“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. 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 =  http://openlearn.open.ac.uk/mod/resource/view.php?id=149401
At the fat end = 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.