We’re trying out a new feature of our forum software. We are adding multi-user editable documents. It’s like a Wiki where everyone who views a file can edit the file. You will find this feature in the Blackberry subcommunity. If it works out for Blackberry information, we will expand Documents to all of our subcommunities.
What are documents for?
These are informational files created by Sprint or by you. They are not the same as forum posts – that’s where you ask questions and engage in discussions. They are not the same as blog posts – that’s where Sprint tells you about interesting information. Documents are designed to allow you, to create a source of information for a specific topic.
Documents should be authoritative, informational and neutral in tone – like an encyclopedia article. Provide links to source materials if you are referencing someone else’s work. Documents are not to be used to ask a question, post an opinion, or engage in debate. That’s what the forums are for. Documents should be well written. Please use spell check on your document. For everyone’s benefit make sure your document is cleanly formatted and professional. This is visible to hundreds of thousands of visitors every month.
How do I use documents?
View the Blackberry Smartphone subcommunity. Click on the Documents tab. There are a few documents already created. In the right ‘I Want To’ box there is a ‘Create Document’ link. If you want to start a new topic, click the ‘create a document’ link. Uploading a document is not working right now. You can only edit a new document in place. If you are viewing a document and you want to edit the document, just click the ‘Edit Document’ link from the ‘I Want To’ box on the right. This will create a new version of the document. You can save, preview and publish the document. Depending on the collaboration settings, your changes may become public immediately, or there may be an approval needed before your changes go public.
If you are the original document owner, you have a few other options. You can click the ‘Collaboration Options’ link at the bottom of the document. A full review of the options for collaboration is in the Jive Support page for Collaboration.
Once documents have been edited by various people, you will have versions you can manage – again, see the Jive Support page for Revisions – scroll down a bit to see item #6.
If you have questions, just post in the Community Feedback thread for Document Questions.
