The village is two separate concepts. It is a piece of software which implements an on-line user experience, and it is a collection of people who carry on discussions in the framework set by the software.

The software is developed and run by Dale Mellor. It is a vehicle which allows him to experiment with and develop original new on-line experiences, to make a richer environment in which deaf and hard-of-hearing people can meet on the internet.

The software is currently in a quite embryonic stage of development. Even so, it provides a loose threaded structure which immediately gives a richer environment than any other forum software, and delivers a performance which makes it useable as a chatroom facility. As users can restrict others activities on their threads, it can also be used as a personal blogging facility.

For more information on the future development of the software, and for ideas how you might contribute, visit Dale's village maintainence depot.

The role of the moderators is simply to ensure that the village is accessible to all members of the family. They are instructed to apply the following rules rigidly:

• Messages containing profane language will be deleted entirely and immediately.
• Users who habitually break the rules will be locked (so they cannot post) or suspended (so they cannot log in) for a period of time

Between them, moderators can edit any message (which includes deleting all the text in that message), may change the title and status of topics (which includes making them read-only), and may change the display name and status of users (which includes suspending them).

However, one moderator cannot complete any of these actions alone. Currently, two moderators must concur to effect a change to a topic or message, and three moderators must concur to effect a change to a user.

The Village is based on a tree-like structure, so as well as postings, topics can contain other topics. Throughout the Village, the terms Topic and Place are used interchangeably. Below is a typical Village page. At the top, area A contains information about the current display mode, the navigation 'path', and also has some action links. Area B contains the sub-topics within this current topic - in the example, the current topic is Debating chamber, and it contains two sub-topics Elections and The constitution. Area C shows the postings within the Debating chamber topic. You can use the Display links to change the sort order of the Topics or Posts, and you can click any of the navigation path links to move quickly around. Click the Village logo image at the top-left corner of the page to return directly to the root topic - the Village Map.

More often than not, you are able to create new topics, post new messages, or reply to existing comments. When a village user creates a topic, however, they are able to define what actions other users are able to perform there. They can choose to make it read-only, for instance. This means that sometimes you will come across a topic that you are not allowed to post in. However, you have complete flexibility with your own posts and topics. Additional buttons will appear alongside your items that allow you to edit them at will, or move them to a different topic altogether.

You can send an E-Mail to another Village user by clicking anywhere you see a link on a user name. There are four such links in area B, above, and a further user link in area C. Village E-Mail is different from the more common 'Private Messaging' facility in other forums as the messages are sent to the external E-Mail address of the recipient. You can choose to expose your own E-Mail address to the recipient so that they can reply to you directly rather than having to return to the Village to do so.

You can get Village content direct to your desktop via either of the two RSS feeds we provide. The addresses are:

If you feel that you now know enough to make a start in The Deaf Village, you can go straight to the Login Page.

If you want to know more about a particular aspect of The Village, you can try of the following:

• The Main Help Page
• The Registration Guide
• The Navigation Guide
• The Posting Guide
• The E-Mail Guide
• The Community Guide
• The Village FAQ