Dear Sean,
I was reading
“So how do we solve this? I think that we need to make some fundamental
decisions, as a group, about how we want ComProj to work. Do we need
to formalise, bring in membership requirements (i.e. doing work, not
that people should be qualified to join initially), or do we need to
stop worrying about set projects and simply have a pool of people to
access via the mailing list. Unsurprisingly, since I am chair and we are in
this situation, I am stumped. Ideas welcome”.
I think the Foundation has to take a very different approach to its comms,
and specifically the tools it uses to communicate between its groups, and
with members. Mail lists have been fine to date but these days, due to
social networking sites (I.e online environments), peoples’ expectations
have been raised. Two things have been noted around here lately. The first
is spam generated by (your) mail lists = a very common complaint. The second
is the silo effect caused by having a bunch of lists. The third problem,
from my perspective, is the great confusion (and waste) in having my inbox
filled with huge nos. of messages which never seem to relate to one another.
It’s simply overwhelming.
I’ve had a brief conversation with the guys on the UK list (mainly re;
Wikimania) and made a few suggestions. (using an old sandy dorotheo mail
account to keep the spam on another machine). I’ve also done a brief survey
of my mates to see if they’ve noticed the “discussion” tab on Wikimedia
articles. They hadn’t.
Look I’d love to help; not only in improving the approach to comms tools,
but also in getting a large sponsor(s) to be involved with the improvement.
I’ll point you at this environment, as an e.g of what I’m suggesting
straight up. A picture tells a 1000 words. HYPERLINK
"http://www.sitepoint.com/forums/"http://www.sitepoint.com/forums/ It’s
about 250 on Alexa’s top 500.
One thing I need to know though. Wikipediafoundation doesn’t ask for
advertising/sponsorships, which is a good thing (I feel). But if we are to
see its members’ comms have the same global effect as it’s libraries, then
the Foundation really does need to consider partnering with some global IT
companies. Either that, or partnering with some (other) NREN’s (like
SURFnet) or/and their National libraries. If it goes the first way, then
(logically) it makes sense to get one (or a number of) global IT company to
be host to the Wiki content (and comms). i.e it would own no boxes and have
no bandwidth concerns. If it goes the second way, then it acts a “clearing
house/library” for a bunch of potential (global) research programmes (in
different languages). Members would go for research grants in global groups.
(If there’s another approach, I’d love to hear it).
It makes no difference which way the foundation might want to go. I’m sure
it’s aims, and its model, are true. The question now is, at least for this
bunny, how it might do for the “real time” world what it has done for the
“asynchronous” one. By this I mean, how can it put some shape on these kinds
of IP comms tools.
At the thin end = HYPERLINK
"http://openlearn.open.ac.uk/mod/resource/view.php?id=149401"http://openlear
n.open.ac.uk/mod/resource/view.php?id=149401
At the fat end = HYPERLINK
"http://www.accessgrid.org/"http://www.accessgrid.org/
And give their content a memory.
All the best,
Simonfj
PS I note “The Communications Project Group is dedicated to unifying
individuals”. Hmmm. And there I was thinking it just aimed to help global
groups to communicate.
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