Inputting and Developing an Idea

 

Ideas Input

 

There are three ways to input Ideas (1) the simplest way is to suggest the outline of an idea in the ‘New Topics’ Discussion Forum to see what ideas and support you get (2) write a one or two page overview as an Ideas Blog entry (3) upload a document with an idea you have written offline. These methods are described below.

‘New Topics’ Discussion Forum

 

Ideas Blogs and Ideas Documents are for when you are ready to start the formal process of putting forward an Idea for comment. If however you just want to sound out support for whether to go ahead and start developing an idea properly and just give the general idea a bit of an airing and get it off your chest, then you should use the ‘Ideas Support’ forum.

This forum can also be used to announce when you have created an’ Ideas blog’ or 'Ideas Document' for others to go and look at or for any general chat about ideas as opposed to formal comment on ideas.
 

Ideas Blog


If you have a reasonably well-formed idea and can write a 1-2 page overview of the idea then the ‘Ideas blog’ is the place to publish it to get formal comment on it. Just click on the Ideas heading in the main navigation bar. This will take you into the Ideas section. Here you will see the ‘Ideas Blog’ button in the menu. Just hit this and you will be presented with a menu, then select the 'Create Ideas Blog' entry. A form will appear to give your Idea a title and to categorise it and then to describe it.

You will see there is an option to put it in as a draft first (under the Status box) so you can partly develop it without anyone else viewing it and come back to finish it off before publishing it.
Once you do publish it, please indicate whether the Idea is an ‘Embryonic Idea’; or is an overview of what you see as a formal proposal. Just include this as part of the Title e.g. Idea on xyz – Embryonic.

Ideas Documents

 

At any point you may find it more convenient to create a document using your own word processor, use the 'save as pdf' facility in your word processor and then upload this in the Probably42 documents section (select Ideas in the navigation tab).

Using a separate Ideas document also gives you much more control of formatting.

Afterwards you may want to create a blog entry that summarises it and provides a link to the document. Note, to obtain the link to put in the Ideas blog, simply view the document once uploaded, copy the url displayed, use the link facility in the blog formatting bar and then paste in the url.

It is also a requirement that any completed idea is published as an Idea Document before it can be considered for any of the Top 10 categories.


Before you input your first idea

 

If you haven’t already, we do suggest you take a look at some of the existing ideas to get a flavour of how ideas are best described.

A key attribute of the site is that we offer Helpful Guidelines for putting forward and structuring ideas that tries to ensure any proposition brings out not just the positives but the contra arguments and then in full knowledge of the pros and cons presents the rationale for the course of action being proposed.

It is important to adhere to the neutrality and independence of the ideas on the network i.e. the objective is well thought out, and well argued, ideas that stand up in their own right, not on vested interests, partisan positions etc.
 

The Comment Cycle

 

Once you publish an idea any registered Member of Probably42 can comment (general visitors to the site can’t).

There is also a facility to reply to comments which you or any member can use.

Members can also ‘Subscribe’ to an ‘Ideas blog’ (left hand menu when viewing the blog) so that they get alerted to any changes you make or any comment activity going on.

As a result of comments received you may want to modify or develop your original idea further. For minor amendments you can edit the entry in situ. For significant amendments which make it a new version please re-issue it as a new blog entry, with a new version number in the title, and add a Comment to the old blog entry to say it has been re-issued. Similarly if using Ideas Documents, use the edit facility and within this upload a new version of the document (saved as a pdf).