This email was sent from LionKimbro to NevaW as part of the GreatTurningWebsiteWork.
Dear Neva,
These are my brief thoughts, from looking at the website, and
surrounding communities, so far:
* The website is great!
- In fact, it's so good, I'm not sure what needs to be changed.
* There's no outlet for Internet people (people who practically
live online) who are excited about The Great Turning, to
engage on The Great Turning website.
POSSIBILITY #1: DIFFUSE CONVERSATION
The second sounds "bad," but perhaps it's not?
Most of the activist community aren't very technical,
and only a subset of it likes to talk online.
One wild possibility, is to just point people who want to talk
about the Great Turning to existing discussions about The Great
Turning in different localities.
http://www.thegreatturning.net/communityInitiatives.php
I suspect these different communities have already established
online communications forums. If you have contacts in the
respective communities, perhaps you could ask them: "To what
list or forum or wiki should we send people, who want to talk
*specifically* about The Great Turning, in your community?"
Then make a note on the "Share Content" page that says,
"If you want to talk about this, we encourage to you do it in
[[your local community,]]" where "your local community"
is linked to the communityInitiatives page.
POSSIBILITY #2: MODERATED MAILING LISTS
Another possibility is to host an open, but *moderated,*
mailing list.
My thinking is as so:
#1: Open-ness promotes authentic conversation.
#2: Moderate.
You're concerned about an open list: That's fair.
Moderation should help alleviate security / safety concerns,
while allowing you to be open.
#3: Distribute moderator rights.
You're overworked -- make several trusted participants
into moderators.
Google Groups has really cool tools for this sort of thing.
Yahoo might as well, I don't know.
#4: Activists know email.
Most of the activists I know, don't know much about
PHPBB forums, wiki, or Drupal. In fact, they really seem
to confuse them. I've seen 20% participation rates,
because 80% just can't seem to figure it out.
E-mail, on the other hand-- everybody knows email.
So, while I prefer the more advanced communications
forms, I have found that at least people can subscribe,
(or be force-subscribed, if they can't figure out the
mechanisms of mailing list subscription) to a mailing list.
A humble technology, but, hey-- what works.
There are a few other possibilities that we can explore,
but this is just for starters.
Back to the website itself-- I honestly think it's fine.
But maintaining it has got to be a lot of work for one person.
Potential long range plan:
1. Build an online presence, an online community.
2. Grow the online tools for the online community,
WITH that very online community.
3. Delegate website controls to the online community.
The question is "how to start?"
My immediate thought: "Mailing list."
This is my first assessment. I'd like to talk about it with you,
either by phone, in person, or by email. I will continue my
research and conversations.
I intend to email you another assessment, in a week, ~2007-09-20.
I DO have a few questions for you:
* What mailing lists exist today? Can I poke through the archives?
* What kinds of conversations would you like to see people having online,
around The Great Turning website? What kinds of questions would
you like to see people asking?
* There are several people posting to the wiki-- where are they coming from?
Where do they usually communicate with each other? Who is reading their
wiki posts?
* I heard you say that you are NOT interested in open conversations online-
Did I understand right? Why is this? What envisioned negative scenarios
are you trying to avoid? Is there anything else?
* The website looks "fine" to me -- What changes do you want to see on
the Great Turning website?
* How does Salesforce CRM fit into the big picture, in your eyes?
I have also identified two references you might want to read:
* CommunityOnline
http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?CommunityOnline
- about material world communities, that are attempting
to make use of the Internet
* SoftSecurity
http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?SoftSecurity
- about skillfully managing "the hazards" of online community
- it *is* a skill, but a crucial one;
sort of like "skill in community"
- it absolutely actually demonstratively works
These references are from MeatballWiki.
http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl
http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?MeatballMission
Silly name, but it's a serious site.
If you'd like to see Sam Rose & I (& Hans Wobbe)'s conversation
that back this email, feel free to visit our conversation at:
http://www.communitywiki.org/en/GreatTurningWebsiteWork
I look forward to hearing from you.
(And please, feel free to ask any questions.)
Take care,
Lion Kimbro
206.427.2545
http://www.speakeasy.org/~lion/none yet