to Caucus.
Cv2start creates an empty conference with no items, no participants, and a default INTRODUCTION and GREETING. (These terms are defined below.) The organizer should join the new conference as soon as is convenient to prepare the conference for its participants.
3. Customizing a Conference
Caucus gives the organizer of a conference special abilities to assist with setting up and maintaining a conference. Many of these abilities, such as controlling who can join a conference, are provided by the customize link in the conference home page (or the CUSTOMIZE command in the text interface.) Only the organizer can use this feature.
Pressing the customize link brings up a form (a page with various check boxes and text boxes) that the organizer uses to modify the conference. This form includes boxes for:
* "Allow users to add new items?" This lets the organizer control whether or not members can add new items to the conference. Checked (or "yes") is the default value and means anyone can add an item. Cleared (or "no") means only the organizer can add new items. ("Customize ADD" in the text interface.)
* "Allow users to edit their own responses?" lets the organizer control whether or not participants can change the text of their own items or responses. Checked (or "yes") is the default value and means anyone can change an item or response that they entered. Cleared (or "no") means only the organizer can change items or responses. ("Customize CHANGE" in the text interface.)
* "Make the conference visible to non-members?" controls whether your conference is "listed" or "unlisted". If your conference is listed, its name will appear with the other visible conferences on the Caucus Welcome Page. If your conference is unlisted, its name will not appear unless the user is already a member of the conference, or can become a member of the conference. ("Customize VISIBILITY" in the text interface.)
* "Edit the userlist..." lets the organizer control who may join the conference. A conference is created with an initial user list; typically one that allows anyone to join the conference. The organizer can edit this list to specifically include people, exclude people, permit read-only members, or add other organizers to the conference.
The user list has a special format which must be followed precisely. Each line in the list contains only one word, either a userid, a group file name, or a control word. The control words are :include, :exclude, :readonly, and :organizer. The control words affect the userids or group files immediately following them until the next control word or the end of the list is reached. Here is a simple example:
:include harpo chico :readonly zeppo :organizer grouchoThe userids "harpo", "chico", "zeppo", and "groucho" are included in this conference. This means that they may join the conference. No one else is allowed to join the conference unless the organizer adds their name to the list. Zeppo can only read the material in the conference. Harpo and chico can both read the material and add their own items and responses. Groucho can do anything that the primary organizer can do.
The user list Caucus displays is numbered in paragraphs and subparagraphs. Caucus numbers this list automatically. The subparagraph number is always 0 for "organizer", 1 for "include", 2 for "readonly", 3 is "exclude". For example if you type in the above user list, the next time you click on the customize link you will see:
:1.1 include harpo chico :1.2 readonly zeppo :2.0 organizer groucho
A userid in the user list may contain a terminating asterisk(*) as a wild card. A wild card can replace entering a long list of individual userids. For example:
:include smith csc* :exclude csc101means that userid "smith" and any userid starting with the letters "csc" may join the conference. The only exception is userid "csc101" who is specifically excluded from joining the conference.
The third kind of word that may be placed in a conference user list is a group file name. A group file is just a file that contains a list of userids. (See section 4 for more information about group files.) To use a group file in a user list, preface the name of the group file with the character "<". For example:
:include <faculty :readonly <studentsmeans that all userids in the group file "faculty" may join this conference, but userids in the group file "students" may only read this conference.
(The equivalent command in the text interface is "Customize USERLIST". It starts a text editor with the contents of the userlist.)
* "Edit the HTML text of the greeting..." lets the organizer edit the text of the greeting that appears each time a person joins the conference. Note that the greeting can include HTML and CML ("Caucus Markup Language") text. ("Customize GREETING" in the text interface.)
* "Edit the HTML text of the introduction" lets the organizer edit the text of the conference introduction. This is the text that appears the first time a person tries to join the conference. The introduction should briefly describe the purpose and content of the conference, and who should join it. ("Customize INTRODUCTION" in the text interface.)
When many people are using Caucus on your computer system, you may find that they fall into distinct groups. For example, at a university you will have students, faculty, administrators, support personnel, and so on. These groups may in turn be divided into sub-groups: engineering faculty, liberal arts faculty, law faculty, etc.
Caucus can help you use these groupings to better control who has access to a conference. That is the purpose of the Caucus "group files". A group file is an ordinary text file that contains a list of userids, one per line. Users listed in a group file are members of that group. The name of the group is the name of the group file.
Group files are useful when a specific group of people need access to several conferences. Without group files, the organizer of each conference would have to edit the user list for that conference and add the userid of each member of the group. With group files, each organizer need add only one line to their user list: a "<" followed by the name of the group.
Group files are created and edited by the Caucus administrator (or anyone who can login as the Caucus administrator). All group files must be contained in the directory called GROUPS under the main Caucus directory.
Each line of a group file must contain either a single userid, a wildcard match, or a reference to another group file. A wildcard match must end with an asterisk ("*"). The wildcard match "xyz*", for example, means "any userid that begins with the letters 'xyz'." The third case, a reference to another group file, consists of a "<" followed immediately by the name of a group file. The contents of that file are included as though they were part of the original group file.
This last feature means that you can mimic the groupings and sub-groupings of your organization with Caucus group files. To continue the university example, the Caucus administrator might create a group file called faculty, which contains the lines:
<faculty.eng <faculty.lib <faculty.lawThe group files faculty.eng, faculty.lib, and faculty.law contain the userids for the faculty members in engineering, liberal arts, and law. Or those groups could be subdivided further. For example, faculty.eng might contain:
<faculty.mec <faculty.eeThese in turn would contain the userids for the mechanical and electrical engineering departments.
Group files may reference other group files, "nesting" indefinitely without limit. Be careful to keep your group files arranged in a hierarchy and not allow any loops. That is, if group file a contains "<b", then group file b must not contain "<a".
5. Other Functions of the Organizer
The primary responsibility of an organizer is to keep the conference running smoothly. The conference participants expect the organizer to answer questions, monitor the progress of the conference, assist in any communications difficulties, and in general help keep the conference well structured.
As organizer, you may want to structure the first few items of the conference. For example, Item 1 could explain the intents and purposes of the conference, Item 2 could be a place to discuss questions about Caucus, and Item 3 could be reserved for special bulletins or other timely announcements, such as "Class registration begins tomorrow, June 17, at 8:30 am".
The organizer also has the ability to change the text of any item or response in the conference, regardless of who entered it. This ability, however, should be used sparingly. A typical example would be helping a user make the text of his or her item more readable. If an interpersonal problem occurs in a discussion on the conference, as organizer you can intervene or even censor parts of the discussion. Fortunately, such problems are rare.
To change the text of an item or response, simply click on the edit button next to that text. Normally this button only appears next to responses that you wrote; but since you are an organizer, it appears next to all items and responses. (Text interface users can CHANGE ITEM or CHANGE RESPONSE.)
If your computer system hosts many different conferences with several organizers, you may want to start a conference specifically for organizers. This is a good way to share information and ideas about how to best set up and maintain a conference.