Groups: how to discuss indiv. items [solved]

Having studied documentation and forums without (as yet) coming across a relevant lead, and before submitting a posibly spurious feature request, I wonder whether anybody else has encountered the following Groups scenario (and if yes, whether a solution was found):

We are a group of historians collecting audio sources via Zotero. Ideally, one would, in this context, like to have a separate discussion thread for each record in the database, directly accessible from the item itself, to facilitate group discussion and work with that particular source over time.

Clearly, any group member could post notes etc, but without ongoing commentary in a discussion thread this would become intransparent very quickly.

Is there anything in Zotero that would currently support such work, short of creating different threads in the group's discussion board (which would not be practical for more than a handful of items)?

Matt
  • edited August 1, 2010
    short of creating different threads in the group's discussion board (which would not be practical for more than a handful of items)?
    this and notes would have been my suggestions. I see the limits of notes, but could you elaborate why this wouldn't be practical in the group discussion board and what might make it so? I don't see a "discussion" tab or so happening within the Zotero interface, so this really should take place on the web in some way.
  • Notes are definitely way too limited ATM. At minimum, you need to be able to see quickly who authors a note. But to really make it worthwhile, you probably need to add the ability to reply to notes, and so to set up threading. Am not sure this is a good road to go down or not, but it's what would be need to set up proper discussions in groups.
  • edited August 1, 2010
    Adam thanks for this prompt, which led me come up with the following solution:

    Create a discussion thread, then link to it from the Zotero item via Add attachment - Add link to current page.
  • ah yes - that's clever.
  • Making this type of discussion was one of the desirable features we talked about when first implementing group discussions (and its nice to see that the use case we were thinking of is exactly what some people are looking for). A more streamlined process for both a discussion thread for individual items, and citing/linking zotero items in group discussions is something we want to implement, but I'm not sure when we'll get to it yet.
  • LibraryThing might be an interesting model for a lightweight way to link Zotero items to group discussions. You can link items, which then show up as 'touchstones'. Here's an example:
    http://www.librarything.com/topic/94037
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