#5 Create state-of-art discussion forum

[Steve Narmontas]

Manhattan has a number of discussion modules, each of
differ in who can post messages, and who can see those
messages. However these modules do not provide the
fine-grained level of control that a few faculty have
asked for.

This project creates a new “Forums” module that:

o Allows the teacher to create an unlimited number of
sub-forums, such as forums named “Week 1 discussion”,
“Week 2 discussion”, “Discussion regarding the final
project”, etc.

o For each forum, the teacher gets fine-grained
control, such as:

- Whether or not the forum is active, archived, or hidden.

- Who can read messages?

- Who can write messages?

- Who are the moderators (who can hide/delete messages
written by others?)

- Can messages be posted anonymously?

- And more…

If implemented, this forums module could be used as a
multipurpose all-in-one forum module that, depending on
how the options are set, can take the place of the
current Class Discussion, Student Lounge, Team
Discussion, Team/Teacher Discussion, and Anonymous
Discussion modules. These older modules would be
retained, however, since it is expected that many
faculty will prefer them due to their simplicity.