The Forest Research Dialogue platform
The Forest Research Dialogue platform can host multiple online dialogues, some of which may be open to all staff, others to invited staff and some to stakeholders from external organisations.
Anyone with the link to a particular dialogue or 'challenge' can look at ideas and comments, but to take part in the conversation you need to register and create a profile.
Registering and creating a profile
You'll need to head over to 'Register', at the top right of the page and create an account.
Alternatively, if you try to submit an idea, comment or rating, you will be prompted to log in to the site and the log-in page also has a link to the registration form. Be sure to enter your email address correctly, as this will be needed to reset your password if you forget it. You can edit your profile and change your password at any time by clicking on your username at the top of the page. This will also show you a list of the ideas and comments you've submitted.
Registration requires a username, your email address and a password. We ask that you add your organisation name before your full name , e.g. Org_Firstname_Lastname (e.g. FR_Elaine_Dick).
Note that usernames, email addresses and passwords are case-sensitive. Usernames can only contain letters, numbers and underscores.
How do I take part?
Once registered you can add new ideas, or comment on and rate existing ideas. We encourage you to look at existing ideas first! You don't have to comment on everything. Look through the ideas and chat about the things that matter to you. Or add your own idea if you feel something is missing.
Submitting an idea
To submit an idea, simply go to the dialogue or challenge you want to participate in, and hit 'Add an Idea'. You'll be able to enter a title for your idea, and then two sections of text - What your idea is, and why it is important. These are entered using a simple text editor.
Here are a few tips on using it:
- Embedding links: To link to another website within your text, highlight the text you want to act as the link, and then click on the 'link' button in the text box toolbar (it looks like a chain link). In the pop-up window that appears, you will need to paste the address of the site you want to link to in the box labelled 'URL'.
- Inserting images: If you want to insert an image into your idea, that image will need to already be on the internet somewhere - you won't be able to upload it directly from your computer (this is to protect against viruses). To add the image to your idea, click on the insert image button on the text editor toolbar - this looks like a blue square - and a pop-up window will appear. You'll then need to paste the address where the image is located online in the box labelled 'URL'. You can also adjust the size of your image by entering numbers (in pixels) in the boxes 'width' and 'height'. To make sure the image fits nicely on the page, we would recommend a maximum of 500 pixels width.
You should note that once you have submitted an idea or comment it can't be edited, so please check your submission carefully before saving.
If you want your idea to be taken down you should contact the site administrator using the contact form in the footer links. Also, if the challenge is pre-moderated, your idea might not appear immediately, as it will need to be approved by a moderator before it appears on the site.
Commenting and rating
If you click on an existing idea, you will see that you have the option to rate the idea or comment on it.
- To make a comment, simply enter your comment in the text box and click 'Add comment'. Be aware that if the site is pre-moderated, your comment will have to be approved by a moderator before it will appear.
- To rate an idea out of 5, click on the appropriate number of stars below the idea. You can click 'remove my rating' at any time to undo this.
What happens to my comments?
Your comments will be published and visible to all users participating in the dialogue. We will moderate ideas and comments and we reserve the right to remove ideas and comments that don’t comply with our moderation policy.
You should also be aware be aware of our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy regarding use of your data.
Searching the site
There is a Search and Filter button on Dialogue - this allows you to search both idea topic and by the text of the idea itself.