Newbie's dashboard

ok - looks like it's back to the old cut and pasting again...
thanks for all your help and comments

David, wow, a whole hour? I participated in one of the online conf calls in early March. (Also about an hour.) We were told that some exciting things were being developed and were to be released 'soon'. I convinced people here to pay for the nice PB license based on the many 1.0 wikis that we had and now I'm feeling the pressure since the easiest part of group teacher training is gone (invite key).

I don't assume that it's an easy thing to fix, but there has been months of feedback and PB needs to make any change they are going to make or stick with the decisions already made so we can choke on our money and find the other alternatives we need.

While we're working on this, I'd be nice if account login could set different notifications for different wikis. I'd rather hear from some once a day and others immediately. It's a pain, but not a deal-breaker.

I use my PB's and enjoy the simplicity of use. I have 4th graders tearing through pages and adding media content easily. There are so many good things about PB. But if it's a pain to get teachers trained in large groups, I will have to go elsewhere. There are so many other alternatives.

Thank you for the update. I realize this is a difficult problem to solve and would like to say that I appreciate the effort PBWiki is putting into finding the right solution. – Carolyn, 4 days ago

Hi! A couple of people have asked why we didn't just put invite keys into 2.0. After all "the code exists", right?

The issue is that 1.0 had a lot of very different ways to get into a wiki. The login page itself became very confusing (are you logging in with an invite key? Or a user account?) and we couldn't make guarantees about exactly who had done exactly what on the wiki. This generated a lot of support requests and it just wasn't a good, simple, "peanut buttery" solution. We tried several different iterations of login screen to see if we could message the dual systems more clearly, but this generally didn't pan out.

When designing 2.0 the team therefore made a decision to first have a unified and simplified login system that just asks for a username and a password. We recognized that this wouldn't solve the needs of everyone in 1.0 and that therefore we'd need to put some time into thinking about ways we could have our cake and eat it too to get to a place where we had a system effective for educators.

I appreciate the intensity on this thread. It's quite clear from the volume and passion that you want the 2.0 features and a mechanism to get students in that's as straightforward as an invite key. Some very specific and very helpful suggestions have been put forth on this thread that we'll be taking into account.

Just so you guys know, this is one of the very top issues at the company - all of the company managers got together for over an hour today (with this GS thread on the projector) to discuss how we were going to resolve this. We are determined to get you a timely solution that meets your needs.

Our apologies for the bumps along the way as we grow and work to provide you with the best wiki solution ever. Thank you for your patience.

I am using IE7 and have just recently upgraded to version 2. I have not been able to hide anything using inserts into the google gadget in the sidebar. Ihave been following all the forums and so forth, but this seems to be a problem.

Did it work for you before today? Are you using Internet Explorer? – Guy Fawkes, 6 days ago

As of today (may 7) the hide recent activity listed above does not work. I also want to hide the "folders" section above it in order to make the interface cleaner. Any suggestions?

I agree. I just did a workshop with 150 teachers and there would have been no way and no time to have them all create accounts in the time I had so I was limited to 1.0. I like the features in 2.0 but am now looking for other options to use in trainings and presentations with educators. I think it's time to move on to a new application. I told the teachers about the problem and suggested that they need to explore other options as almost all of them told me that creating individual student accounts was not an option for them. – Dan, 6 days ago

Hi Judy, I'll check in with the engineering team and see what I can find out today. In the meantime, would it work to create a 1.0 wiki (which still uses invite keys)? – Rachel Pennig, 6 days ago

Hi Anne-Marie. Let me check in with our engineering team and see what I can find out today. Thanks for your patience. – Rachel Pennig, 6 days ago

The invite key was part of 1.0. The code exists. I'm failing to see why it is so hard to just put it back in 2.0 or to come up with something that will let us revert our 2.0 PBwikis to 1.0.

I just got an announcement for other new features for educational PBwiki 2.0. While I can now annotate and keep track of references, that is all very nice but if my students can't get in to use the system b/c there is no invite key to give them, how on earth does this update help?

I'd much rather see you fix the missing features from the move between 1.0 to 2.0 then to spend time on new features I've never used before and have therefore successfully lived without.

Five days ago they said they are working on the "request access" feature that we've "been asking for", in response to this situation. When I pointed out that making users "request access" was just as bad as the current setup, they replied that they "have other solutions that will be implemented as this develops that should meet the needs as described above". Given the current progress on this issue (none), I would begin researching alternatives if you have pressing needs for open wikis in the near future.

I agree with Anne-Marie. Where are we on the invite key/password issue? I am conducting 2 workshops for teachers in July and August. I was planning on using pbwiki since I am a big fan- BUT if the password/invite key format is not resolved I will use a different wiki. pbwiki worked great for teachers and students when we used a password. PLEASE bring this format back.

Is there any update on this issue?

I can continue using my 1.0 wiki...but that doesn't help all the teachers out there (some in my district) who thought that "page level access" in 2.0 was what they wanted. So they've wasted time--and sometimes money--creating 2.0 wikis that require e-mail addresses for log-ins. If PBwiki doesn't move on this issue soon, you're just going to lose the educators to different wiki services. I also have a lovely platinum 2.0 wiki...that is COMPLETELY useless for my primary school kids. – Anne-Marie, 7 days ago

The "Request Access" feature is just the first step in a larger plan to meet the needs of our users. We have other solutions that will be implemented as this develops that should meet the needs as described above. – Rachel Pennig, 11 days ago

That's nice, but if users have to *request* access, then that means someone has to *grant* access, and that's just as bad. I can't recall a single post here at GS where anyone let you know that this was a desired feature, so perhaps you're receiving those requests privately. – Guy Fawkes, 11 days ago

Hi Jill - completely understandable- you need to get work done! I just wanted to let you know we are working on it, so I hope you come back and try PBwiki in the future! – Rachel Pennig, 11 days ago

I hate to bring up their competitors on their own wiki, but I guess that's the nature of the beast. I'm going to editme.com.

Rachel, thanks, but as you know that's only one piece of the puzzle, and is under construction but not available now.

Good news! A request access feature is under construction for PBwiki 2.0. Thanks for letting us know you wanted this!