Facilitating Online Communities

What is a forum?

2009-08-07T09:07:00.000-04:00

I use the word "forum" in a classic sense. I think of a discussion as an organization not only of the topic but of the people themselves. Where they are positioned in the discussion may greatly influence the amount or type of power that they possess. A forum is the processing of the topic through various discussion forms. The variation of form gives both a greater range of expression to the speakers and a better listening experience for the audience.

Take any topic and put it through a complete process. Let's begin the process with a type of democratic form that is random, open circuit, with unlimited numbers of speakers. We have all seen this type of discussion in online forums. Usually, the only division of the discussion would be strictly topical, simply dividing the topic down to it's constituent parts, each division then becoming it's own topic. The discussion could be divided into separate threads or separate subforums.

In the random form the posters may sustain the expository mode just by outlining and composing their individual posts. We then accumulate a collection of expository posts. The benefit of this style is that every voice can speak as often and as much as they want. The problem is that it is very hard to follow the discussion, especially when opinions diverge.

What's the next logical step in the process of a classic forum? Rather than further division of the topic, the extension of an ordered expository discussion would be in the ordering of the posters themselves. We might begin the discussion anew with one limitation - that each of them are allowed one and only one post. Or whatever limited number. Or we might ask them to make one post and remain silent until one round of posting is completed. Then the posters may resume again each allowing themselves one and only one post. This form helps to maintain the principle of equal say or equal time. It also checks the dramatic since the dramatic mode is improvised and thrives on random form. It demands that each speak once and listen nine times (in a group of ten). It introduces rational form, allowing the members control over the mode of discussion, and it is a measurable objective.

We have moved the topic through a process from one form to another. The purpose is that the posters may refine their originally random presentations and condense or summarise their expositions. This allows us a better listening experience because such an expository form would be trimmer, easier to follow and easy to reference concerning who thinks what, since all posts are summarised by each poster.

Let's say that multiple opinions emerge and their are clusters of opinions, say, three distinct viewpoints that each poster could position themselves with respectively.

The next step in the process would be to appoint or elect three representatives of those opinions and use the circle form again to hash it out using a strict circle form (ABC ABC...). One or more opinion may emerge as stronger than the others. One may be swayed to join another or may split into two factions due to it's own inherent weaknesses and be joined to the other two. We can then measure this in terms of relative quantities in a closed system using whole numbers and fractions. We can quantitatively assess the outcome of the debate. Where two opposing opinions become clarified we may then move on in the process to a two sided evaluated debate using the following form (AB AB AB C)

A Pro
B Con
A rebuttal
B rebuttal
A closing
B closing
C Evaluation

The evaluation itself may be conducted by a team of observers who critique the grammar, rhetoric and logic.

Using this process, the discussion is moved from an irrational to rational form that can be counted by a whole number. The relative quantities of equality, majority and minority can be deduced from this whole number.

The benefit is that the community receives a complete hearing of the topic. The majority is not allowed to outvoice the minority because by the end of the process the community has trimmed down the number of voices to two equal voices for the purpose of assessing the logic of each argument. The majority may still vote in favor of it's proposition but as the process continues the minority voice continues to be heard.

So we maintain another type of equality. If nine people believe one thing and one person believes another, we do not allow nine voices to one. We want to hear all of the logic of one side compared to all of the logic of the other. One logic may outweigh another. Allowing the nine to dominate gives us repetitious arguments and a drowning of the minority voice. The value in this process lies in the fact that most of the people are often wrong! We know historically that the best ideas come from very small numbers. The scientific and literary communities comprise a small percentage of the whole community. Scientists like Galileo and Darwin and writers like Frederick Douglas, Allen Ginsberg and Mark Twain could be censored or their ideas could be persecuted.

An historical example would be the emergence of the theory of evolution into public currency. In the Scopes Trial of 1925, the Evolutionists lost the case to the Creationists but gained immense ground in bringing attention of the existence of Darwin's theories to the general public. 83 years later and it is hard even to find a Creationist who won't at least accept microevolution as a fact.

This process is progressive.

But I am speaking in the context of Faciliating Online Communities. I believe that traditional democratic forms perform the best faciliation. This is self-moderated forum, quite distinct from just a topical organization of threads or subforums. And this is what I mean by the word "forum", a form that allows the community to discuss, deliberate and decide through an online action.

To recap, we used a three phase process of different discussion forms or organizations of people and speech for the purpose of achieving a better listening experience.

1) Random form, where everyone was allowed to speak as often and as much as they desired.

2) Circle form, where speakers were assigned to speak in a given place. They may have both the right and the responsibility to speak. In this circle form, each must listen to the others before they may speak again.

3) Debate form, that the logic of two or three opposing ideas must get an equal hearing regardless of the the number of supporters for each idea. In this form a greater demand is made upon the speakers to exercise their responsibilities to speak.

You can see the different effects that each form achieves. In the first, an opposing group may dismiss the arguments of others and simply ignore them but as the discussion takes form, greater responsibility is upon the speakers.

This was only one process described. There are other discussion forms and therefore many variations of forums that can be organized.

What is a forum? Learn more...

En Español

What's the Web made of?

2009-06-01T14:15:00.029-04:00

This is a rough draft -

What exactly is the web made of? It's a conglomeration of all electronic technology that has been produced in the past 150 years or so. I want to take a look at each individual technological item and the protocols for using them, then I will relate those protocols as they converge and meet upon the Internet.

Telegraph messages were transmitted in digital code - a series of short and long clicks. This was the first electric communications device and use of digital code for language.

Western Union built its first transcontinental telegraph line in 1861, mainly along railroad rights-of-way, further strengthening the East-West connection.

The original Morse telegraph printed code on tape. However, in the United States the operation developed into sending by key and receiving by ear. A trained Morse operator could transmit 40 to 50 words per minute. The message was probably read aloud by the messenger when delivered. In 1900, Canadian, Fredick Creed invented a way to convert Morse code to text called the Creed Telegraph System. Automatic transmission, introduced in 1914, handled more than twice that number.
The privacy of telegraph messaging regular mail system.

The Internet would be nowhere without the telephone.

It's television!!!

(Don't forget that)

Try finding something good on television. Then there are the censors, you know. They have to get their word in. I was just searching for the Communist party of Cuba in google. Wikipoopia had an article and included a direct link to the officail website of the Communist Party of Cuba. Did that link ever open? No. So much for free speech and diversity on the web.

Also, it is important to realize the natural theatrical effects that can be had from the Internet. posters in the dramatic mode have been systematically driven off the web. Well, we will just have to wait for the technocrats and "educators" to fall flat on their asses and come running to the artists and poets to bail them out.

Add a big ass computer

The operator could set up a "conference call" upon request, connecting multiple phone lines into one call. This service was seldom used for personal use, except as a novelty. I remember we did one of these with some friend when i was a wee smigeon of a curmudgeon.

An Internet discussion forum is like a conference call.

Caller I.D. led to IP checking. Probably a bad idea.

This was originally made availabe to allow people to dodge a call. If the mortgage company was calling to repossess your car, you could just not "be there". The IP number of every poster on the web is registered at some stage of the communication. Is this an ethical practice?

Phone booth cramming. The idea was to cram as many people as possible into a phone booth. That is the social web today.

VW cramming - Same thing ten years after.

phone sex moderators party line 1st telephone call 1st conference call 1st televised broadcast 1st Caller ID IP checking phone booth cramming

Interview on the purpose of Postmasters

2009-05-16T21:26:00.004-04:00

Franz (F) interviews Artie (A) concerning the terms "free speech" and "democratic" as used in Article 2 Purpose.

F: The aim of this interview is to establish how free speech is tied to democracy, in order to support the Art. 2, and the whole project.

A: OK. I'm in!

F: Which freedom(s) is (are) involved, or even required, in a free speech zone?

A: I suppose the freedom to express yourself as fully as possible.

F: Talking implies a content, but also a form. What about free speech?

A: Free speech or expression can take many different forms or no form at all. Casual conversation between two people may be relatively formless, but an interview usually follows a form. A casual chat or conversation may flucuate from the narrative (what I did today) to the expository (topical news of the day) to the dramatic (telling a joke in character).

At this moment, you and I are following a formal treatment of the conversation and that form is called an Interview. An interview is usually in a question and response form, and features a democratic principle known as "taking turns". First Ferenk asks a question, then Artie responds. The questions are usually organized in advance and then the interviewer improvises the interview with this outline of questions. I say "improvise" because the interviewer has little foreknowledge of which direction the responses may lead the questions!

But there is a difference in the degree of formal treatment from chat to conversation to discussion to deliberation and decision. And free speech makes allowances for all forms and non-forms.

F: What does a non-form of speech look like? As it is dedicated to express something, doesn't it anyway embody a decision?

A: I don't think that a chat has much form, whether it is online or in real life. You see your friend, you stop and say "hello", you talk a few minutes and say "goodbye". I suppose everything has a form, even a chat. But what degree of form? There is very little form to a chat or conversation. In contrast, a discussion has more form. A discussion is an organization of people and their speech. In the expository mode, as we get deeper into decision making processes, we require more form. But the same applies to the narrative and dramatic modes. We may seek a lesser or greater degree of formal treatment.

F: Must free speech have rules? If yes, on what are they based? If not, is it still language, able to be understood in common?

A: Free speech does not have to have rules. But then should there be a rule that says "There shall be no rules"? Should you and I be restricted in our freedom to apply a discussion form to our conversation? I think that much of what passes for "free speech" is very restrictive of full expression.

If there are going to be rules, then I would say that the rules should be aimed at eliminating inequalities. Children playing games abide by rules, and always the issue is one of "equality". I view discussion and group-building as a game, like any other game. In a game of cards, we take turns, we follow an order around the circle. All games are played this way. The rules make the game. Without the rule, we have no game.

This interview is like a game. It has rules. the rules are that you have a turn and then I have a turn and this is right because there are natural inequalities, and we are introducing one small element of equality into the game. And this is the relation of free speech to democracy - that the players should be equal.

F: That was my next question :"May we compare those rules to democracy's ones?".

A: I think it's a fair comparison. And a useful one.

F: Democracy is a political notion. Does it mean free speech has a political nature? Which one?

A: This is a question of power. Politics is power. Free speech is the
beginning of the road to power. So with a policy of free speech in a
forum, we can empower the members to take political control of their
own destinies in online communities.

F: In which sense does free speech lead to power, then to a real freedom?

A: I think that free speech allows people to organize ideas and activities.

F: Doesn't the Internet have a role to play in developing free speech, then democracy? Why doesn't it have for now this function, rather than its commercial dimension?

A: The average person came to the Internet because of it's novelty.
The technocrat wrote the rules for communication and organization.
Although It may be technically skilled, the technocrat is a neophyte in
the liberal arts and lacks the ethical training to communicate and
organize people. We need leadership training for the average Internet
user.

F: Ok, thanks for your answers.

What's Democracy for you? Join the Post a Month discussion now in progress.

NOTES:

Our Purpose in Postmasters

2009-04-19T21:39:00.025-04:00

Our Purpose in Postmasters

Artie and Franz talk about Article 2

Postmasters is an online, non-profit, service organization for the benefit of the worldwide web community. Our purpose is to promote and practice traditional discussion arts. We are a self-moderating, self-developing, self-propagating and self-sustaining community.

To achieve our purpose Postmasters provides for the public an open circuit, free speech zone and offers The Discussion Workshop Series.

The Discussion Workshop Series:

1. Provides for its community members opportunities which give them skill and experience as participants in online democratic discussions;

2. Enables community members to coordinate democratic discussion so as to achieve online group action;

3. Provides for the community fair and constructive evaluation of their efforts;

4. Enables the members to investigate and deliberate upon matters relevant to the online community;

5. Affords leadership training for its members.

A. I mean many things with wording such as "democratic" and "free speech". Wherever there is a Postmasters club, there is also a free speech zone. I suppose that the term "free speech" will mean different things to different clubs. I suppose that my own interpretation of the term "free speech" may even have to yield to our group as it grows. The membership may change the meaning, and that is alright. I am aware that there is no absolute free speech or democracy.

F. Are you free to keep silent by the butcher's, for instance, and then, are you free to say what you want? Is there free speech with your superior, even outside a work situation?

A. It is a relative term. There is an open circuit relative to the closed circuit. We are making the memberlist closed to only elected members so that the term "member" does not become confused. Therefore we need a point of contact with the public and it seems very natural to have an open circuit where a guest is really a guest. It also seems that the area should be protected from interference from adms, mods and members so as to promote free speech. The administration of the board should be set up to maximize protection of free speech. It should never be allowed to attack the public because the public is not coming to us to have their behavior modified or moderated.

"Attacking the public" includes invasion of privacy through IP-checking. The IP number can be traced to a precise location wherever you are on the planet, and administrators and moderators everywhere are abusing it and violating the privacy of users.

We are going to have very strict regulations on administrators. Think about the longest set of rules you have ever seen for forum users (they can be as long as 35 pages). We are going to have that many rules for adms. And no rules for the public. That makes it very easy for everybody because the public does not even need to read the rules. They need to know nothing at all because the rules never apply to them. Besides, there are very few adms, so if anything goes wrong, we have very few suspects.

Anonymity seems to maximize free speech. The administration should not be allowed to attack the privacy of anonymous users. Also, with this open circuit, we also have a safety valve because if people are afraid to say a thing in the Workshop, they can just log out and
say it anonymously. But this requires a very disciplined administration, which is exactly why we have the Discussion Workshop! - to discipline the administration.

For me, free speech includes the right to speak in any mode - expository, narrative and dramatic. Due to it's random nature, an open circuit allows for dramatization of a point. Yet the Workshop is decidedly expository. Anonymity promotes the dramatic mode.

F. What do you mean precisely by "dramatic", "expository"? Isn't the Workshop conclusive above all?

A. The Discussion Workshop is very expository because we are building a decision making group. But an open circuit of public posters can be very dramatic. Now we have an expository thread about the constitution in G&G. The public has a right to post anything they want in that thread. If they should start telling stories or posting pictures or acting out a play by Balzac, then that is what we get.

However free speech means that we should be able to communicate in any mode. It's in the Workshop that we learn to control the modes through proper uses of form.

F. I still don't understand the meaning of "expository".

A. The Workshop is where we train members to administrate. We practice expository form in order to maintain an expository mode. This is a self-moderated group - the group moderates itself. The group has a right to free speech in the expository mode, so the group practices an expository form that squelches and defeats the dramatic and narrative forms. The group moderates the mode of discussion through practiced use of form. Yet we can nurture the dramatic forms in a separate Dramatic Workshop.

We are now engaged in an exposition of Art 2. We are using Art 2 as an outline for our discussion. We are not rambling, but are following a course. An exposition is any arrangement of text or speech. A nomenclature is expository because it outlines a course of study. An expository mode is established when each poster arranges their text. The expository form is achieved by arranging the order of speakers or posters. An expository form moderates the expository mode. Alternate posting ABAB is expository. Circle posting ABCABC is also expository. Random posting promotes a dramatic mode. We will demonstrate this in the workshop by using the forms. It is very difficult to improvise a dramatic presentation when expository form is being used.

F. What is a democratic discussion or group?

A. The democratic tradition is not one, but many forms. Being able to speak anonymously on an open circuit is one kind of democratic form. But to adhere to that ONE form as THE form for every occasion is, to me, very non-democratic. Because I feel that the proper democratic process is one that gives the group an optimal listening experience.

F. Must it be taken here in its political meaning? I don't think so. In the same time, "democratic" implies freedom and then choice. And the choice is not necessary plural.

A. Having your say, and as much as you want is one kind of democracy. An open circuit with unlimited numbers speaking in random form can speak as much as they want and as often as they want, but I think that the drawback is that it is nearly impossible to measure such
an unorganized discussion. An open circuit is irrational since it cannot be measured by a whole number. When we elect our membership, we can always count the whole number of members upon our fingers and toes. If there are twenty members today, it is not likely that there are going to be 40 members an hour from now.

Since we have a whole number that is measurable, we can also measure the foundational relative quantity of equality. We can then measure majority and minority and conduct a democratic discussion, deliberation and decision making process.

We should have a wide range of choices when processing information. That everything should be discussed with unlimited numbers, speaking in random with no end or development of the process, without measurable limits, severely restricts our choices. Try finding a "democratic community" on the web! All that will come up in a search is some affiliation with the Democratic Party! The only way you will find any such group is if you do a search for the exact terms "democratically organized web community" and you will get one and only one group - Postmasters! That's why I say that we are in a perfect niche because what we have is greatly needed, but is in very scarce supply.

F. For a decision, you begin with a plurality (at least two possibilities), and at the end, there must be just one. A plurality made of indecision is not democratic. A permanent choice may also be free.

A. Narrowing down our options is how we decide a thing. Also, I think of democratic decisions as being relatively permanent, semi-permanent and temporary. It is likely that as the group grows and our power is lessened that the majority will override one or both of us on an issue. What do we do when we think we are right, but we are in the minority? We must act with the majority yet work with the process to change people's thinking slowly.

A democratic discussion is one that is organized. After hearing what everyone has to say when they are able to speak randomly, as much and as often as they like, we might then ask for them to poll and vote a smaller number of themselves into a circle formation where each person has equal time. In a circle discussion, each participant has the right to speak, the responsibility to speak, the right to hear and the responsibility to listen to the others.

If I am in a circle of ten people, then I have the right and responsibility to speak once, then I must keep silence and listen nine times before I am allowed to speak again. That is an ordinal form. See: What is a Forum?

In the Workshop we practice the arts of measured discourse. We discuss with the objective of learning a self-moderated form, and then we measure it according to the stated objectives. We should be little interested in whether someone is "nice" or "good" or "stupid". How can we objectively evaluate with such criteria?

F. How will it be measured?

A. Every project has objectively measurable criteria. The 20:04 thread has a measurable objective. The poster either posts at 20:04 or they don't. If they do post at 20:04, the discussion then turns to how did you accomplish this, what problems did you encounter and how did you overcome them? If the objective is to post in circle form (ABC ABC) then it is very easily evaluated. We either posted in the correct form or we did not. If we did not post in form, why? If we did post in form, then how?

At every meeting, the members are rotated through meeting roles, such as Grammarian or Master Postmaster of the Day or Discussion Organizer or Discussion Evaluator. The rotation of roles gives us experiences at listening and functioning in different roles. This is done by appointment through the Educational VP and the Master Postmaster.

There are also elected long term roles. These are defined in Art 4. The person who is Master Host one term, may be a VP pr the President in the next term.

This is leadership training.

The administrative accounts are never to be used for posting. We only use those accounts as tools. And we only perform administrative actions that we have been trained to perform.

F. Ok, all that is brand new for me, I follow you blindly...

A. I want to go over this article in detail and also talk about the ethical treatment of online community. Any discussion can be had in any one of these forums. There is no separation of topics. The idea is that the topic can be duplicated under varying conditions. The conditions in the public forum are different from the Member's Lounge and those two are different from the Discussion Workshop, which is a formal meeting. Discussions can be started in one section and moved around by the members using the administrative tools, thereby achieving distinctly different discussion effects.

F. And do the Member's Lounge, and the Discussion Workshop, correspond each with the active members, and the administrators?

A. The Member's Lounge is for the elected membership. Since they have their own space, there is no reason to handle any complaints about the behavior of the public. This reestablishes the normal use of language. a guest is a guest and a Member is a member. Only elected members appear on the memberlist.

In the public area, the public has complete control. In the Member's Lounge, the members have the right to express themselves as individuals. But in the Discussion Workshop, the group expresses itself. In the Workshop, the individual can only post at designated times and in given orders so the result is a group expression, not just an accumulation of individual voices.

In the Discussion Workshop, the membership meets every two weeks for a coordinated group meeting. People post with their member accounts but may also use administrative tools to perform a community approved administrative action.

F. So that combines a total free speech, and a more reflexive expression, I guess. This appears democratic and clever.

A. It is an ordinal forum. People can only be elected by attending two consecutive meetings. the meetings are ordinal and temporal. So we admit them to membership on purely objective terms. They might be total idiots on the open circuit but if they attend two ordinal meetings and they comply with the order, we elect them, because they have qualified themselves to maintain the order. They can perform ordinal projects on the open circuit and we will extend the meeting invitation.

How to get involved. Start with easy access open circuit forums.

Open circuit guest posting. No registration necessary! No Log In!! Attend as a visitor. Easy participation - Discussion of Article 2 The Purpose of Postmasters

Open circuit guest posting forum. No Log In!! No registration necessary! Come visit us at Greetings and Grafitti

Join the International forum Post A Month Club

Take the Basic Posting Workshop . Complete training in all platform operations.

Become an elected member of Postmasters and participate in the complete Discussion Workshop Series

Postmasters is communication and leadership training for democratically organized web community

Democratically Organized Web Community swicki search

Eastern Standard Time

2009-03-06T10:26:00.036-05:00

History, languages and cultures of the time zone, Eastern Standard Time (EST). Discussion now in progress. Is it possible for the people of a time zone to have a history? The Internet could make that happen. In this study, I am investigating the possibilities of uniting the people of a time zone into one community, a community that could one day have it's own specific history.

75ºW is denoted as GMT-5 on the map. The area is also known as Eastern Standard Time (EST) in Canada and the U.S because it is on the eastern seaboard (or atlantic coast). We can reasonably expect the zone not to be known as EST in South America since it runs along the west coast of the continent.

Every 30 degrees on the map is two hours. I want to highlight two hours of time and look at certain relationships in that area, Nunavut to Quebec, the Industrial Belt of New York to the Great Lakes, Washington DC to Havana, Colombia and Peru.

What do we know about this area? Let's take a closer inspection. It begins at the North Pole and runs down the Eastern Seaboard of North America through the Caribbean and along the Western Seaboard of South America down to Peru. There are 3 main European languages (Spanish, English and French) and 2 main Indigenous languages (Inuit and Quechua).

In this section of the map, everyone is on the same hour. They share the same natural time. For the vast majority of people the sun rises and sets at the same time. So we are eating our breakfast, lunch and dinner together. I want to build an international web community upon the framework of this time zone. The time zone is a communication form that can transcend the language barriers. The membership must be, at least, bilingual, and preferably, multilingual. Each member can serve as a language bridge to the other.

Here is a large (2.3MB) detailed world map with cities, longitudes and latitudes. This is a great map. Once you download it, click in the right lower corner to enlarge it. It's really big so you can see all the countries. This is one of my favorite maps.

Let me take you on a tour of my time zone. North American Eastern Time Zone Also see: In the Neighborhood

The northernmost town, in my time zone, that I have been able to find is called Pond Inlet, located on the northernmost tip of Baffin Island. The local language is Inuktitut, but the only text on their website is in english. When looking at the arctic extremes of a longitude, we are cutting through what appears to be a huge indigenous Arctic culture. There may be 1 million people living within the Arctic Circle and I think that they have a commonly rooted language, whether they are located above Canada or above Europe and Asia. That language and culture is known as Inuit. Looking at the Pond Inlet site, you will see the characters used in the Inuit language. Currently there is little or no support for Inuit on the web. You might view the language in photographs such as this one:

This is the province of Nunavut. The northernmost tip is a government polar observation station called Alert (population 8). We would expect the 8 people living there, being government employed scientists, to be of Northern European descent. I do not know if Alert is on EST.

Nunavut was recently separated from the provinces of Quebec and Ontario (I think). The population is largely Inuit (Inuktitut). The website Nunavut 99 - Our Language, Our Selves revelas an Inuktitut culture is struggling to make it's presence on the Internet.

What's the population living in Eastern Standard Time? North American Time Zones lists all countries, states and major cities. A google search for "what is the population of eastern standard time" turns up ZERO (nothing). So we can only guess. It would seem safe to say that there must be at least 100 million people in this zone.

Eastern Standard Time (EST) USA Population

Connecticut 3,510,297

Delaware 843,524

Florida 16,849,199

Georgia 9,072,576

Indiana 4,972,570

Kentucky 3,184,089

Maine 1,321,505

Maryland 5,600,388

Massachusetts 6,398,743

Michigan 10,038,725

New Hampshire 1,309,940

New Jersey 8,717,925

New York 19,254,630

North Carolina 8,683,242

Ohio 11,464,042

Pennsylvania 12,429,616

Rhode Island 1,076,189

South Carolina 4,255,083

Tennessee 2,091,303

Vermont 623,050

Virginia 7,567,465

Washington, DC 550,521

West Virginia 1,816,856

TOTAL - 141,631,478

But that does not include all of the people in EST, only the USA. So the guess should be revised up. Because EST includes many of Canada's largest cities, the Caribbean, and the western seaboard of South America, there must be close to 250,000,000 habitants. This means that there are 250,000,000 people who, daily, share the same natural time.

Join the discussion now in progress open circuit - no registration necessary.

New Postmasters Club opening

2009-01-30T09:45:00.000-05:00

The all new *Red Board* is now open!

You are the administer with Postmasters Discussion Workshop training programs. The only forum on the web for the purpose of training web community users, moderators and administrators. Learn the whole board from the bottom up. Complete support available.

Start posting today in the Greetings and Graffiti guest forum

Greetings and Graffiti Operator's Manual

Constitution of Postmasters

Discussion Workshop Homepage

Postmasters hosted by International Forum

2009-01-21T08:44:00.002-05:00

Postmaster Discussion Workshop has opened a club at the International Forum. Apply for membership in the Post A Month Club. Qualification for Postmasters Discussion Workshop includes regular monthly attendance.

Post a Month Club

2009-01-16T11:56:00.003-05:00

The Post A Month Club is an introducion to temporal/ordinal form. Maintain your active membership by making one post a month. This open circuit forum serves to qualify further access in the closed circuit, Postmasters Discussion Workshop. Qualify for the Discussion Workshop by participating in ordinal posting games on the open circuit. All new members will be elected from the open circuit into the closed circuit. Postmasters is an inclusive group.

Facilitating Online Communities 2008 blog archive

2009-01-15T09:21:00.002-05:00

The Facilitating Online Communities 2008 blog archive can be found here. There is a multitude of material. If you are interested in learning more contact me at my email address (artistsforanarchy at gmail.com). I have other private online sources that I will link you to and am forming private groups for the purpose of practicing traditional temporal and ordinal discussion form. You might want to join us in a group chat. We will be running through every known discussion form from informal conversation to organized dualogues, dialogues, circles, panels, debates and workshops to produce traditional forums online, coherent online groups and growing online communities.

Postmasters forum

2009-01-13T12:10:00.013-05:00

I have set up another model of a forum. Postmasters uses a guest posting area where the public has the right of way. There are no rules for the public in the guest area. PERIOD. I have written an Operator's Manual for guests that includes a set of rules prohibiting adms, mods or members from posting in the guest area except as a guest. This actually amounts to rules for everyone except guests in the Guest area! Ha!

The simplicity of the rules is the forte of this discussion board. Literally, the guest poster does not need to even read the rules, because the rules only apply to those who should be held responsible. I have followed this formula in making that determination.

No rules for the public
Few rules for members
More rules for moderators
The most rules for administrators

A guest may become an elected member by demonstrating temporal and ordinal form. The account allows people to use the Member's Lounge for random asynchronous connecting. Members can then be elected into topical groups.

The Operator's Manual for members restricts administrators and moderators from posting in the member's area with admin or mod accounts. They may only use member accounts in the members area and have no power to edit, delete or any other unapproved activity.

The only place a mod or adm may use an administrative account for posting is in an ordinal administrative meeting (Discussion Workshop). The meeting includes a program of training in a wide variety of discussion forms which enable the membership to administer their own community according to the Constitution. Only poster's who attend scheduled temporal and ordinal discussions and meetings retain their active membership. Members can inform the elected board when going inactive or be placed on inactive membership by the board (obviously for inactivity).

Read the Constitution of Postmasters

I am writing up a complete set of projects organized into modules. This program trains groups to coordinate themselves into coherent form.

Building a successful online community

2009-01-11T09:52:00.031-05:00

From the Creating Passionate Users blog comes Building a successful online community

The article in the above link claims that the way to build a successful online community is to "be nice". Being nice is OK but I don't think that communities should be founded upon such terms. I object to such a standard, first, because it is not possible to objectively evaluate what it is to be "nice" and, second, because it does in fact suppress many various forms and modes of communication, the very forms and modes which are possible to evaluate objectively.

The author also likens the blog to a dinner party. I don't agree. You attend a dinner party by invitation. Also it isn't necessary to broadcast a dinner party to the world. I don't see the use of any metaphors when it comes to the web. It's hard to tell whether I am at a party or a football game or on the set of someone's favorite TV show, there are so many metaphors.

That particular blog is moderated. I left a comment on the post that said that I disagree. The comment never made it to the page. Therefore, I would take all other comments that agree with the author very lightly. As I understand, the author of the blog has used web communication tools and machines to attack the public. My policy in administering any communication machine such as a blog or forum is quite simple:

The public has the right of way.

I believe that this is the must sensible approach. An open circuit is for making contact with the public. Any activity that the public contributes is acceptable on an open circuit. If posters attend the discussion and demonstrate ability to use temporal and ordinal form, they may be invited into a closed circuit blog. There is no need for me to attack the public.

The responsibility for maintaining a given mode falls to those who wish to produce the given mode. If they outright refuse to utilize the respective form that governs the mode, they must accept the outcome. The responsibility for the dramatic mode prevailing on open circuits is due to the expository poster's own failing to adhere to expository discussion form.

The social web is on the decline because of the "nice" people that have ruled it. Contrary to reports that you may read in the news, while the fact is that the social web is increasing worldwide (due to it's dawning in the "Third World"), this belies the reality that where the social web has already taken root (in the "First World") people are leaving in droves.

Why? Because the "organization" of it is a no-growth plan. The idea that a "community" as a commodity, a person's own private property, a place where you are a permanent guest, a situation in which bans, blocks and deletes are used to control the communication - all of this amounts to no-growth.

Real communities do not behave like that. You don't fling the doors open and then start dictating and tossing people out. You ultimately lose people. That only makes sense. You ban people, you lose people. For every banning you lose more than one person. I am currently boycotting any and all "communities" that are going this route. There are methods that work. This is not one.

So what's the best plan for the long haul? That's what this blog is all about. The best way to build a community is to build groups. Groups of individuals who are willing to work. A group practices temporal and ordinal form. That's what makes it a group. It's not a group just because there are a bunch of people who joined.

You join a clique by being nice. Cliques are based upon personality. Cliques engage in asynchronous conversation.

You join a group by first attending the group and demonstrating that you are willing and able to practice temporal and ordinal forms. The members themselves have practiced these forms and understand how to objectively evaluate them. If you have attended two or three meetings and shown that you understand temporal and ordinal form, you may be elected into the group.

Groups are capable of coordinated discussion, deliberation and decision making. An online community should be fully equipped to deliberate through a complete democratic decision making process which produces an online action. Such online actions would be the election of it's membership, the election of it's officers who are authorized by the community to administer and the objective evaluation of performance in mode and form.

Through disciplined practice, members of a group becomes adept at fulfilling their rights and responsibilities:

The right to speak
The right to hear and be heard
The responsibility to respond
The responsibility to listen

We use ordinal form to ensure that these rights and responsibilities are promoted for all.

For example, in a group we may evaluate a circle form based upon whether the members took their proper turns. The form of ABC ABC... is very easy to objectively evaluate. It is much easier to evaluate whether a poster is in or out of the designated mode or form than it is to determine whether they or you or someone else is "being nice".

Basically, constitutional form must come to the web because it empowers each individual to participate in coherent groups which are the foundation of real community.

Blog Update

2008-10-30T19:26:00.000-04:00

This is a blog about organizing online communities. There is a lot of material here and links to articles I'm writing. Here are some suggested readings from the best of this blog:

The Listening Experience

What is a Forum?

People Who Share a Common Time for a Purpose

Latitudes and Longitudes (The Comfort Zone)

Characteristics of Groups

Organizing According to Time

Also See: The Discussion Workshop Homepage

In The Neighborhood

I am currently chatting by appointment only. Drop me an email message to set up a 30 to 60 minute chat regarding the founding of democratically organized web community. (artistsforanarchy at gmail.com)

Characteristics of Groups

2008-10-29T21:43:00.017-04:00

I realize that there are many distinctive traits by which we can recognize the genuine article. Here I have compiled some of the characteristics that help form cohesive groups.

A group is a number of individuals communicating in temporal/ordinal form. Groups are the foundation of communities. Unlike a clique that solely utilizes conversation and grows to a limited size, a group uses form to measure and evaluate it's discussion. Groups are capable of duplicating themselves to form a larger community.

What are the characteristics of a group?

• Members engaged in frequent interaction;
• Those involved define themselves as group members;
• Others define members as belonging to a particular group;
• They share common norms and mutual interests;
• They identify with one another and share values;
• They feel a sense of collective responsibility;
• They act in a unified way towards the organisation.

Communities are comprised of small groups that not only serve as an entry point but also help maintain the continuity while accomplishing the objectives of the larger community. The individual's frequent contact with the community purpose is through the small group. Many small groups may come together for a conference occasionally.

Small groups also practice one of the three modes; expository, dramatic or narrative and are well versed in the forms that are used to establish that mode. Discussion groups are aiming to specialize in the expository mode, but there are also large numbers of users who are interested in applying the dramatic and narrative modes. Each would explore the most suitable form according to the mode they wish to deliver.

Expository groups practice temporal and ordinal form as a means of qualifying the membership. Participants who are able to maintain the order are qualified for membership.

The number of members in a small group is fairly consistent with little fluctuation, without wild fluctuations of people coming and going.

Conversation serves the group well until it grows to about five to seven members. The group may practice ordinal form in preparation for growth. By the time there are ten members, the group will have enough ordinal form to enable rational (measurable) discourse, deliberation and decision making.

The larger community is composed of separate groups who work according to the same objective while having little contact with each other. Groups are distinct from each other in identity. The larger community is not allowed to destroy that group identity. Members of a group are those who attend that group. A member of a group may attend another group within the same community as a visitor only.

Groups have an attendance. The group always knows who is in the group and who is not, who is attending meetings and discussions and who is not.

The NOTBUT Plan

NOT
Individual-Community

BUT
Individual-Small Group-Community

So get yer butt knotted but not butted but a buncha Butt-Knott-ed-Not-Butts

It was really interesting to be a part of our meetings in Second Life. We had 2, and one was entirely different from the other. - Leigh

Right. That's because they are two meetings of two distinct groups. If the two "meetings" were the same membership, then there would be no need for two meetings. They are two groups.

And it's very interesting that they are separated by time. That should be a very strong signal to us about how to separate groups. Anyone who was inconvenienced in getting to a meeting would not be qualified for that group because they could not maintain consistent attendance for the meetings and would threaten the continuity of the group.

(We have already seen earlier in this blog that people are separated by time as if it were a geographical limitation. I am going to expand upon this thesis further on.)

See: Notes on Meetings One and Two

Because the natural progression from individual to community is via the small group, then, if the FOC08 meetings are not groups, where are the groups?

I don't know of any other ethical approach to organizing people. Small closed groups are rational. The membership can count the whole number of individuals, they can then engage in rational discussion, deliberation and decision making processes. Because they know the exact whole number, they can then accurately measure relative quantities of equality, majority and minority.

Conversation (random) form is probably in order only for 3 to 5 members. To prepare for growth, those 3 to 5 members should train and practice temporal and ordinal forms. It is certainly necessary when the group gets into the 10 to 15 member range. 20 people need even more disciplined training. I have never seen an expository discussion of over 20 that did not frequently depart or "derail" to the dramatic mode.

Many small groups can come together periodically as one community. But there is not much need to meet with the whole world every day, is there? So how does one go about finding other people for a group? How do you limit the size and attract the best people for the purpose? What is a good purpose for a service community to the web?

Register here for the Discussion Workshop Blog

Who is a Community?

2008-10-23T11:57:00.019-04:00

Absolute and Relative Identity

For those of us wishing to protect our privacy upon the open circuits that so dominate the Internet, absolute identity is not a choice. We prefer relative identity.

The basic doctrine of relative identity states that - All I need to know about you is that you are not me! And visa versa.

Relative identity works fine for two people. But what do you do when it's time to expand? If three people are to identify themselves relatively there is an immediate problem. A and B both know that they are not the other but neither knows that C is not the other.

Absolute identity is only as credible as the other absolute identities that are associated with it. In other words, I am suppose to believe your absolute identity because it is confirmed by another supposed absolute identity. Of course, I only need to continue tracing the line back and we will find that the genealogy is not rooted in an absolute identity. It must be rooted in the first pair who recognized the relative identity of each. The one looked at the other and thought "You are not me." And that was a very correct judgement.

Relative identity allows users the freedom to be whoever they want to be, enabling them to use any mode that they want to use, including the expository, narrative and dramatic modes.

Michael Welsh video 56:00

What is a Community?
When is a Community?
Why is a Community?
Where is a Community?
How is a Community?

Register here for the Discussion Workshop Blog

Join the Discussion Workshop

2008-10-22T19:57:00.004-04:00

Register here for the Discussion Workshop Blog

This blog on Facilitating Online Discussions is an open circuit introduction to our subject matter. If you are interested in applying democratic forms to community organization, you may register for our closed circuit Discussion Workshop meetings. Expect lots of experimenting with communication and leadership techniques as we build small groups into a unified community.

What's the Discussion Workshop?

In the workshops we meet for short one hour meetings and apply ourselves to learning ordinal forms together. The Discussion Workshop is where we apply all of the ideas and principles that you have read about in the Facilitating Online Communities blog.

We engage in practical dialogue while thoroughly learning the technical and ethical aspects of a given platform.

The Workshop exhibits all of the traditional attributes of a group. Groups are associated into one community through a constitution. Meetings are organized and presented by the members.

A practical workshop

Apply for membership and acquire all of these benefits:

Access to a wide variety of training programs in practical democratic arts.

Attend the weekly business meeting where your voice is heard and you have a right to vote and have your vote counted correctly in relation to a whole number which is the membership.

Serve as an elected officer.

Coordinate workshops.

Simplest way to understand is to think about how you use the telephone and google chat or yahoo or AIM chat. Does everyone talk at the same time? No. You take turns, whether it's 2 people or 20, you take turns.

"Majority rules" is not the foundation for democratic society. In fact, many routine decisions can be made by a majority of a quorum. If a quorum is 50% of the membership then 5 is a quorum of a membership of 10. 3 is a majority of the quorum. Therefore the routine decisions are made by 3 of the 10 members. While minority rules in small matters, it is desirable to have a majority or supermajority in matters of greater weight.

Our organizing principle will not be topical but temporal and ordinal. So accept that we will be topically disorganized until we establish the temporal and ordinal features of our forums. Ultimately, the membership will be responsible for topical organization.

Since I believe that the personal privacy of individual members is more important than the security of the adm or the posts, I have opted for restricting the activities of the adm. That's how I arrived at the above formula. I want to set up forums that are rooted in equality.

We are going to use a large number of forums and boards that are each set differently to achieve a certain texture or democratic principle.

Member administered programs

Register here for the Discussion Workshop Blog

Discussion Workshop - Module and Project Options

2008-10-22T13:04:00.028-04:00

Working on this post, I realize that a workshop in discussion arts can offer a wide variety of options for building groups and communities. Here are just a few ideas to begin a catalog.

Assignment One: Finding a Buddy
Two participants

Find a buddy and establish a dialogue through email and chat. Maybe a series of emails in one day that culminates in a chat. Your assignment is to elect a third person that both of you agree upon.

Assignment Two: Choosing a Platform
The objective is to choose a simple communication platform such as email, chat, blogs and commit to a dialogue.

Assignment Three: Introductions
The objective is to introduce one blogger or poster to another on the platform you have chosen.

How long should it take to complete all of the projects? I am inclined to think that the only way to know is to try it. How long does it take to find a buddy? In traditional communities we usually find a buddy within the first month or two of joining.

How should the evaluation be conducted? Since each project is a group effort, we do not focus upon individual performance as much as we do upon the performance of the group in achieving the objective. Evaluation is objective. These are ordinal projects so the focus is not upon the morality of any given individual.

Who is qualified to evaluate the outcome? Any member who is active in the whole Discussion Workshop program is qualified to evaluate the performance of the group. We take turns at evaluating.

Who is qualified to even participate in the workshop? Any person or group that wishes to empower itself by learning how to use traditional temporal and ordinal forms in an online situation.

Maybe this is a bit too ambitious? People first need to learn how to arrange appointemnts before they can even meet for a chat! Maybe project two should be Arranging Appointements?

Maybe there could be a choice of projects and a choice of modules?

Ordinal Form Module
This is a short term Discussion Workshop Module. All projects should be completed within a designated time frame.

Let's build a small group up from scratch. We start with one person - you. The next step is to find one other. You might begin searching blogs and dialoguing privately with people either through blog comments, email or a chat.

For this project we will use three common, simple platforms. Open a google account and you will have access to all three:

1) Gmail
2) Gmail groupchat
3) Google groups

We want to move from a two person dialogue to a three people chat.

Assignment One: Alternate Posting
Three participants
The objective is to establish dialogues for three parties. The form you may use is Alternate Posting ABAB ACAC BCBC and converse 20 minutes

Assignment Two: First Circle
Three participants
The objective is to establish a circle form ABC ABC.. and converse with it for 20 minutes.

In project two you established a foundation of alternate posting and are now prepared to form your first circle. The first problem you will encounter is not an issue of order but time. Doing anything in order requires that one thing happen after another. So the problem is time. Who is qualified for your circle? Those that can meet at the same time.

Assignment Three: Small Group
Three participants
The objective is to set up a google group.

You must decide together how your group will be organized. Will all three of you have administrative rights and responsibilities? Or will you elect one to administer? What will you accomplish with the time you have together? How often will you meet.

- Hmmmmm. Maybe there could be a wide variety of projects and modules that workshop participants can choose from or these could serve as models and members could design their own modules with the help of the more seasoned members?

That could be a better approach. The workshop could have a wide array of project choices organized according to levels of expertise that can be combined into different variations.

Choosing a Platform may be as simple as Arranging Appointments. Finding a Purpose and Alternate Posting may be at a slightly higher level? Small Groups and Practical Dialogue are even a bit more challenging.

So I'm thinking that we could design a whole batch of different kinds of communication and leadership projects that could be choices for self-designed modules. To be evaluated and credited for a module the member would only need to choose one project from each level.

All of these projects and modules would comprise a complete skills building program. There can be even more challenging programs in an onward and upward progression.

Practical Dialogue Module
The objective is to learn all functions of the platform together.
Choose a Platform
Design a Simple Learning Program
Learn the Platform Together

Electing a New Member The objective is to choose a third person to join you in a purpose.
Write the Opening Post
50 Post Discussion
Begin and End on Time in these exercises, there is a temporal or ordinal limit. The subject matter of the topic can be continued in another discussion using a different form.
Lead the Team Coordinate the assigned roles for the evaluation team.

Options Options Options--

--Hmmmm. The problem is that there must be an incredibly large number of options!

Register here for the Discussion Workshop Blog

Next: Learning Ordinal Forms

FCC Comes Down On Comcast For P2P Blocking

2008-10-21T11:54:00.004-04:00

FCC Comes Down On Comcast For P2P Blocking
ComCast is a privately held company, yet they may not have the license to restrict activities of it's users!

"Would you be OK with the post office opening your mail, deciding they didn't want to bother delivering it, and hiding that fact by sending it back to you stamped "address unknown - return to sender,"? said FCC Chairman Kevin Martin in a statement."

So that is what our argument is with the web. IP checking and banning, editing and deleting of comments [i]openly solicited from the public[/i] is completely unethical. this goes for bloggers too, who are requesting responses from the public.

When you put up a pubic board and ask the public to come in and comment, you don't have any business "moderating" that content. Such behavior on the part of administrators is an act of Anti-Trust.

We have not even scratched the surface of the issues that need to be confronted. When members join here on this forum, we confront all of these bogus ideas that have become a false standard for community organization.

Comcast has been under attack in the last year for reportedly jamming traffic of its high-speed Internet subscribers who share files online, specifically involving peer-to-peer provider BitTorrent. "Comcast has an anticompetitive motive to interfere with customers' use of peer-to-peer applications," said the FCC in a statement. "Such applications, including those relying on BitTorrent, provide Internet users with the opportunity to view high-quality video that they might otherwise watch (and pay for) on cable television. Such video distribution poses a potential competitive threat to Comcast's video-on-demand ("VOD") service. Indeed, Comcast may have interfered with up to three-quarters of all peer-to-peer connections in certain communities."

The FCC did not impose fines against Comcast but said the company needs to come up with a compliance plan describing how it intends to stop "these discriminatory management practices by the end of the year."

Did I see the word "compliance" in that paragraph? Right. The administrators of communities must comply. Not only on this issue but on a multitude of other issues involving manipulation of data that they openly solicited from the public in good faith. The users supply that data and therefore the adms. must comply with the decisions of the users.

Register here for the Discussion Workshop Blog

Writing the Rules

2008-10-21T11:41:00.009-04:00

Rules restricting the powers of administrators and moderators help foster an atmosphere of equality. The personal privacy of individual members is more important than the security of the administration or of the forum content. I have opted for restricting the activities of the administrators. That's how I arrived at this basic formula:

No rules for the public

Few rules for members

More rules for moderators

The Most rules for administrators

With this formula we may achieve balance between the powerless and the powerful. Since we are going to curb the powers of the administrators in order to produce Equality, we will need to begin by making our first rules for them. We have turned the formula for rule making upsidedown.

Let's build some practical and accessible models that any web community member can use for experimenting with and learning all of these principles. Our task will be to balance and preserve the basic principles outlined in the previous sections to achieve unity of purpose, equality and freedom of expression. The heart of our community will be The Discussion Workshop Modules, a progressive skills building program that treats the discussion as an art and a process.

We will usethese free boards this reduces risk tranfer the adm over to elected official

Apply to phpBB2 phpBB3

Since the admministrator needs the most rules we will focus upon that first. Our second priority will be the rules for moderators. Our third priority will be rules appropriate for the general membership. Rules for the public are of zero priority because the purpose of open circuits is to make contact with the public. We will not moderate the public in any way but simply allow the public to qualify themselves for membership. The membership will select prospective new members from the public.

The first restriction is that the administrative account must only be used for an administrative action. The Administrator account is a tool and is not to be used for posting in discussions. It is reserved for member approved administrative actions only.

We will use the circuitry to include posters as they establish themselves into the membership. Open circuits and closed circuits allow us to regulate access. Rather than invite the whole world in and then take a negative approach of excluding people either by arbitrary administrative action or the so-called "democratic" method of voting posters out, we will use an inclusive approach.
Let's set up the first forum Open Circuit Guest Forum

An open circuit phpbb2 forum

This setting allows the public to moderate. Anyone can delete or edit a post. Members, mods and adms are not able to delete or edit while logged in. They must log out and perform an edit or delete as any other guests.

Furthermore, we have added these rules and permission settings that apply to adms, mods and members but have no affect upon the public.

1) Members, moderators and administrators may not post, reply, edit, delete, sticky, announce, poll or vote in the Open Circuit with logged in accounts, are limited to the permission settings of the Open Circuit forum and may post, delete, sticky, announce, poll or vote in this forum only as Guests.

2) Moderators and administrators may move, split, lock and delete threads in the Open Circuit only with the approval of the membership.

Note that these rules are very brief and they apply to behavior of the fewest, since they apply to the fewest, they are most easily implemented. They are also very objective and do not in any way deal with the "morality" of a poster. Discipline is administered first, to adms; second, to mods; and lastly to the membership. At no time are we concerned with the behavior of the public on this circuit. The purpose of an open circuit is to allow the public an entry point for the public to interact with the community.

Open circuit phpbb3 forum. The setting here allows only the public to view the forum. When a member, mod or adm logs in, the forum disappears from their view. This makes it impossible for an adm or mod to check any IP numbers assuring maximum privacy. No one but guests can post a new topic or reply.

In each of these two examples, we have realized the basic democratic principle of Equality.

Guests, Members, Moderators and adms must meet on equal footing. No one is armed against another. No one is capable of infringing upon the privacy of another. No one has any greater right or responsibility than another.

Next, we must qualify the membership. We qualify them by giving them rights and responsibilities. They maintain their rights by fulfilling minimal responsiblities. these are the rights and responsibilies of a discussion participant. The Discussion Workshop gives the community experience with posting in form as an organized group rather than a collection of individuals. The Workshop modules are presented as a series of projects by and for the members themselves. The projects are designed around self-moderating democratic principles or discussion forms. Each participant gains valuable experience and exercise with basic rights and responsibilities.

Right to speak

Right to hear and be heard

Responsibility to respond

Responsibility to listen

The Discussion Workshop consists of a series of modules. Each module consists of a set of 3-5 projects that have specified objectives and an assigned Evaluator.

It would be good if each project (including evaluation) could be completed in a two hour session.

Basic Posting Workshop Objectives

Now that we have a membership, let's set up our next forum. This one will admit posting for Guest and Members together.

And these are the rules and permission settings:

1) Moderators and administrators may not post, reply, edit, delete, sticky, announce, poll or vote in the Guest/Member forum with moderator or administrator accounts, are limited to the permission settings of the Guest/Member forum and may post, reply, edit, delete, sticky, announce, poll or vote in the Guest/Member forum only as Guests or with logged in Member accounts.

2) Moderators and administrators may move, split, lock and delete threads in the Guest/Member forum only with the approval of the membership.

Again, note that we have made no rules for the public. The best thing about these rules is that new people don't need to know anything. The rules don't apply to them.

The members have the ability to delete when logged out yet they gain immunity for their own logged in posts. Guests can bridge the inequality gap here by becoming elected members. This is the most practical way to govern a community. We want to achieve a state of equality between all members.

Guests can have posts and threads qualified for saving. Guests can establish "Relative Identity"

member selection election is responsibility and right of the membership adm not allowed to interfere in process

adm has one member account for voting and posting equal to any other member

as community grows we will apply greater restrictions upon adm

restricted times means not lollygagging at IP checker

must prepare adm actions in advance and schedule
disciplined discussion

Unity of the Whole
Equality
Privacy
Purpose
Membership
Rights & Responsibilities
Freedom of Speech
Roles - Taking Turns
Objective Evaluation

deletes bans reduce credibility

adm as trustee never posts but is keeper of the keys

rational discussion is in form

open circuits random posting in unlimited numbers is good for chat

closed circuits with limited numbers using ordinal and temporal form for rational discussion measured discourse.

We are going to use a large number of forums and boards that are each set differently to achieve a certain texture or democratic principle. It is possible with our system that someone could "sneak" another account into the forums. But to do so they would have to "purchase" the account by assuming the basic responsibilities. Also with our system, they must advance and assume more responsibility for each account or the account will become inactive.

Rocky Forum Picture Show

Imagine that you have been invited to join a discussion group or community. The community has no designated time to meet. People come and go whenever. Sometimes there are a few together at the same time but everyone talks at the same time. No one gives any indication of listening.

Language is an issue. English is not neutral and puts non English speakers at a disadvantage. Participants should be multilingual at least bilingual.

Inequality does not exist among race, gender or sexual orientation because of anonymity. However, there has been created a new inequality between those that have power and don't have power - the moderators and the trolls. The trolls are supposed to be disrespected.

Does not mean that taking from those who have earned and giving to those who have not earned. Everyone may not finish the race at the same time because some may run faster than others. There is a principle of liberty. You are responsible for yourself and the outcomes that you mean to attain. You deserve to have what you have earned. You don't deserve a voice just for showing up but for producing equal benefits for the community along with your fellows.

The gap between administrators and members is too wide. We can probably agree that administrators have ALL of the power and members have NONE. The following is a compendious list of everything an administrator can do and everything the member cannot do. Make any and all rules Edit without leaving a stamp.

Edit their grammatical, rhetorical and logical presentations after the fact, leaving the impression of clean, fluent, sophisticated and intelligent posting. The regular poster leaves evidence of editing on the post. Either everyone should be able to make clean edits or everyone should leave a chunky edit stamp with an edited post.

Delete a post (their own or others, fabricating an intelligent presentation of their own selves)

Delete a thread Lock a thread (if people are overly interested in it)

Assign modships (to many anonymous persons who then have unequal status and powers)

Delete an account

One look at the administration panel of any message board and you'll be convinced that a huge inequality exists. When a member edits a post they leave behind a big chunky edit thingy like so: Last edited by Chooseboogers on Tue Sep 11 2007 939; edited 1 time in total In contrast, the administrator can edit and leave a clean post. They can also edit any post on the board. A member cannot. An administrator can delete anything but a member can't.

The cards are all stacked in favor of the administrator.

An adm can check your IP and invade your privacy while protecting their own. Read an IP number Look up an IP number Block an IP number Contact you personally (if they find you to be troublesome)

Gather personal information on you Now think about it. Why would I want to converse with anyone under those conditions? Why would I speak with a person who could shut my mouth while I have no power to do the same to that person? I reject the proposition outright. No wonder there is so little genuine communication in these "communities"! It's like sitting at a round table discussion in handcuffs while your mates are armed with ballbats just in case you should "act up"! There can be no real community where there is no equality and since the nature of the forum set up is so unequal...

...what's the solution? You can either expand the powers of the members or restrict the power of the administrators. Restricting and disciplining the administrator is the better option. The best option may be a balance of both. We want to achieve a state of equality between all members. The administrator can be restricted to posting only with a regular member account. Further restrictions can limit the times and frequency that the administrative account can be logged in , and for what purposes. A schedule may allow the administrator to log in once a week or once a month for a limited time, for the purpose of completing any tasks that the membership has assigned.

This protects the privacy of all members since the membership no longer stands transparent before the administrator.

IP checks And there is a "moderator". The moderator has the power to shut your mouth, change your words, change their own words without any trace of having done so. You are given documents to read while the moderator reads over your shoulder. The moderator also has access to personal information about you. They can learn what town or region you live in without asking. You cannot withhold this information. They can trace your number and contact your employer or family. You have no privacy. You must relinquish all rights and give these rights to the moderator in order to qualify for participation. You do not have any right to know the same things about the moderator that they know about you.

Only need to know that the other person is not yourself. Beyond that is invasion.

The members are equal to the purpose by way of the programs that enable them to achieve the community objectives.

Why do people visit forums? To interact. Not to read or to write. We want to select those poster who are qualified for discussion.

The members are here because of the community. They did not gather here to meet the administrator. An individual is not to be treated simply as an instrument to promote someone else's purposes,??? whether that purpose is to sell or promote the purpose of one individual.

Therefore, it has a natural tendency toward the dramatic mode and the dramatic mode depends greatly upon the development of conflict.

link to samples

model forums guest posting php2 who gets disciplined for posting in guest forum? members mods and adms not public

php3 adm and logged in members can't even view the forum impossible to IP check

consistency of language use of words like member guest forum discussion democracy

finally a positive approach to web community discussion
delete and ban reduces credibility

I was not given any responsibility to qualify me for a discussion. Not any responsibility that could be objectively evaluated.
"Be nice" is not a behavior that can be objectively evaluated.

There are no spies and no spying

The public rules on open circuits and members have right to closed circuits only

took the "standard" and turned it upsidedown and insideout

eCommunity consists of anonymous parties eFriends who never meet because it is impractical

ideal eCommunity of 10 would be one from each of five continents and 5 from several planets.

This is the eCommunity,the eDemocracy that we are planning. It's purpose is NOT a regional gathering.

other set ups phpbb3 with member registration use "Non- voting Guest" rank for 1 post Elected members automatically get Non-IP-checking Mod staus for purpose of moving and deleting give maximum control to membership

Begin with a suitable platform
email
gmail chat
gmail group chat

The group chat feature lets you chat with many friends at once. There's no limit to the number of people you can chat with, and any participant can invite others to join. To get started, follow these steps:

Start a chat with a single person in your Contacts list.
Once you've started the chat, click Options at the bottom left of your chat window and select Group Chat.
In the field labeled 'Add a person to this chat,' enter the name of the contact(s) you want to add to your group chat.

To end your chat, click the X at the corner of the chat window. Others in the group chat will get a message saying that you've left the conversation. If you want to rejoin, you'll need to be invited back by a contact who's still in the group chat. The group chat will continue until all participants have left.

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October evaluation notes

2008-10-19T11:50:00.018-04:00

Seemed to be educators who are looking for online credentials by taking these courses. Yet they don't deserve the credential for this "course" because they didn't do the work for it and the "course" itself is not up to standards. The course must have credibility first.

These seem to be the type that are looking to promote themselves into a better job or career. They buy and promote books like "How to Organize without Organization" because they want to get connected and break into the market with their own theory.

Leigh stated at the start of this "course" that the platform is not what makes the community.
I agree. I think that Leigh should have met with the FOC08 people rather than admit whoever showed up on a given platform to be called "FOC members".

A course is a small group that meets continuously through a complete term. Leigh had only five hours a week for this course. That is hardly enough time for a very small group of seven to ten members.

Facilitating Online Communities is a set of human problems and solutions. Since platforms are not the community, I think that the course outline should not have included exploration of all of these platforms. Rather we should have taken one or two very common platforms and explored the ethical uses of them.

In a course, the participants are responsible to respond. I would expect higher standards for replying to the blogging. Sustained dialogue should have been a requirement. When I take a university level course or workshop, there is a very high degree of exchange. I didn't get that here, either on my own blog or on the blogs of the other participants. The blogging assignment should have included that each reply some number of times on each blog assignment. Maybe ten replies for each blog. That would not have been much to do for a group two or three people.

Leigh, I really think that you need to learn to organize two or three people in one of these courses. Organize them as a group and deliver this like a course. With such a small group, you could even do the assignments too. I think the fact that Leigh was not doing the assignments was what led him off track. In a teaching role, I would not expect the leader of the group to do the assignments but perhaps as a facilitator you should have? Doing the assignments would have kept you in touch. You somehow got out of touch with those who are blogging on the topic of Faciliatating Online Communities. Instead you got all touchy feely with whoever met on whatever platform of the week you had scheduled.

Platforms have little to do with the arts of facilitating groups.

I wonder if politics is not involved somehow? Leigh was running for an elected office at the same time as this course. I wonder if the course was not just a way of promoting the Leigh's name during the election? I wonder if Leigh allowed the course to be overrun by th WE community because they were the voters in the WE election? This led him to refusing to identify who was a member of the group and focus the five hours per week on those few.

Anyway, I'm a dissatisfied customer and think that this "course" degrades the reputation of the "university" that sponsored it.

steered discussion away fron ethical to technical
immature approach to human problems
problems created by technology
stoopid to expect technology to solve these problems

if you want "out-of-the-box" experience go trolling

need to demonstrate ethical democratic forms so people can learn them
urgent when country is going socialist and politicians are moving to suspend form

other important uses:
who makes rules for Internet?
Missouri state legislature?
City Council of Santa Barbara?
or the users themselves?

individuals have abdicated decision making to administrators because groups lack organized temporal and ordinal forms
great benefit in restoring form is that people can build their communities up through their own decision making efforts
rational discussion deliberation and decision making cannot be made with irrational forms or outside of rational form

open community closed groups

need open circuit for promotion, to let people know you exist, advertising
closed circuits should be used in organizing small groups, there is no reason to broadcast the proceedings of a small group, Rotary International does not need to know all of the goings on of every local club in the world.

disservice to expect people to be able to wade through mountains voluminous of info to find their way
how can someone know what to ask for?
how can they know that they don't know something unless someone shows them that the thing exists?
small group can verify what people know and don't know, this disclosing of blind spots is important for every member.
a practical dialogue gathers all the knowledge and increases the knowledge of each because it illuminates the blind areas the places where we don't even know that we don't know.

I expected that we would have as much exchange as a course with 10 or 15 people meeting once or twice a week should have.
Fewer people would have been easier to schedule more often
response ratio is affected by random multimemberships
people are not there to respond because they are too busy with their multi-"memberships", they go multi-membershipping because they do not recieve enough response in the "communities"
what seems to be lacking is the small cohesive group
ordinal form requires that each respond

blogging experience
first step in building groups is to find qualified individuals
dialogue can serve well and blogs are a good place to dialogue
still I find little interest in dialogue on many blogs
my role seems to be just to let people know that they exsist
finding people using blog search is easier also better faster way to connect less static

leigh said was not community
but treated it as if it were
my guess is that he is a part of a community
WE
and they were automatically qualified to participate
but it degraded the integrity of the course to act so
influenced by election?

gender politics maybe best to give gender neutral usernames?

relation of group to community

community is comprised of small individual groups
individual enters community through frequect contact with the small group
NOT through frequent contact with the whole community
the whole numvber of a group should be small enough so that the average member can lead it
Supreme Court is good example.
9 members
any one of them could lead it
community should not threaten the functioning of the group
but support it
groups should have seperate identities within the community

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¿Cuál es un Foro?

2008-10-17T15:26:00.006-04:00

Utilizo la palabra “foro” en un sentido clásico. Pienso que una discusión es como una organización, no sólo del temo sino de la gente ellos misma. Donde están situados en la discusión puede influenciar grandemente la cantidad o el tipo de energía que poseen. Un foro es el proceso del tema a través de varias formas de la discusión. La variación de la forma da una gama más amplia de expresión a los hablantes y una mejor experiencia de escuchar para la audiencia.

Yo uso la palabra "foro" en un sentido clásico. Creo que de un debate como una organización no sólo del tema sino de los propios pueblos. Cuando se coloca en el debate puede influir considerablemente en la cantidad o el tipo de poder que poseen. Un foro es el tratamiento del tema de discusión a través de diversas formas. La variación de la forma da a la vez una gama más amplia de expresión a los oradores y una mejor experiencia para escuchar la audiencia.

Utilizo la palabra “foro” en un sentido clásico. Pienso que un discusión es como una organización, no sólo del tema sino de la gente misma. Donde están situados en el discusión puede influenciar grandemente la cantidad o el tipo de energía que poseen. Un foro es el proceso del tema a través de varias formas de discusión. La variación de la forma proporciona doblemente una mayor gama de expresión a los hablantes y una mejor experiencia de escuchar para la audiencia.

DONE

Tomemos cualquier tema y tratémoslo a través de un proceso completo.

Comencemos el proceso con un tipo de forma democrática que sea al azar, en circuito abierto, con números ilimitados de hablantes. Todos hemos visto este tipo de discusión en foros en línea. Generalmente, la única división de la discusión sería estrictamente dentro se los temas, simplemente dividiendo el asunto según sus componentes componentes, llegando a ser cada división entonces su propio tema. La discusión podía ser dividida en los subforums separados.

Tomemos cualquier tema y tratémoslo a través de un proceso completo. Comencemos el proceso con un tipo de forma democrática que sea al azar, en circuito abierto, con números ilimitados de hablantesTodos hemos visto este tipo de discusión en foros en línea. Generalmente, la única división de la discusión sería [color="red"]estrictamente dentro de los temas, simplemente dividiendo el asunto según sus componentes, llegando a ser cada división entonces su propio tema. La discusión podía ser dividida en lineas o subforums separados.

Ahora en la forma al azar los carteles pueden sostener el modo expositivo apenas contorneando y componiendo sus postes del individuo. Entonces acumulamos una colección de postes expositivos. La ventaja de este estilo es que cada voz puede hablar tan a menudo y tanto como quieren. El problema es que es muy duro seguir la discusión, especialmente cuando divergen las opiniones.

¿Cuál es el paso lógico siguiente en curso de foro clásico? Algo que más lejos la división del asunto, la extensión de una discusión expositiva pedida sería el ordenar de los carteles ellos mismos. Puede ser que comencemos la discusión de nuevo con una limitación - que cada uno de ellos no se prohibe a un y solamente un poste. O cualquier número limitado. O puede ser que los pidamos para hacer un poste y para seguir siendo silenciosos hasta que uno redondo de la fijación se termine. Entonces los carteles pueden reasumir otra vez cada uno que no se prohibe uno y solamente un poste. Esta forma ayuda a mantener el principio de igual dice o iguala tiempo. También comprueba el dramático puesto que se improvisa el modo dramático y prospera en forma al azar. Exige que cada uno hable una vez y escuche nueve veces (en un grupo de diez). Introduce la forma racional, no prohibiendo a los miembros control sobre el modo de discusión, y es un objetivo mensurable.

Tan ahora hemos movido el asunto con un proceso a partir de una forma a otra. Y el propósito de esto es que los carteles pueden refinar sus presentaciones originales que eran al azar y difíciles leer y condensar o resumir sus exposiciones. Esto no nos prohibe una mejor experiencia que escucha porque una forma tan expositiva sería condensador de ajuste, más fácil seguir y fácil referirse referente quién piensa lo que, puesto que todos los postes son resumidos por cada cartel.

Digamos que emergen las opiniones múltiples y sus son racimos de opiniones, por ejemplo, tres puntos de vista distintos que cada cartel podría colocarse con respectivamente.

El paso siguiente en el proceso sería designar o elegir a tres representantes de esas opiniones y utilizar la forma del círculo otra vez para desmenuzarla hacia fuera usando una forma terminante del círculo (ABC del ABC…). Uno o más la opinión puede emerger como más fuertes que el otros. Uno se puede sacudir para ensamblar otro o se puede partir en dos facciones debido a él es poseer debilidades inherentes y ensamblar a los otros dos. Podemos entonces medir esto en términos de cantidades relativas en un sistema cerrado usando números enteros y fracciones. Podemos determinar cuantitativo el resultado del discusión. Donde se convierten dos opiniones de oposición nos aclaró pueden entonces moverse encendido en el proceso a un discusión evaluado bilateral usando el siguiente forman (AB AB AB C)

A Pro
B Con
A Refutación
B Refutación
A Cierre
B Cierre
C Evaluación

La evaluación sí mismo se puede conducir por un equipo de observadores que critique la gramática, el retórico y la lógica.

Usando este proceso, la discusión se mueve desde un irracional a la forma racional que se puede contar por un número entero. Las cantidades relativas de igualdad, de mayoría y de minoría se pueden deducir de este número entero.

La ventaja es que la comunidad recibe un completo oyendo hablar del asunto. No permiten la mayoría al outvoice la minoría porque para el final del proceso la comunidad ha ajustado abajo del número de voces a dos voces iguales con el fin de determinar la lógica de cada discusión. La mayoría puede todavía votar a favor de ella es asunto pero como el proceso continúa la voz de la minoría continúa siendo oída.

Mantenemos tan otro tipo de igualdad. Si nueve personas creen que una cosa y una persona cree a otra, no permitimos nueve voces a una. Queremos oír toda la lógica de un lado comparado a toda la lógica del otro. Una lógica puede compensar otra. Permitir que los nueve dominen nos da discusiones redundantes y un ahogamiento de la voz de la minoría. ¡El valor en este proceso miente en el hecho de que la mayor parte de la gente es a menudo incorrecta! Sabemos históricamente que las mejores ideas vienen de números muy pequeños. Las comunidades científicas y literarias abarcan un pequeño porcentaje de la comunidad entera. Los científicos tienen gusto de Galileo y Darwin y los escritores como Frederick Douglas, Allen Ginsberg y Mark Twain podrían ser censurados o sus ideas podrían ser perseguidas.

Un ejemplo histórico sería la aparición de la teoría de la evolución en moneda pública. En el ensayo de los alcances de 1925, el Evolutionists perdió la caja al Creationists pero ganó la tierra inmensa en traer la atención de la existencia de las teorías de Darwin al público en general. 83 años más adelante y él está difícilmente incluso encontrar un Creationist que por lo menos no acepte la microevolución como hecho.

Este proceso es tan progresivo.

Pero estoy hablando en el contexto de las comunidades en línea de Faciliating. Creo que las formas democráticas tradicionales realizan el mejor faciliation. Éste es foro uno mismo-moderado, absolutamente distinto apenas de una organización tópica de hilos de rosca o de subforums. Y el es lo que significo por la palabra “foro”, una forma que permita que la comunidad discuta, delibere y decida con una acción en línea.

Para recapitular, utilizamos un proceso trifásico de las diversas formas de la discusión u organizaciones de gente y de discurso con el fin de alcanzar de una mejor experiencia que escuchaba.

1) Forma al azar, donde cada uno fue permitido hablar tan a menudo y tanto como desearon.

2) Circunde la forma, donde los hablamos fueron asignados para hablar en un lugar dado. Pueden tener la derecha y la responsabilidad de hablar. En esta forma del círculo, cada uno debe escuchar el otros antes de que puedan hablar otra vez.

3) Discuta la forma, de que la lógica de dos o tres ideas de oposición deben conseguir una audiencia igual sin importar el número de partidarios para cada idea. En esta forma una mayor demanda se hace sobre los hablamos para ejercitar sus responsabilidades de hablar.

Usted puede ver los diversos efectos que cada forma alcanza. En el primer, un grupo de oposición puede despedir las discusiones de otras y no hacer caso simplemente de ellos pero como la discusión toma la forma, la mayor responsabilidad está sobre los hablamos.

Éste era solamente un proceso descrito. Hay otras formas de la discusión y por lo tanto muchas variaciones de los foros que pueden ser organizados.

I use the word "forum" in a classic sense. I think of a discussion as an organization not only of the topic but of the people themselves. Where they are positioned in the discussion may greatly influence the amount or type of power that they possess. A forum is the processing of the topic through various discussion forms. The variation of form gives both a greater range of expression to the speakers and a better listening experience for the audience.

Let us take any topic and put it through a complete process. Let's begin the process with a type of democratic form that is random, open circuit, with unlimited numbers of speakers. We have all seen this type of discussion in online forums. Usually, the only division of the discussion would be strictly topical, simply dividing the topic down to it's constituent parts, each division then becoming it's own topic. The discussion could be divided into separate threads or separate subforums.

Now in the random form the posters may sustain the expository mode just by outlining and composing their individual posts. We then accumulate a collection of expository posts. The benefit of this style is that every voice can speak as often and as much as they want. The problem is that it is very hard to follow the discussion, especially when opinions diverge.

What's the next logical step in the process of a classic forum? Rather than further division of the topic, the extension of an ordered expository discussion would be the ordering of the posters themselves. We might begin the discussion anew with one limitation - that each of them are allowed one and only one post. Or whatever limited number. Or we might ask them to make one post and remain silent until one round of posting is completed. Then the posters may resume again each allowing themselves one and only one post. This form helps to maintain the principle of equal say or equal time. It also checks the dramatic since the dramatic mode is improvised and thrives on random form. It demands that each speak once and listen nine times (in a group of ten). It introduces rational form, allowing the members control over the mode of discussion, and it is a measurable objective.

So now we have moved the topic through a process from one form to another. And the purpose of this is that the posters may refine their original presentations that were random and difficult to read and condense or summarise their expositions. This allows us a better listening experience because such an expository form would be trimmer, easier to follow and easy to reference concerning who thinks what, since all posts are summarised by each poster.

Let's say that multiple opinions emerge and their are clusters of opinions, say, three distinct viewpoints that each poster could position themselves with respectively.

The next step in the process would be to appoint or elect three representatives of those opinions and use the circle form again to hash it out using a strict circle form (ABC ABC...). One or more opinion may emerge as stronger than the others. One may be swayed to join another or may split into two factions due to it's own inherent weaknesses and be joined to the other two. We can then measure this in terms of relative quantities in a closed system using whole numbers and fractions. We can quantitatively assess the outcome of the debate. Where two opposing opinions become clarified we may then move on in the process to a two sided evaluated debate using the following form (AB AB AB C)

A Pro
B Con
A rebuttal
B rebuttal
A closing
B closing
C Evaluation

The evaluation itself may be conducted by a team of observers who critique the grammar, rhetoric and logic.

Using this process, the discussion is moved from an irrational to rational form that can be counted by a whole number. The relative quantities of equality, majority and minority can be deduced from this whole number.

The benefit is that the community receives a complete hearing of the topic. The majority is not allowed to outvoice the minority because by the end of the process the community has trimmed down the number of voices to two equal voices for the purpose of assessing the logic of each argument. The majority may still vote in favor of it's proposition but as the process continues the minority voice continues to be heard.

So we maintain another type of equality. If nine people believe one thing and one person believes another, we do not allow nine voices to one. We want to hear all of the logic of one side compared to all of the logic of the other. One logic may outweigh another. Allowing the nine to dominate gives us repetitious arguments and a drowning of the minority voice. The value in this process lies in the fact that most of the people are often wrong! We know historically that the best ideas come from very small numbers. The scientific and literary communities comprise a small percentage of the whole community. Scientists like Galileo and Darwin and writers like Frederick Douglas, Allen Ginsberg and Mark Twain could be censored or their ideas could be persecuted.

An historical example would be the emergence of the theory of evolution into public currency. In the Scopes Trial of 1925, the Evolutionists lost the case to the Creationists but gained immense ground in bringing attention of the existence of Darwin's theories to the general public. 83 years later and it is hard even to find a Creationist who won't at least accept microevolution as a fact.

So this process is progressive.

But I am speaking in the context of Faciliating Online Communities. I believe that traditional democratic forms perform the best faciliation. This is self-moderated forum, quite distinct from just a topical organization of threads or subforums. And this is what I mean by the word "forum", a form that allows the community to discuss, deliberate and decide through an online action.

To recap, we used a three phase process of different discussion forms or organizations of people and speech for the purpose of achieving a better listening experience.

1) Random form, where everyone was allowed to speak as often and as much as they desired.

2) Circle form, where speakers were assigned to speak in a given place. They may have both the right and the responsibility to speak. In this circle form, each must listen to the others before they may speak again.

3) Debate form, that the logic of two or three opposing ideas must get an equal hearing regardless of the the number of supporters for each idea. In this form a greater demand is made upon the speakers to exercise their responsibilities to speak.

You can see the different effects that each form achieves. In the first, an opposing group may dismiss the arguments of others and simply ignore them but as the discussion takes form, greater responsibility is upon the speakers.

This was only one process described. There are other discussion forms and therefore many variations of forums that can be organized.

Multimembership (the bane of web community)

2008-10-16T12:19:00.003-04:00

It was the strategy of the technocrat to defeat traditional ordinal form so as to establish a new order with themselves at the top of the food chain.

Multi-membershipping effectively prevents the membership from counting itself as a whole number and thus producing a rational form. Because there are so few stable small groups online, people go "multi-membershipping" in search of any kind of response! Multi-membershipping destroys group identity further. This syndrome is waht I call Anti-Community. Group continuity is lost in a descending spiral.

If there was anything that annoyed me more in the FOC08 course it was the idea that people could come and go whenever they wanted and do the course "at their own pace". That "own pace" got stretched a lot until people were not even doing the course work. Yet these very people were the first to sign up for facilitating. I guess they fancy themselves to be leaders of the rest of us who did the work - myself and Joy.

Multimembershipping is a nifty little device invented by the technocrat in order to control large areas of the web. It prevents people from really organizing and it just ruined the FOC08 course for me. It allows people to be uncommitted yet to have as much say as a person who is committed.

People need to learn to organize small groups of three people using traditional ordinal form before they go about designing "courses" and "conferences". I would have been happy as a lark with just three or four committed people. Even if they disagreed with me. At least we could have had a reasonable listening experience.

Absorbsion rate? Small group of 10-15 people is listenable.
each can listen to the others and be heard by the others.

Multimembershipping is mob rule. How do I m,anage multimembership? I don't multimembership unless it is to troll a forum. People who advocate multimembershipping are trolls. So what's wrong with a multimemebrship of 500 gag accounts on one forum? If the shoe fits, wear it.

Protest Against People Overload!

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Changing Blogs

2008-10-16T10:12:00.002-04:00

I am starting a new blog which will be more freestyle, engaging in a potpourri of whatever interest me personally. You can find me now at Artie's World.

I am done blogging for this "course" and am beginning a new blog. I may or may not do a thorough evaluation of everything I experienced. I think I got what I wanted out of it. I had begun work on a new website and possible forum dedicated to promoting traditional temporal and ordinal democratic organizing procedures. I needed some stimulation to get the next few pages. So personally, this "course" did this for me.

I am already getting some thoughts for evaluating the "course". First, I stumbled upon it while tagging a few writings of mine at delicious and swicki with the tag "online facilitation" or some such. I was not looking for a course but I came upon the FOC08 promotion on the day it was opening and decided that I was too late to join. But the course outline was somewhat similar to the outline I have for my website, so I set up a blog to blog along with everyone silently without being an official participant. Then when the blogging was so pitifully weak (in light of there being 113 "members"), I thought I would surface and put something on the table.

With an organized outline and along with the word "course" and "university", I imagined that there would be some temporal and ordinal form. The temporal was very much present in that the outline was dated with rough deadlines for completing the work. I am very disappointed that ordinal form was not respected during the course.

The course also got me into blogging, which is a new avenue for me. But it's not what I was looking for. I was not looking for a bunch of new platforms but better ways to communicate with people. That is what I wrote about in this blog.

I ended my work in this "course" with a boycott of the conference because people who had not done the coursework came crawling onto the open stage where they could facilitate before a television audience. As far as I count, only Joy and myself completed the coursework and should have been scheduled to facilitate an event. Daryl did the blogging but did not fulfill the requirement of commenting on the blogs. We were responsible to fulfill that task.

I think that the comment assignment should have been more specific like, every blogger must make 10 comments on each blog or even on each blog assignment.

I also think that the course would have a much greater impact if the membership were closed to a very few who qualified themselves for the coursework. Daryl could easily have qualified.

The only assignments that I did not complete were either for ethical reasons or because I was insufficiently informed about how to perform a task.

I have a ton of notes in backlog and may bring those together for a final assessment.

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What is NOT a community?

2008-10-14T14:43:00.008-04:00

Anti Community

"Survivor" ends by faciliating the destruction of community only one left standing no growth approach

not a community when 90% of the "members" are a fringe element without responsibilities

Small group have been replaced with chats. "Community" invades and destroys small group identity through a technique known as "multi-membershipping"

When the community has 90% real members who are active and dependable to respond and
discussion is organized and leads to deliberate action through a community effort

in context of an online community a large percentage of discussion leads to an online action
anti-community lacks attributes of traditional community collections of individuals

NOT
Individual-Community

BUT
Individual-Small Group-Community

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My Rights and Responsibilities in Groups

2008-10-04T12:35:00.007-04:00

Right to speak

Right to hear and be heard

Responsibility to respond

Responsibility to listen

Right to Privacy do not need to reveal one iota of personal info on an open circuit. The right to privacy includes the right to anonymity. The practice of banning users is unethical because it utilizes IP checking. New users are having their privacy invaded. IP checking is a threat to the security and privacy of the individual members.

Right to Equality begins with being able to count the membership as a whole number allowing relative quanities like equality, majority and minority to be accurately measured. The right to equality includes the right to discuss, deliberate and decide using traditional rational forms.

Freedom of Speech includes the right to communicate using all modes; expository, narrative and dramatic.

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Measured Discourse

2008-10-03T22:06:00.001-04:00

Everything in this blog could be summed up in two words - measured discourse. I say that rational discussion is measurable.

Unlike "moderation", the purpose of evaluation is not to oversee individuals but to elevate the whole community as each member serves in the role of evaluator. If I am assigned to evaluate the grammar of a discussion, I monitor all of the grammar and report at the end of the discussion.

The first benefit of this service is to myself, the evaluator. The objective is not to improve the grammar of the discussion participants, but the discussion is only an object upon which I exercise and develop my listening skills in the area of grammar.

The second benefit is to the whole group in that it affects my grammar in all subsequent discussions. So the community has improved the grammar of one member, myself. Each member has the opportunity to evaluate discussions and this role of evaluator qualifies each member (in this case - myself) to participate as a contributor to further discussions.

Through the evaluation process the group ensures that the rights and responsibilities of every member are secured.

Right to speak

Right to hear others speak

Responsibility to reply

Responsibility to listen

There are no dangling conversations, no "community" that destroys group identity, few unmeasured arguments and few irrational group responses. There are few rules that can only be measured subjectively, the focus remains upon the objectives of the discussion project. When the discussion project is finished and has been evaluated, the topic itself can be continued in yet another measured form. The subject matters can be progressively developed, so instead of rehashing the same old same old in the same old same old random form, we revisit the topic in a new form, thereby gaining a fresh perspective.

See: The Listening Experience
Learning Ordinal Forms

Boycott the FOC08 Conference

2008-09-29T22:52:00.002-04:00

Visitors are coming into the course and running the whole shebang. Obviously, Leigh doesn't think much of those who are legitimate members of the course. What is a course? Course or Community? Many of these people that are coming into the course are just people who were in some other course. well, this is my course, I'm doing the work and I'm not sharing the decision making process with people who lollygag their way through it.

People who have not kept up with the course outline should not facilitate. I'm not amazed at how few responded to the blog writing and commenting assignments but come crawling out of the woodwork on time with eagerness to show off on the stage of the so-called "web community".

Join the Protest Against People Overload!

Blogosphere

2008-09-29T13:45:00.003-04:00

1. Look at the Wikipedia entry for Blogosphere and pay particular attention to the See Also section. Read up on one of the listed blogospheres in that section and write a post to your blog that explains in your own words what a Blogging Network is and can be - cite examples.

Leigh, I don't read that wiki because of it's unethical treatment of the public.

2. Review this course as a blogging network to date. Does it connect out to a wider network, or is it insular? Does this blogging network have a facilitator or should it need one? Consider your role in helping to develop this blogging network. Finally, comment on the strengths and weaknesses as you see them, of a blogging network for online community development.

On this second point I feel much better. I like a blogging network because it doesn't allow any one person to "moderate". So-called "moderators" cannot invade my privacy with IP checking.

I think a blog network is ideal for random, open circuit posting as a means of finding qualified prospects for an elected membership. A small group of 5 to 7 people could gather around some ideas and principles and form a larger group, and random posting is fine conversation form for small groups of 3 to 5 people, but then I think that as they grow, they would need training in true discussion form and also the need to meet periodically using a centralized communication system. Maybe a meeting every two or four weeks?

Does it need a facilitator? Facilitation is going to be needed to put together the kind of community that I envision. I don't think that small groups of three or four people need a facilitator but as the group grows, the membership should focus upon learning basic skills of communication and leadership such as Finding a Buddy, Arranging Appointments, Choosing a Platform, Alternate Posting and Circle Forms; in preparation for a larger group of ten. By the time the group is getting larger than seven, the membership needs to be fully grounded in traditional form so as to be able to proceed through rational discussion, deliberation and decision processes. Of course, when the small group is equipped with these kinds of communication and leadership tools, they can then elect new members and officials such as a president.

My role in helping to build this blogosphere is to focus attention upon human solutions to human problems rather than push-button solutions. I also want to establish some facts about the unethical practices now in currency. The facts are going to force us to reconsider many administrative habits. I want to promote a scientific approach to building community based upon these facts. I also want to find people to practice traditional solutions for web communications.

The strengths and weaknesses of a blogging network? I think that it's weaknesses could be turned into strengths. For example, the fact that finding stuff is difficult forces me to trim down my blog network to a manageable few blogs. I don't think that any discussion requires more than ten people. The Supreme Court is nine people!

If I can find just a few people who want to discuss in form, I believe we can organize a growing and dynamic community such as those that spread across many countries in the 20th century. Really powerful communities like Rotary, JayCees and Lions Clubs didn't mess around. They got things done.

Finding a Buddy

2008-09-28T12:28:00.002-04:00

I want to begin writing a project outline for a discussion series to be administered by the community called Discussion Workshop. The concept is that all information should be imparted through discussion form and experience, rather than FAQ's and links only. It follows that the first project is Finding a Buddy. So I would like to discuss with a buddy about how to find a buddy.

So there are a few people I have connected with a bit here, but what is a buddy? I think of a buddy as someone who is dependable, someone I have a sustained relationship through a series of conversations. A buddy is someone who shares at least some of your own values with you. Like Joy and I share some of the same ideas.

What else? Maybe someone who appreciates your style of communication?

How to go about finding a buddy? I don't know if you can actually find one. All of my buddies have just come along in life. Still, I do think it helps to actively look for people because it increases the chances of finding quality people. In the Discussion Workshop, I would like to see the community acticvely pursuing the "Buddy System" as Derek calls it. I can see it as an assigned project to find a buddy and even having an elected official like a Master Host who develops a Buddy Program.*

Once every person has a buddy, I can see people imparting the needed information about technical aspects of platforms and the forms of discussion that can make a coherant community.

I would like to go through a complete series of discussions like we have done in this foc08 course. Each disculd focus upon an activity to experience together.

Basic Module 10 projects (choose from options)
Finding a Buddy
Choosing a Platform
Clocks and Time
Arranging Appointments
Chat through a Window
Practical Dialogue
On the Same Page
Alternate Posting
Choosing a Topic
Quoting the OP
Your First Circle
Evaluate a Discussion

By the end of this module, we will have formulated a small democratically organized group. I would like to constitute the groups and bring them to about 20 members then some of the original nucleus will organize to start a separate group with the same constitution. This allows each person to be a measurable part of a whole group that is possible to listen to. We might even call it "The Listeners Club".

*I am not saying that there is a prescription for finding a buddy, as I know from my own experience that buddies come along out of nowhere. But on further consideration, maybe they don't. I have to experiment with many different people to "stumble" upon one.

>My Take on Facilitation

I want to help people to learn through self-teaching dialogue how a community may facilitate itself through proper applications of traditional democratic arts and skills.

Assignment 2 - Ideas for Miniconference

2008-09-25T18:50:00.001-04:00

I would like to do a coordinated research project for the conference. The objective is to establish some basic facts about Internet communications. I would like to document the difference in posting frequencies between posters who are aligned on a narrow area of a line of longitude versus posters who are the same distance apart but on a latitude.

I would also be interested in doing some basic one hour practical dialogues, each with one buddy. We then might expand into three person dialogues after we establish the how-to of two person dialogues. Each dialogue will emphasize expository role playing.

Support Lori Drew Blog

2008-09-21T10:33:00.000-04:00

OK. So Lori Drew is being tried for violating the terms of service at MySpace (MySpace claims that the registration agreement is a written contract!). Her violation of the terms of agreement on a social networking site somehow resulted in the death of a 13 year old girl by suicide. I started a blog in support of Lori Drew and against the crackpots. I hope to follow this story. If the judge has any sense, there will be no story to follow.

So today a 19 year old kid goes and kills himself on a video website. In this thread someone complains that the kid's suicide will hurt their sales! According to the forum that this happened on any good publicity is good publicity. Ha.

OK. But here's how I look at it. Wasn't it MySpace (or Facebook?) who had a big controversy because some cops were lurking in the forums pretending to be 14 years old and some adults "hit on" them? So the site had to do all this revamping to protect the little kids.

In that case, if cops are pretending to be underage, is it not acceptable to pretend to be a predator? They are both pretending, acting a role in the dramatic mode.

And how can I know if this story about the 19 year old is true?

Anyway, the discussion is similar to the Lori Drew incident. A lot of users had encouraged this person to do the suicide and now a lot of other users want the police to come in and investigate those who did the encouraging and have them charged with some crime.

In both cases, it is the individual who is ultimately responsible for their actions.

I have opened a blog in support of Lori Drew who is the defendant in the so-called "cyberbullying" case.

The indictment alleges that Drew and her co-conspirators violated MySpace's terms of service, which require registrants to provide truthful registration information and refrain from soliciting personal information from anyone under 18 or using information obtained from MySpace services to harass or harm other people, among other terms.

If convicted on all four counts, Drew could face up to 20 years in federal prison.

I don't believe that anyone on the Internet should have the right to solicit personal information from me. I reserve my right to anonymity on the web. The privacy of Lori Drew was violated by MySpace. MySpace doesn't make law.

Dead teen's mom testifies in cyberbullying trial

This is a great testimony as to how screwed up the web "community" really is. Should any local court (and in relation to the worldwideweb, even the Supreme Court is local) make laws for this community? I say no. The reason the City of Pootown or the State of Massashitass is making these laws is because they are actual organized bodies. Where can we find that on the Internet?

This is why it is imperative to organize democratically on the web. If laws need to be made for this community, let this community make those laws.

This cyberbullying case is not a case of homicide. The trial is expected to center on the social networking site's terms of service. That's the button that you click when registering that says "I Agree"

What are the issues? What is an agreement? When people sign up for these services do they actually agree to anything? Or do they just click a button to get the account? Can there be an agreement without discussion first? If I am forced to accept the terms in order to get the service, can it be called an "agreement"?

Do the terms of service have the force of law? If I disobey the terms of service, have I broken the law? What law should govern the web? Who should have jurisdiction?

For me this touches the deeper roots of what is wrong with web "community". Where is the agreement between anyone? I don't see it. I see pre-fab agreements that come up when registering for a service but have never been approached by any other individual in the "community" to forge any real agreement. Or when they did, they refused to negotiate the agreement.

These ageements usually state all of the rights that the provider has and all of the rights that the user doesn't have. Do web services betray the public trust by imposing such agreements? I think all roads will lead us back to the issue of "private property".

It may make little difference who owns a service as private property when it comes to writing the rules. This whole system comes down to money and is therefore market driven. It's not about bringing people together. It's about making money.

What if we were to reinterpret the whole system? A platform like Google considers that it is giving me a free service by allowing me to register for a blog. But I feel that the bloggers are doing the service for Google. Blogging drives traffic to their site. So the users should have equal say in the discussion toward any terms of service. Otherwise, they run the risk of losing users.

If the web is market driven, then ultimately it is the providers that must answer to the users.

Obama's Cellphone Account Breached by Verizon Employees

Another major issue is privacy. In the case of the teen suicide, the service provider identified a user who chose to be anonymous. Do these companies have the right to violate the users privacy?

The suicide itself is irrelevant to the issues. I don't like the fact that the issues are being tied to such an emotionally charged circumstance. The implication is that one user's offline actions are the responsibility of another user's online behavior.

There seems to be gross misunderstanding about the way that people want to use the web. There is little that the law says about this but fortunately there is some historical precedence to rely upon in following these legal developments. It might be good to take a closer look at what the web is made of and how different people interpret it's possible uses.

I am going to be following the case of Lori Drew through the superior courts until the "law" is stamped out. So I'll be blogging along with others on the new Support Lori Drew blog. You are invited to stop by and drop off an opinion. Regular posters may be invited into an online civil liberties think tank that I plan on starting. You'll find plenty of links to other bloggers who have opinions about this case on the Support Lori Drew blog.

volokh.com

Support Lori Drew

techdirt.com

encyclopediadramatica.com

meganhaditcoming.blogspot.com

What is a Forum?

2008-09-17T14:11:00.004-04:00

I use the word "forum" in a classic sense. I think of a discussion as an organization not only of the topic but of the people themselves. Where they are positioned in the discussion may greatly influence the amount or type of power that they possess. A forum is the processing of the topic through various discussion forms. The variation of form gives both a greater range of expression to the speakers and a better listening experience for the audience.

Take any topic and put it through a complete process. Let's begin the process with a type of democratic form that is random, open circuit, with unlimited numbers of speakers. We have all seen this type of discussion in online forums. Usually, the only division of the discussion would be strictly topical, simply dividing the topic down to it's constituent parts, each division then becoming it's own topic. The discussion could be divided into separate threads or separate subforums.

In the random form the posters may sustain the expository mode just by outlining and composing their individual posts. We then accumulate a collection of expository posts. The benefit of this style is that every voice can speak as often and as much as they want. The problem is that it is very hard to follow the discussion, especially when opinions diverge.

What's the next logical step in the process of a classic forum? Rather than further division of the topic, the extension of an ordered expository discussion would be the ordering of the posters themselves. We might begin the discussion anew with one limitation - that each of them are allowed one and only one post. Or whatever limited number. Or we might ask them to make one post and remain silent until one round of posting is completed. Then the posters may resume again each allowing themselves one and only one post. This form helps to maintain the principle of equal say or equal time. It also checks the dramatic since the dramatic mode is improvised and thrives on random form. It demands that each speak once and listen nine times (in a group of ten). It introduces rational form, allowing the members control over the mode of discussion, and it is a measurable objective.

We have moved the topic through a process from one form to another. The purpose is that the posters may refine their originally random presentations and condense or summarise their expositions. This allows us a better listening experience because such an expository form would be trimmer, easier to follow and easy to reference concerning who thinks what, since all posts are summarised by each poster.

Let's say that multiple opinions emerge and their are clusters of opinions, say, three distinct viewpoints that each poster could position themselves with respectively.

The next step in the process would be to appoint or elect three representatives of those opinions and use the circle form again to hash it out using a strict circle form (ABC ABC...). One or more opinion may emerge as stronger than the others. One may be swayed to join another or may split into two factions due to it's own inherent weaknesses and be joined to the other two. We can then measure this in terms of relative quantities in a closed system using whole numbers and fractions. We can quantitatively assess the outcome of the debate. Where two opposing opinions become clarified we may then move on in the process to a two sided evaluated debate using the following form (AB AB AB C)

A Pro
B Con
A rebuttal
B rebuttal
A closing
B closing
C Evaluation

The evaluation itself may be conducted by a team of observers who critique the grammar, rhetoric and logic.

Using this process, the discussion is moved from an irrational to rational form that can be counted by a whole number. The relative quantities of equality, majority and minority can be deduced from this whole number.

The benefit is that the community receives a complete hearing of the topic. The majority is not allowed to outvoice the minority because by the end of the process the community has trimmed down the number of voices to two equal voices for the purpose of assessing the logic of each argument. The majority may still vote in favor of it's proposition but as the process continues the minority voice continues to be heard.

So we maintain another type of equality. If nine people believe one thing and one person believes another, we do not allow nine voices to one. We want to hear all of the logic of one side compared to all of the logic of the other. One logic may outweigh another. Allowing the nine to dominate gives us repetitious arguments and a drowning of the minority voice. The value in this process lies in the fact that most of the people are often wrong! We know historically that the best ideas come from very small numbers. The scientific and literary communities comprise a small percentage of the whole community. Scientists like Galileo and Darwin and writers like Frederick Douglas, Allen Ginsberg and Mark Twain could be censored or their ideas could be persecuted.

An historical example would be the emergence of the theory of evolution into public currency. In the Scopes Trial of 1925, the Evolutionists lost the case to the Creationists but gained immense ground in bringing attention of the existence of Darwin's theories to the general public. 83 years later and it is hard even to find a Creationist who won't at least accept microevolution as a fact.

This process is progressive.

But I am speaking in the context of Faciliating Online Communities. I believe that traditional democratic forms perform the best faciliation. This is self-moderated forum, quite distinct from just a topical organization of threads or subforums. And this is what I mean by the word "forum", a form that allows the community to discuss, deliberate and decide through an online action.

To recap, we used a three phase process of different discussion forms or organizations of people and speech for the purpose of achieving a better listening experience.

1) Random form, where everyone was allowed to speak as often and as much as they desired.

2) Circle form, where speakers were assigned to speak in a given place. They may have both the right and the responsibility to speak. In this circle form, each must listen to the others before they may speak again.

3) Debate form, that the logic of two or three opposing ideas must get an equal hearing regardless of the the number of supporters for each idea. In this form a greater demand is made upon the speakers to exercise their responsibilities to speak.

You can see the different effects that each form achieves. In the first, an opposing group may dismiss the arguments of others and simply ignore them but as the discussion takes form, greater responsibility is upon the speakers.

This was only one process described. There are other discussion forms and therefore many variations of forums that can be organized.

En Español

The Listening Experience

2008-09-16T15:53:00.012-04:00

How big should community be? It seems to me that those "communities" that people feel are real communities are those that attract the most people. But are lots of people neccessary? Or should we encourage a small group that is listenable?

A group should be no larger than a number that can be listened to and heard! The best group size depends upon where the community is going. But size has an effect upon the results. Three to five is good for some things while seven to ten may be better for others. I think a small group could be large and listenable at twenty members if they are fully trained in all basic ordinal forms.

Traditional communities like Rotary International have over 1 million members worldwide yet they meet once or twice a month in small local groups of 10 to 20 members. They have 32,000 clubs that are unified in purpose through a constitution.The clubs are divided according to geographical limitations. The advantage to the small group is not that thousands of voices can be heard but that the mebers can have a better listening experience. The Internet does not suffer from information overload but people overload!

So imagine one community that is divided so that there are only a listenable number of members in each group. If this plan were to be transposed to the Internet, where would the natural divisions and unities exist?

Listening Roles

I think it's important to ask questions to verify whether our assumptions about people based on their posts are true. Reacting to what someone says without knowing what they mean may breed and feed all kinds of emotional baggage. Is this what we want in a discussion on facilitation? For example: I think I should have asked questions instead of backing off when the language got unpleasant for me to verify what the other person had in mind when using what I considered bad language. Perhaps, it was the person's normal way of talking. I should have verified things before coming to any conclusions
I'm learning...
Nellie

This is a good reason for people to regularly perform listening roles, so that understanding can be assessed and verified. Such listening roles such as Role Reversal in dialogue or debate, taking turns in each project. I envision a project in Concessions, learning to see what is right about an opposing argument.

A Listener's Club might aim to promote these rights and responsibilities in each practiced project:

The right to speak.
The responsibility to respond.
The right to hear others speak.
The responsibility to listen.

The discussion form serves as a model for a group. We begin practicing for community and grow a community up with the building blocks of the discussion form itself.

Next: Learning Ordinal Forms

Learning Ordinal Forms

2008-09-16T14:39:00.013-04:00

I'm thinking about my early learning of ordinal forms and smile at the memories of playing with the other neighborhood kids as a child. We all learned ordinal form together from the older kids in games that we played. We would each put one foot into a circle formation. Then an appointed counter would touch each toe counting arond the circle of shoes or barefeet saying,

"Eenie meenie miney moe
catch a monkey by the toe,
if he hollars let him go
my mother said to count to ten
1 -2 -3 - 4 - 5 -6 -7 -8 -9 -10"

That was our early training in democratic form. A kind of lottery with luck to choose the order for the game. It also cued us that there was such a thing as ordinal form, which served as a foundation for all of the games that we played. The most important issues in playing these games were of order and position. Who is first? And who is "It". Tagging someone and calling "It!" was an official cue for a running game. "It" had to run after you, following where ever you led, catch up to you, tag you and call "It!" This cue reversed the position and order. This was our first experience with the democratic principle of "taking turns" or what we adults call - roles.

Now that I look back on those early experiences with ordinal form, I realize that democratic procedure is only role playing in the expository mode.

I'm wondering how to get people involved practicing democratic procedures in the form of games. I am not interested in push button democracy, so no computerized games. Democracy is a human endeavor. To computerize it is to trivialize it.

democracy games put hand on bat next hand up to the knob of the handle last one grips the knob wins
lottery everyone launch a post at a given minute first or last to get a post stamp within that minute wins gets to post next OP or lead Evaluation Team
open circuit games spamming games for kids most active spammer wins

Connectivity

serendipity good for individual growth but not community it's anti community

My Take on Facilitation

I want to help people to learn through self-teaching dialogue how a community may facilitate itself through proper applications of traditional democratic arts and skills.

Next:Measured Discourse
Also See:People Need Training

Talking Nasty on the Net

2008-09-14T20:16:00.008-04:00

The problem with netiquette is that it is difficult to objectively evaluate what is appropriate. What is "nasty"?

The word "bloody" is very bad in British English but not even the slightest bit in American English. Likewise, the word "nigger" is extremely offensive in Northerna nd Western U.S., slightly offensive in the Southern U.S. and is completely acceptable in Latin America, as is the word "negroe". In Portuguese, the words "nigger" and "negro" are acceptable but you must never say "preto".

Just ask Artificial Gripe about this type of misunderstanding.

There are many other offensive words and phrases that would be considered "nasty" and should avoid using. If I should include a list, I would start it off with: "Go fuck yourself with your atom bomb" America by Allen Ginsburg and the beat goes on.

I'll tell you what I find to be very offensive and nasty on the web. You have all of these jokers who completely ignore standard discussion form and democratic organizational procedure yet they want to pull out their little book of netiquette and cite you for your grammar or rhetoric or mode of speech.

We still need to address the nature of the Internet and the legitimate use of the dramatic mode. We are not having a real discussion here on the web.

Talking Nasty on the Net

There’s a factor to be considered: posting on a web
site, blog, forum, etc. has a certain “my 15 minutes” touch to it, it’s not
equivalent to just chatting with friends; it’s speaking in public, a
performance. People view their posts as public acts, and, just like artists can
be hyper-sensitive and defensive about thier performance even when (or
especially when?) it’s really bad, so people get extreme about defending their
opinions. Additionally, and because of the same perception, the very opinions
expressed over the “Net are more extreme than those expressed in a face-to-face
communicaiton. Then there’s the anonymity factor, when meaningless screen names
are used, that does away with the cultural inhibitions that limit the vitriol,
as you call it, in the “real life.” Here, no venom, just a thought.

Right. It's not only a discussion but a stage. It's television and that means acting, drama and conflict. The dramatic mode is a valid avenue of expression in the context of the web. The "discussion" is being broadcast. We are on a stage using a form called "random". Random form promotes dramatic improvision because the "discussion" is out of form.

Someone acting on the web is as legitimate as someone acting in a movie. If the actor in a movie says "Fuck y'all. I'm gonna find ya an' kill ya" we don't get on the cell phone and call the police. It's acting. It's stage. It's dramatic. It's television. If Anthony Hopkins can act like a killer in "Silence of the Lambs", then what's wrong with someone doing that where "discussion" or "community" is disorganized and clearly for exhibitionistic purposes?

Trolls are very intelligent and expressive people. Likewise, what is the use of dramatic form on the Internet? It must be evauated for it's own strengths and weaknesses. The argument that dramatic form should meet the standards for an expository discussion are weak since the expository posters themselves refuse to apply expository form to their "discussions".

The lose of control over mode, and resultant accusations of "trolling" usually occur in the context of an expository discussion turned toward the dramatic mode. The responsibility for the mode falls upon the membership for failure to follow the rules of expository form in maintaining the mode. Many posters are fully capable of maintaining this expository mode in their individual posts. You may also find a small collection of posters capable of accumulating a collection of expository posts. But a collection of expository posts do not an expository discussion make. The mode is best advanced by use of expository form.

Talking Nasty on the Net

The Future of Reputation

Privacy and Social Networks

ownership of platform = ownership of content = ownership of community and people = slavery

Boycott W-k-p-d-a

From the To Do list for Blogs:

1. Look at the Wikipedia entry for Blogosphere and pay particular attention to the
See Also section. Read up on one of the listed blogospheres in that section and
write a post to your blog that explains in your own words what a Blogging
Network is and can be - cite examples.

I am not interested in reading any of those articles because I am boycotting Wikipedia. It began when I registered as a "member" of this "community". I found an Edit button and deleted a page that promoted a forum that I am boycotting. They replaced the page and I deleted it again. this went on all day until I was banned for being a "vandal"!

That was only the 200th time I'd been banned from some "community" on the web!

If I put up a wall and write on the wall "Write Here!" and someone comes along and writes "Fu-ck You" on the wall, is that person a vandal? What's the etiquette with an open circuit? As an administrator, I am the operator of a machine and therefore it is my responsibility to yield the right of way to pedestrians. If I seek rational discourse, I should use a rational (closed) circuit. The membership can then elect each member according to whatever qualifications.

Virginia Anti-Spam Law Overturned, Spammer Walks

The Virginia Supreme Court today struck down a state anti-spam law, saying the statute violated the First Amendment right to free and anonymous speech. The decision also tossed out the conviction of a North Carolina man once described as one of the most prolific spammers.

A copy of the court's decision is available at this link here.

What this ruling means is that anyone posting personal messages in a forum who is banned and persists in "spamming" the forum cannot be prosecuted as a spammer. This sure be confirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court. It will help communities to organize along traditional lines because the only defense against unwanted members is to close the circuit. I think that closed circuits encourage the use of rational form to elect the membership.

As long as we are going to be going to court, I would like to organize all Internet trolls to make it a criminal act to spy on people's IP numbers.

http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=10277

We need a new etiqutte that respects the right to privacy and administrative disclosure.

And that's not all...

Forums and Blogs

2008-09-13T12:16:00.001-04:00

Notes on Forums:

I can't in good conscience recommend any forum as an example of community. Seems to me that a meesage board is just that. Just like a mesage board in a laundromat or supermarket. Is a message board a community? I suppose so if people hangout around the message board but then that would be something like the old days when people hung out in a barbershop. I can extend the term "community" to message boards and forums only as "kind of a community".

Such forums, like supermarket bulletin boards are managed by the owner or manager of the supermarket. Online message boards are more like malls in that it is a public space that is privately regulated. I cannot concieve such a standard for real community. Can a community be privately held and still be a community? Probably not, not without gross distortion of all aspects of traditional community.

Typical forum organization is topical. The topic is divided down into it's constituent parts. This might be a good structure for people who are just socializing around a hobby such as Dolls or Automobiles. When it comes to forums that focus upon the expository mode, I think that temporal and ordinal form is more suitable as they are the natural extension of this mode.

As yet, I know of no forum that has managed to achieve this type of organization. Probably because there is no comprehensive material to guide people. First people need to become aware of the great benefits of using these forms in a coordinated manner. People also need to recieve training in the application of these forms.

I am currently developing a complete training program in communication and leadership for democratically organized community called The Discussion Workshop to be administered by an elected membership of a constituted society.

Notes on Blogs:

This blogging experience is great because it puts more control into the hands of the contributors. However, I am already experiencing an ethical dilemma. I set the blog to a fully open circuit. I chose that "anybody" could post. I see others have chosen that setting also. The conflict for me is the "moderating" part. Since I have invited the public into an open circuit, what grounds are there for "moderating" them? I can find none. If they spam or "troll" my blog it's because I chose to leave it open. If there is a problem user, I can just elect a membership of myself and the other users into another blog. This one could just become an advertisment for the other. The circuit can be closed and rational and the members can use a traditional form to elect new members.

My ethical dilemma runs deep. As a blogger, I see myself as an operator of a communication machine. I do not view it as my right to moderate the behavior of the public to whom I have extended an open invitation. Since I am operating a machine, I rather view it as my responsibility to yield the right of way to pedestrians.

So I am thinking of how this principle might be extended within a platform? I think that there should be rules made according to this formula:

No rules for the public

Few rules for members

The most rules for administrators

Because a discussion must be fair and democratic, we must ensure that equality rules. If I come to the discussion armed with edit and delete buttons, I am not equal to the other participants. The rules must restrict the behavior of administrators so as to achieve equality among all of the contributors.

Trends toward Traditions

2008-09-12T13:41:00.002-04:00

Networked Individualism and the Implications for Organisations

According to Barry Wellman’s “Little Boxes, Glocalization, and Networked Individualism” the
whole notion of interrelationships, networks, and the role and place of the
individual has been steadily morphing from the traditional neighborhood-based
networks to one of “networked individualism.”

For example, in agrarian societies an individual’s network was bound by
their neighborhood and the distance they could travel on foot. As
innovations in transportation and communication took place, distance became less
and less of a consideration, and people were able to expand their relationships
and networks to include others farther and farther away. This enabled a
shift away from a locality-based focal point to one where the needs or
objectives of the individual dictated the focus.

We are no longer bound by geography but by time as if it were a geographical limitation. Time either unites or divides us in the global community. Traditional form can overcome the time barrier by working with it rather than against it. The current forms are working against the natural limitations of time. I'm going to cover this in greater detail in future postings.

I want to promote a trend back to traditional community based in a time zone neighborhood. This is the best approach for organizing very large communities that are small-club based. We can see a refreshing invigoration of traditional form and a return to known meanings of terms such as "member" and "community". Online community can then become self-propagating with millions of members organized toward a unified purpose.

The most urgent need we have now is to get back to democratic organizational form.

Why I came into the FOC08 course

2008-09-12T11:56:00.001-04:00

I came to this course primarily because I had tagged a few items I'd written with "online facilitation" in delicious or swicki. This course came up when searching that tag. What developed my interest was the course outline. The topic is organized. And since the topic itself is "Online Facilitation" I thought I might find people who would be interested in organizing people. Unfortunately, it seems that content management seems to be the focus here, like every other forum out there.

The greatest need we have in the web community is to organize people, not content. The technology is not doing wonders. The only thing to wonder is why our traditional organizational structures have been dropped flat. I don't attribute such negligence to intelligence but to ignorance. The technocrats had no knowledge of ethical ways to organize people.

I believe that people are looking for interaction but are going the wrong way about it. There seems to be little commitment or responsibility. The people here are not even organized enough to elect me into membership. There is no membership. However, if any person here believes that I am disturbing the "community" they can quickly trump up a "membership" and have me elected out by a "majority".

The Internet is Anti-community. It is a complete failure. It has been shored up by myths and untruths. It is a conglomeration of the most idiotic ideas ever thought.

I am going to follow through on this course and complete it if I have to do it alone. And I'm going to do it to the best of my ability, looking for the better answers to tough questions.

Beginning Project: Arranging Appointments

2008-09-11T16:02:00.003-04:00

In August, I decided to learn more about making online appointments. I posted an outline of skills to practice in Arranging Appointments. Then I recieved a contact from another participant in this course who included a project plan for consideration. This person has not followed through in completing the assignment, so I have begun the project called Arranging Appointments in google groups. I would rather do this with a partner but I think that I am the only person in this course.

The Trolling Phenomenon

2008-09-09T13:37:00.005-04:00

The trolling Phenomenon began in a usenet newsgroup where people posted in expository mode. Moderators began deleting opnions they didn't agree with and the trolls were born, posters posting in the dramatic mode or demonstrative for protest

ashame that all world's news stories should be archived and the history of forum trolling obliterated!

http://www.crn.com/storage/210600470

Trollbusters
Mudsuckerbusters

Calling "Troll" is a way of excusing the so-called "membership" for any accountability for the so-called "community".

People Need Training

2008-09-08T16:36:00.001-04:00

Forums, chats, blogs, conferences, I look at all of these items as power tools of communication. In order to communicate we need to know how to operate the tools. They are not simple hand tools, they are capable of hurting people if we don't know how to use them. They are capable of causing just as much miscommunication as communication.

I wonder if anyone out there would agree with me? Or do most people think, "It's just a forum, I can stumble around through it and pick up what I need to know. If I don't know it, then I probably didn't need to know it".

I used Phpbb2 for five years and thought I understood it. Then one day I challenged myself to sit down and click every link on every page and ask myself "What does this do?, what does it not do?, what do I know?, and what do I not know?"

I was surprised to learn how much I didn't know. I calculate that I understood about 20% of the forum functions! And in all those five years I thought I knew something! So maybe, just maybe, I am dumb about the simplest things. But, hey, is there some reason for us to assume that everyone who comes to our community today understands the simplest things? Like how to make bold or italic fonts in their text?

No! There is absolutely no reason for any such assumptions. Let's assume that people know nothing and that they also know something. So let's find out what it is so that we know and don't know so we can fill in gaps and increase the collective knowledge of the community. I'm not talking about a thread. I'm talking about a committed group who meets at a specific time for a set period of time to investigate fully both it's knowledge and ignorance. That's a practical workshop.

So that's why I am looking for buddies who would like to make a commitment to learning all of the functions of simple platforms like gmail chat, google groups, blogger etc.

I think it would be nifty to have a Links Club, when, weekly, the members rotate the role of bringing in one link and all of the members go through each of the page elements and links on the page and learn it together.

Quotes & Links FOC08

2008-08-30T17:02:00.003-04:00

On learning and instructional design

On the Online Toys and Tools discussion forum, Sirin Soyoz from Istambul statesAs far as I experience, it is instructional design that facilitates learning and learners must take on new roles in the learning process.This is very much the discussion now taking place in Week 6 of the FOC08 course, which I am also following and participating in so I have decided to bring them together. Connecting thoughts, weaving threads and ideas.Like Stephen, I am skeptic of words like “must” and a universal solution. I question the whole industry of e-moderation, e-facilitation that has come in the wake of the e-hype and forces people into fragmented views and compartments.While instructional design may seem an efficient way of accomplishing tasks, I do not see it necessarily conducing to learning. Instructional design is just another name for teaching - acting upon or transmitting (through various methods, techniques and psychological & motivational maneuvers) the content or behaviour deemed to be correct or required for a certain end. So its motives reside outside the learners even if they are requested to take part and may influence the design.Learning, on the other hand, is a continuous personal quest towards sense making, expressing it and making it work so as to accomplish not only our individual but also collective needs. Beautiful design, instruction, role taking may facilitate learning but are not a pre-condition for it to occur. Children learn different strategies and have insights while playing without any conscious design or control on the part of their parents.As Stephen illustrates well, in for some people in some groups or the software community, learning occurs in spite ofcommonality of purpose (some people are professionals, others merely interested), far from universal motivation to learn (others signed on for any of a variety of motives) and certainly no professional e-moderation.He asks:Given the absence of the elements claimed to be necessary to support learning - the absence of instructional design, the absence of professional e-moderation, the absence of commonality of purpose - then we have to ask, what is it, really, that is fostering the learning in such a situation.As I see it, from my own experience as a learner/teacher/mother/daughter/wife/citizen and many other perspectives I have acquired during my life, learning happens continuously consciously and unconsciously, by being immersed in life and not separated from it. We observe, relate to others, read, compare and contrast, expose ourselves, dip into the pool of collective knowledge trying to find answers to our questions, try, fail and endlessly repeat what seems to us the correct pattern with slight variations trying to perfect whatever we find incomplete or lacking.Very often we learn incidentally through exposure, immersion and observing what does not work or went wrong, which is not necessarily very “efficient” if measured against “time and ROI” which seem to drive everyone’s actions nowadays.I must say I have been very fortunate to have had many people who walked with me along the way - they shared with me some of their own insight, sometimes held my hand, sometimes instructed me, sometimes nudged or challenged me to overcome self-built obstacles - they helped me stretch a bit further each time. There are many roads that lead to knowledge and we cannot take them all as this experiment/course well illustrates. Each one of us will follow our own path according to background, assumptions, choices and needs.However, do we all have the choice, the time, the people and the resources to learn, expand and share our knowledge with others ? Does the economy/society we live in today allow for and recognize this kind of learning ? How can theories map a dynamic process? (remembering that the map is not the territory). Is it possible to measure and evaluate it? What for and how? Don’t we prescribe and obfuscate emergence by enforcing a model, a theory?

There were many valuable lessons that I learned in life without setting out to learn them. There were challenges in which I thought I needed my usual tools to work with and the absence of the tools required new learning. Afterward I learned that the very tools that had enabled me had also limited me. I understand what people are trying to do on the Internet, but I think that in their desire to have some kind of complete freedom that people are limiting themselves from exploring more traditional avenues.

While learning serendipitously is unavoidable for those individuals who seek through adventure, I don't know to what degree that could apply to a community. Communities gather around activities. At least a loose structure can be flexible enough for different types of learning. Even though a carefully planned course may unite a community, it still may allow individuals to move at their own pace and work on different aspects of the program.

I want to design such a program for communities to use to engage people collectively. The program will get down to basics. But people may coordinate their projects with lots of learning flexibility and go through the program using an individualized approach. The benefit is that some standards are achieved collectively. People have the same basic experiences with discussion form, and acquire similar training in communication andleadership skills for democratically organized web community.

http://www.webdevelopersjournal.com/columns/ajs_who_controls_internet.html

Hi Artie

I couldn't agree more. However in my experience newbies to online environments get a bit "freaked out" by too much choice, and really need step by step hand-holding through the mire of many platforms. The trick is how many to introduce at once and should we wait until everyone feels comfortable before moving on to the next one?

Elderbob Brannan - http://www.eldertown.us/home - Blog: http://speakinto.ning.com/

Jessica Mathews points out in her essay "Power Shift" which appeared in a recent issue of Foreign Affairs:
Networks have no person at the top and no center. Instead, they have multiple nodes where collections of individuals or groups interact for different purposes. Businesses, citizens organizations, ethnic groups, and crime cartels have all readily adopted the network model. Governments, on the other hand, are quintessential hierarchies, wedded to an organizational form incompatible with all that the new technologies make possible. AND What kind of community can be forged in an internetted world, where the structure of the technology promotes anarchy, with its emphasis on complete freedom of expression and lack of regard for authority?
I add in contrast that the web community is hierarchal, since the platforms are developed and owned by the technocrats. The web community has it's origins in the technocrats understanding of electronic circuitry. The circuitry is hierarchal and it has an owner or small group of owners. Those who own it, control it. So I don't see how it can appear decentralized to the contributers. The contributers are subject to whatever rules the owner makes. This is anti-community because the primary purpose is to promote the ownership and the whole web is a hierarchy of ownership.

To facilitate or to teach...Accomplished Jointly "Community exists because the members share a common purpose which can only be accomplished jointly." .. 12 Principles of Collaboration

Text Chatting: Facilitator or Distractor? (FOC08)I would recommend posting in a traditional ordinal form such as a circle. I think that would greatly enhance people's comprehension of the discussion. Actually, if someone were to post in circle form, we could for once call it a true "discussion" since a discussion is an organization of people and their speech.

Future Labs
He cites confirmation that “personal narrative is vital to online learning communities. Personal stories and experiences add closeness, and provide identity, thus strengthening online communities.”

http://cdeck77.wordpress.com/2008/08/31/facilitating-moderating-or-teaching-is-there-a-difference/

It has been interesting as a lurker on the discussion-board to watch as those who embody the traditional sense of learning (i.e. that which is structured, has a purpose, defined and directed) go about constructing a scenario where those needs can be met (i.e. setting up a meeting with someone in another time zone and keeping it). While this appears to be meeting the needs of a group of our participants, I have noticed that another group that was once active has taken somewhat of a back seat to all of this. What I find extremely interesting in this 2 week long observation is that it points out some of the differences in how people learn and what they expect from a teacher in a learning setting.

http://knowmansland.com/learningpath/?p=127

So, for me, connecting is much more than having a plug, or a computer that can “transport” us to these cyber-spaces. Connecting is about transforming such virtual spaces in real, meaningful and cosy environments where we feel at ease to bond with people. Humankind has always felt the need to work together. We all need peer support. We all want to be reassured by our “neighbors”.

Greg Barcelon
Facilitator, Moderator and Teacher I believe we get caught in such a dilemma when we take Facilitating as an exclusive term. The dilemma is resolved once we go back to its basic definition as: “to make possible or easier” And this is where context plays a very important role, because in the context of ‘facilitating as making it possible or easier,” then we can be facilitating as Teachers when we make learning possible or easier, and we can be facilitating as Moderator when we make discussion or exchange of information possible/easier. In the same manner, we can facilitate as a Teacher when we make whatever we do (lectures, presentations, demonstrations, etc.) easier.

What it means to be a member of a community

Illya - role playing leaders
http://illyasoet.wordpress.com/http://illyasoet.wordpress.com/2008/08/13/what-is-a-community-reflections-on-weeks-2-and-3/
A further question in my mind is how fixed the role of facilitator is. Couldn’t others take over this role in understanding of the responsibility that goes with it? Must it be a formal role that is given like a title to ‘the person in charge’? I prefer the idea of a flexible facilitator who is also anxious to learn from the others without the urge to dominate the conversation , and is willing to let other members lead the way.So what is the difference between a facilitator and a moderator? Does it lie in the institutional nature of the group? I would love some opinion here, as I wonder if maybe I’ve mixed the two up.
Role playing leaders
The final point that has come up in the threads of conversation quickly but not been expanded on is the role of those who do not actively participate, more commonly and less nicely known as lurkers.Often the question comes up as to how to integrate these members. First, I’d like clarification as to when such a person is a member of a community and when he or she is an observer. In a course like the FOC I’d think that by way of signing up, one has committed oneself to the community. But there are many other communities out there, and the idea of 90 non-active to 10 active participants makes me think about what the 90 % are doing. Are they following what is going on and processing it? Or have they emotionally and physically disengaged from the community? The names may still be on the list, but that doesn’t mean that they are.
They become a viewing audience which stimulates the collection of individuals to post in the dramatic mode.FOC in short

Derek

My definition would include all the diverse definitions, from Derek Chirnside's My Take on Communities where he says:
Community is about people. With a cause. [eg Educational designer, Clinicalhealth education, Media studies teachers, Non-hodgekinsone lymphona sufferers, waste water engineers] Dare I say some passion and care. Care for the cause and for other people. They need some level of shared experience, history, trust and/or understanding.
,to

Deb Thompson
blog I've just read Shane's blog and he said: "How do you facilitate a community to encourage participation by many, when open registration will result in a range of abilities and needs? There needs to be the chance for lurking if that is what the participant wishes, but the facilitator would no doubt want engaged interaction to enable learning. I know that in any group situation there will be members who dominate the conversation, how do we encourage the "shy" to contribute. As a teacher in face to face environments this is a little easier. You can "see" the people not engaging. Whereas online, are they lurking, or are they not there at all?"The circle form charges the members with the responsibilty to speak or at least verify that they are in attendence.

Cathy Deckers

So the adage “if you build it they will come” does not apply with communities of practice.
Communities of practice “are groups of people who share a concern, a set of problems, or a passion about a topic and who deepen their knowledge and expertise in this area by interacting on an ongoing basis” (Wenger, McDermott, Snyder, Cultivating Communities of Practice, 2002 p. 4) This interaction serves as the foundation of learning together - where the community is transformed as much as the individuals through the process of the learning that takes place. The presence of varying levels of expertise within the community allows for this transformation to take place. The community develops a common sense of identity through the interaction, creation of artifacts and tools, and engagement in collaboration.
Take this one step further and imagine a world where communities of practice are more than just isolated systems of knowledge, collaboration, and collegiality but are social networks where information that is shared is utilized to inform another community of practice. Howard Reingold’s Vlog featuring Mike Elliot illustrates this very concept - and he says it much better than I ever could.
Communities need a space and time to create the type of collaboration that is outlined above. Stephen Downes, 2006 does a nice job of identifying some distinctive characteristics between groups and networks that I saw as a “historical”/”old school” versus “new world”/”Web 2.0″ observation of how people interact. What was particularly interesting for me was the identification of the tools and artifacts that are utilized to create and maintain collaboration between people.
How about blending the two?
I am a BIG believer in lifelong learning and see that the wealth of tools available for that within the Web 2.0 culture has endless possibilities for us as instructors and learners. I am particularly interested in the informal learning that is happening in on-line communities and other experiences (i.e. MMORP & Second Life). As instructors, it is important for us to recognize that our role in this type of learning is one of facilitation rather than lecturer. That knowledge creation is driven by the learner and the community through their interactions. More importantly, these new forums allow for us to continue our lifelong learning journey as we teach and facilitate.

Bruna blog
I know I open myself up to all sorts of ridicule from those very talented tech geeks out there who will argue up and down that magic has nothing to do with our wondrous online world. But, of course, I know better! LOL It is indeed magic...at least to me and I would venture to say many, many people all over the world.Yeah, there is no magical formula, only the magic. Things can happen.
I was part of an online cohort many years ago when I first discovered that online communities are so much more than people brought together by interests or shared purpose. I think that it was a celebration of the web with loose focus upon the actual topics. We are through that phase.
I was part of an online cohort many years ago when I first discovered that online communities are so much more than people brought together by interests or shared purpose.
Some people just hang out on the Internet and are with other people because they are online at the same time. If they find people who share a common time and have a common interest, that's a bonus to them.

Bronwyn Hegarty blog
So how did I get to these questions? To start with on the email forum, I found that I agreed with Bronwyn Stuckey's example about learning. "For me a worrying area is when people call a class of learners a CoP and say that learning is the practice. That is really too large and amorphous to be one practice. A class of students learning accounting by engaging in scenarios as practitioners, possibly with real practitioners in the class as mentors is beginning to take on a CoP approach. According to what you state this course is not a community of practice of online facilitators. We're going there. "What does the community practice' There must be a skills building program. Traditional service organizations provide training.

Nancy Riffer
How much intamcy in community? In work or activity-focused communities, there is a specific reason to be together. This is the kind of community described by Wenger (CoPs) and O'Reilly. People get together based on common interests. They have personal relationships with some other group members usually focused around some aspect of the task at hand. Jeffrey Keefer describes such an interaction with Barbara Dieu that begins with work and opens into a broader conversation.

George Siemens Curatorial Teaching Discussion
"What is it that causes learners to want to push back at how we want to use technology?"
Maybe the cause is that technology enervates traditional form?

http://bronst.wordpress.com/

http://techticker.net/
http://joaocarlosalves.eu/
http://learnonline.wordpress.com/
http://darylcook.com/
http://beespace.net/
http://illyasoet.wordpress.com/
http://joyzw.blogspot.com/
http://906703fockaylewis.blogspot.com/
http://shane-tech-teach.blogspot.com/
http://eruminating.blogspot.com/

clare atkins
To Faciliatate or to Teach? Clare Atkins The big advantage of asynchronicity is that everyone can explore information at their own pace and react to it before hearing the views and interpretations of others. Wait. How is that an advantage to react before hearing? Why not use a better listening model that requires people to respond after hearing the views and interpretations of others. Asynchronicty has promoted an incorrect method. What's worse is that asynchronicty squelches any fair evalution of itself because it will not submit itself to an assessment through measurement.

Bronwyn Hegarty
http://kirstenmarais.blogspot.com/2008/03/why-is-evaluation-important-to-you-and.html Kirsten you have a great philosophy about always seeking feedback and evaluating to check quality. I wonder if your enthusiasm for this comes from your recent experiences as a student or the discipline in which you are qualified?It is not always easy to ask for critique of things we have spent an age creating. I have always found feedback from colleagues to be a very useful device in improving my game both in teaching and in educational development. You have to feel safe though and so do those doing the critiquing. I have often been amazed by the time people are willing to contribute to assisting in reviewing eLearning developments.We observed a class of teacher education students using an online module and sought their feedback via a questionnaire and focus group. several did not even bother to come and collect their book vouchers....did it in the sake of being helpful...plus they found the module helped them in writing their assignment - always a bonus.I agree wholeheartedly with your statements, "Teachers need to meet the various learning styles of all students and make sure that any resources used are of good quality. The quality must be high in regards to the content and also the technical side as well."poor technical quality is so frustrating and also raises issues about access and equity. I am interested to hear more about how your organisation works to ensure quality - do you have checklists against which new developments are checked or other methods? standards for animations and videos?

Sylvia Currie Webbed Feat
During the first two weeks of the Facilitating Online Communities course the topic of blogging versus forums was raised by participants. This was one of the course "process" items I was curious about from the onset. How do you organize group communication through blogs? And why would you want to? First a bit of context. There are 71 individuals/blogs on the course list. There is a course blog which is where Leigh the facilitator posts reminders about what we should be focusing on as well as reflections the course itself. Also the course wiki contains the main course details, nicely organized so we always know where to check in. There is also a Google Group which is useful for Q&A and for day-to-day discussion. There are 107 members on that list, so obviously some people are following along without enrolling in the course. Leigh has been cross-posting his blog entries to the Google Group to make sure everyone receives them. We also have an open Elluminate room in case we want to drop in for more spontaneous synchronous interactions. The room is also used for scheduled meetings. So far this seems like a good choice of tools for the course. The breadth and depth of contributions to the course through personal blogs have been just excellent. I'm not sure we would have seen that using only a forum; a blog offers a space to post your very own reflections without being concerned with replies, finding the right thread, staying on topic, or missing an opportunity to contribute because the conversation has moved on. But having a forum is essential. I don't think we could survive without the Google Group as a way to connect and support one another, through the orientation at least. However, there are no organized forum/email discussions. Do the blogs replace that completely? If so, where is the facilitation? Some participants have chosen to discuss the key issues using the forum, others are posting to their blogs and commenting on other blogs. Some folks are doing a little of both, occasionally linking back to blog posts, so the forum discussion becomes an extension of the blog. Leigh has acknowledged individual contributions, sharpened the focus a bit, and advanced certain topics in the forum. But so far I haven't seen any direct references to content in blog posts brought back to the group. Come to think of it, in organized communication through blogs, where is the group? Where does the facilitator do the weaving, connecting, summarizing...encouraging deeper dialogue, if not speaking to a group? Maybe the fact that I'm asking these questions means that I'm stuck in teacher mode. During the next 2 weeks we will be examining the differences among facilitator, teacher, and moderator roles. Perhaps some of this will become a little clearer!

http://www.seanpmckee.net/blog/
A useful nuance from the statement is the absence of any mention of quantity or percentage of community members who should be fully engaged. However, a community can only have so many voices and members before it reaches an unmanageable size. I believe that size limitations apply in both the online and physical worlds when talking about community effectiveness.
The goal for a healthy community is to encourage leadership that builds the community’s value along with a stable or growing base of supporters who reinforce changes and decisions made by the leaders...
People who wish to communicate with each other and, presumably, have a specific topic (or group of topics) form a “community” by agreeing to focus on the topic(s) at hand and avoiding irrelevant, tangential discussions. In an online community-type setting, the community members have chosen to be there and should expect to observe and engage in the discussions...
As with real world” communities there is a reasonable likelihood of miscreants being present...
Aside from the leaders, a group of people with a common interest should also respond to problems to ensure they do not threaten the main purpose of the group’s interaction or the process of interaction...
A useful nuance from the statement is the absence of any mention of quantity or percentage of community members who should be fully engaged. However, a community can only have so many voices and members before it reaches an unmanageable size. I believe that size limitations apply in both the online and physical worlds when talking about community effectiveness.

In any case, it would be good to get a a chart of everyone's time zone and anything that affects their conscious time, like working nights or insomnia. I agree that talking asynchronously is great. But I want to promote more options. So grouping people to when they are naturally online is good for everybody. I am not suggesting anything really different. People already congregate according to when they are online. It may help to document that and formalize it. I would like to communicate asynchronistically (if that's the word?) but I think it would be very valuable to have a directory of established clubs so that someone who wants to do efficient training in online communications will know that there is a group that they belong to and they are needed there. A small group.I'm thinking about some of the best traditional service groups I've been fortunate to be a part of. We had a meeting. At the end of the meeting the Vice President would call out all of the meeting roles, VP "Who wants to be Grammarian?" Bertha: "I'll do that?"VP: OK. I'll put Bertha down for Grammarian.Albert: I can lead a discussion from the manual!VP: Great! Albert is scheduled to lead a discussion from the Beginners Manual. Who can be Vote Counter? Fremda?Fremda: I don't think I'll be here next week. But give me an assignment for the next meeting.It is assumed that people will be there. None of this traipsing in and out. Your membership is measurable. If there is a dispute in a business session, we don't get Mr. or Ms. Old-Timer who posted 6 months ago coming in to vote. S/he's an Inactive Member.We will know at any moment how many real members there are because it's an ongoing skills training program. The members design the program as a coordinated global activity and all of the clubs use the same constitution. But they administer the constitution and the programs in their local clubs. Just like a service club. Just like Rotary or Lions or any other global club.What other option do we have? To bring in 100 people for a "global community" and expect to make some sense out of it on a daily basis? It's too much. It's not even global. people are gathering according to the regions they are in because they share the same conscious day. All of our communications here are governed by immutable physical laws. I'm talking to you because you are here online. You're here online because you're awake. Other people are asleep because that's the way the world is turning.I want to get us out from under the thumbs of all these Internet myths and document the facts and accept them and begin working with them.We can organize according to the "common ground" and the "commonality" that Bee and ElderBob were pointing to in traditional communities. If you and I have a common ground it divides us from others who share their common ground. By dividing the community along it's natural boundaries, we can greatly strengthen it.If you are in Rotary, you don't have to have everyone in the whole organization together at the same time. All of the biggest organizations in the world come down to the small group.I know my own limits. I can handle 10 - 20 people meeting every one or two weeks. I can handle 2 or 3 groups. But that's plenty. I don't want people having to drag themselves out of bed at 3 am or having to deal with hundreds of people.When it comes to organizing people along the lines of latitudes, we will need to come up with new or varied forms but first let's restore the traditional forms by applying them to the time limits as if they were actual geographical limits.This will allow a complete renaissance in the traditional meaning of words like "member", "majority" "discussion" "debate" "community" "active member" "inactive member" "rational"I'm sitting here scratching my head because over 100 people signed up for this course and only 12 were at the last meeting. Could it just be that ... time conversion is a real problem... that privacy is a concern... that feeling lost is another concern... that fitting in is a concern...that new platforms confuse people?

FOC, Course or Community?

2008-08-29T16:30:00.004-04:00

I was very careful about beginning this course. I came in on the day that it sterted and figured that was too late. Also there were over 100 "members" signed up. I thought that the number was way too many. I was going to suggest to Leigh that I wait for the next course out of respect for those people who had already begun. I also was going to suggest a much smaller group for the next FOC, if there was one.

Then as I began reading along with the course, I noticed that a huge percentage didn't follow through, so I signed up with a dedicated FOC08 blog becuase I thought I could meet the commitments.

To facilitate or to teach
"But I have been asked to facilitate a learning community"
What community? I thought that this was a course?
For me the FOC community is the course. This is what brought my attention to the community. I call it a community because those who were in FOC07 are still here. I am glad that they are here and seem to be establishing a community but it would help me straighten out my tremendous confusion by marking with some distinction the roles of FOC07 and FOC08.

I know what I am. I am FOC08. I have an FOC08 blog and it connects to every other blog. The course outline is in my sidebar and my post either complete the assignment requirements or are preparatory work for future assignments or are concerning web community organization.

I am FOC08. What I want to know is who qualifies for the FOC08 group with me? I don't think that it is fair to allow anyone else to traipse in here with any kind of equal voice just by setting up a blog. This is a whole course and I want to finish it with committed people. I want to trim my blogroll down to those who are fellow FOC08.

The other question is the FOC07 people. What role do they play? My feeling is that if they are not on this course with me, then they should be developing an advanced course that supports this one. They should organize to participate in whatever projects FOC08 brings in and help evaluate them according to objective criteria the FOC08 establishes for each project. If they can do this then they are part of FOC08. If not, then they are still a part of our community but should not be in the course because it only adds to the confusion.

I also want to have a closed circuit just for those members who are on either course with no more people traipsing in. As a member of FOC08, I think I have a right to the best conditions. Just as in a university course, we need a decent room, with comfortable seating, lighting and ventilation. We also would need a door so that we could conduct our work undisturbed. I require the proper conditions to continue.

Register here for the Discussion Workshop Blog

Facilitating, Moderating or Teaching?

2008-08-27T15:37:00.001-04:00

In this course on Facilitating Online Communities we have come to "facilitating, moderating or teaching". To facilitate we must have some overall organization, some system or path laid to help people move together. Anyone can lay their own individual path but if we are to walk together on a shared journey we must use a common route, such as a course outline.

In order to make the journey, it may be required to have certain tools and skills. In teaching and learning these skills, we develop coordination as a community. I think of this aspect as a disciplined effort as if we were going to play on a ball team and needed to learn the skills and coordination necessary for throwing or kicking a ball through the goal.

The traditional democratic skills of moderation are needed in times of conflict.

In all these instances, we humans have a complete ready-to-use set of traditional democratic arts that we can apply once we learn and know them. Throughout this course, I am going to continually be looking to our common traditions for solutions.

Links to Glossary

2008-08-27T11:55:00.002-04:00

Anti-community

Average Personal Meridian

Central Negative

closed circuit

collection of individuals

community

conscious day

democratic organization

Designated Leader

discussion

edemocracy

fabricated consensus

forum

Gripe's law

guest

local/global community

measured discourse

member

membership

mode of discussion

mudsucker

open circuit

opposite longitude

ordinal form

personal meridian

rational form

random form

real time

temporal form

time meridian

time zone residency

time zone tour

troll

Traditional Community

2008-08-25T15:25:00.002-04:00

How did traditional communities like Rotary International manage to grow their memberships to where there are more than 32,000 clubs and over 1.2 million members world-wide? They put the web community to shame!

They did it locally, building small groups one by one. The web has plenty of small groups but no system for self-propagating them.

History of Rotary International

The world's first service club, the Rotary Club of Chicago, was formed on 23 February 1905 by Paul P. Harris, an attorney who wished to capture in a professional club the same friendly spirit he had felt in the small towns of his youth. The Rotary name derived from the early practice of rotating meetings among members' offices.

Rotary's popularity spread, and within a decade, clubs were chartered from San Francisco to New York to Winnipeg, Canada. By 1921, Rotary clubs had been formed on six continents. The organization adopted the Rotary International name a year later.

As Rotary grew, its mission expanded beyond serving club members’ professional and social interests. Rotarians began pooling their resources and contributing their talents to help serve communities in need. The organization's dedication to this ideal is best expressed in its motto: Service Above Self.

By 1925, Rotary had grown to 200 clubs with more than 20,000 members. The organization's distinguished reputation attracted presidents, prime ministers, and a host of other luminaries to its ranks — among them author Thomas Mann, diplomat Carlos P. Romulo, humanitarian Albert Schweitzer, and composer Jean Sibelius.

Latitudes and Longitudes

2008-08-25T08:24:00.005-04:00

Each quadrant equals 30°

A given latitude at the equator extends from 0° to 180° (either W or E) with two posters on both ends. A given longitude (0°) equal to the latitude and extending from one pole to the other with two poster at both ends. The conscious day begins for all four with the two posters on the latitude exchanging posts between each other and the two posters on the longitude exchanging posts. What is the relative frequency of the posting cycles on each line?

I say that given any two longitudes and latitudes of equal length (or arc), with two posters posting between themselves from the extremes, that the two posters on the longitude will have a higher frequency of post exchanges between them throughout a conscious day.

On the map, place two posters at the extremes of a longitudinal area. Place one poster at the tip of Cape Horn, South America and the other poster in New Brunswick, Canada. Place two other posters at the extremes of a latitude equal to the length of the said longitude, one at London, UK and the other in Irkutsk, Russia. All other factors being equal (purpose, interest, speed of connection, etc.) the two on the longitude will have a higher frequency of exchanges than those on the latitude.

Let's form two groups of equal numbers and spaced evenly apart from one end to the other, one group on the longitude and the other on the latitude. The group on the longitude will have more opportunities for exchanges and will have more options to organize temporally and ordinally with greater facility than the group on the latitude.

What is the "comfort zone" of any one poster? If I live in one time zone, the further away another poster is from that zone, the more inconvenient it is to meet together. I guess that, of the 360º on the globe, the comfort zone is just about 180º (90º on either side of the longitude I reside upon). The window begins closing then.

120º allows a greater window of opportunity for meetings. I can divide the 360º of the entire globe into three zones of 120º each, and I will call them:

The Americas

Europe, Middle East and Africa

Far East and South Pacific

The geographical distribution is incidental because anyone sharing the same conscious day with a zone is qualified for membership in a group in that zone.

In this blog, I am treating time as if it were a geographical limitation. If I do this, I can easily translate the organizational structure of the traditional service club to online communities of practice, with democratic forms fully intact. Nothing need be lost.

MORAL OF THE STORY: Think Globally, Act Locally.
Large clickable detailed world map 2.3MB with cities, longitudes and latitudes.

What is Community?

2008-08-24T16:35:00.002-04:00

Even though we need to move on with the course outline, I am pretty sure that when the course ends it will all come back to this question of "What is community?"

Amy Lenzo says in Community and Technology

I mention beauty in the sense of an attractive aesthetic, yes - I'm a big believer in the power of line and space and color - but equally in the sense of kindness and care for the whole, creating a psychologically "safe" space in which people feel free to speak up and know they will be listened to. A space where they can easily find the tools they need to use and feel confident in using them. A space where all can feel equally valid and important to the whole. Having a buddy system can help with this, and that idea came out of this group quite organically, which is great.

I believe that a sense of belonging can be ensured in smaller groups where we don't have to compete to get a voice. You know that at a meeting of ten or fifeteen people, that you are going to be heard. I also hear what you are saying about the "whole". A community should have integrity of the whole. We should always be able to count the membership on our fingers and toes and say - There are 15 members, therefore a majority (relative number, relative to the whole number which is the membership) is 8! We should be able to count relative quantities at any time because we know the whole number of the membership. Without a whole number we can hardly calculate relative quantities.

Community is not about technology, it's about people, and when the focus of the conversation is too centered on the technology it draws attention and energy away from the whole and our ability to create or facilitate community together.

Yeah. Give me simple, common platforms like email, email groups and group chat and give me a handful of people who are committed to preserving and promoting traditional democratic forms and you can have all of your exotic technology. I know which group is going to produce the best ideas. It won't be the ones with the high falutin' technology. The Internet is a testimony to that fact. The technocrats have given us poor forms for human organization. But it's not their field. They are not trained in Ethics, History or any of the Liberal Arts. They are technicians, kind of like TV repair people.

Derek says:

I like the term free range learning. What will benefit us all a lot is if buddy groups actually sprout up.

I like the idea of a buddy system because it gives established members a role. If there are members of FOC07 hanging about in the FOC08 course, then I think they should have definite supportive roles. If they are not blogging through the course as full participants then they should have definite "Buddy" roles to help assist us in organizing our projects. FOC07 should be recognized but not allowed to interfere with the ideas and experiments brought in by the FOC08 group. Giving them secure roles is one way to reassure everyone.

Leigh says:

If we were to go back to a traditional understanding of community and ignore for a moment what Wenger has brought to the word (i.e. "Community of Practice"), how might we think of an online community differently? Would it be different if we had children and teenagers in the community for example? In this sense, how many of us have really been a part of an online community?

In a traditional community there is usually an age restriction of about 18 years for adult groups. And I've never heard of mature adults joing the Scouts. Those are childrens groups. Even within that one group, the members may be further subdivided. However, I can't imagine applying that because we are not building private clubs online. A private club does not broadcast it's business to the world. I go to a club and it's closed. People don't wander in and out and pop in to cast a vote and disappear like they do on the web. When you broadcast your proceedings to the world, I don't think you have any right or obligation to verify anyone's name, rank or serial number. People prefer anonymity and they have a right to it as a matter of privacy.

Anyway, I think Nancy mentioned in another blog about "How do you filter?" I'm interested in finding objective ways to evaluate all aspects of community. For one, I would like to address how we can filter people in without comprimising privacy.

Amy Lenzo says:

I'm not sure that having an age range makes sense to me as criteria for defining community, but I do agree the term is used far too loosely these days - sometimes in ways that feel strange, even false, to me.

Mini-Meetings

2008-08-20T12:09:00.001-04:00

Deb posted on her blog, mediateachspace:

"I'm also not coping well with where abouts to air some of my comments. If one person publishes something that I'd like to comment on, and then someone else says a similar thing on their blog - how do I make the connection between those two people (and I may be the only link between them)"

Leigh closed the last meeting by suggesting that we also organize our own 2 or 3 person mini-meetings about the course. This is a good idea for people who need to connect the dots from one blog to another. I would really enjoy that. And remember, if we are going to have a great conference, we have to begin planning for it now, so let's start forming those groups. We could use the new GroupChat function in Gmail. Leave a note here on this post.

Notes on Meetings One and Two

2008-08-19T22:51:00.006-04:00

(This is a post I began when listening to the first and second meetings but didn't publish. Dated August 19. The reason for the post was to give verifiable evidence of my listening to the two meetings.)

I define a "meeting" as a gathering of people in temporal and ordinal form. The most encouraging aspect of the two meetings that I have listened to was the adherence to some temporal and ordinal form. It wasn't just a batch of random. The meeting was centered with a leader as a point of reference. Leigh led everyone through introductions. He had an alphabetical list and called off the names which gave cue to each member of the meeting. Whenever a member wished to speak they gave cue to Leigh by raising of hands. I don't know what that is in elluminate, probably some visual smilie that you use to signal the group.

12 participants:

Leigh
Bee
Daryl
ElderBob
Greg
Jeffrey
Mary
Nancy
Sarah
Sean
Vida
Violeta

Because there were clear temporal limits (one hour) the meeting moved ordinally through the agenda. What I like about ordinal form is that it allows members an opportunity to fulfill their rights and responsibilities to speak to the group.

At one of the meetings, someone put a picture upon the screen which blocked the agenda that Leigh had made. I found that to be annoying. I would have rather seen the agenda.

Splitting the meeting into two sessions was a great idea but I think that there should be two facilitators, possibly an assistant, while retaining Leigh as the overall course leader. This way people know that the meeting will happen. The attendance of this meeting was slightly lower and I wonder if the missed meeting was a cause?

I wonder why only one session is posted afterward? With each meeting of two sessions, there should be four sessions posted.

I liked listening. It sounded like a verbal summary of what is being blogged. However, I found myself doing a bunch of other tasks and not really paying attention. I was kind of like reading online. I don't really read very well online. It's more like skimming, not attentive reading. It's like that with the blogs. At least I know it, so I just keep going back and reviewing what strikes my fancy. It takes several readings to scratch the surface of some of these blogs.

I also noticed something that ElderBob said about people gathering from different regions and times. Ha! I am blogging alot about organizing around time zones and this jumped out at me. Talk about people only hearing what they want to hear! Well, that's the way I listened to the meeting.

ElderBob also said something like "traditional communities were established on a rail line or waterway, along a common line". I thought that was interesting. people once had physical connection. I ask myself "What common lines exist now?" I think that there are some physical connections

ElderBob also said that "you can be a member of many communities". OK. I can buy that to an extent but I can only absorb so much. Offline, I can become a member of so many communities but not an unlimited number. Likewise we should remind ourselves that communities don't function when there are unlimited numbers of members because an unlimited number is not able to be counted and no rational discussion, deliberation or debate can take place (with the exception of very small groups of about 5 to 7 members). But in any case, a whole number is necessary if we are to calculate any relative quantity such as equality, majority and minority.

Bee: common ground

EB: Not geographical but mindset

Artie says: Yeah but it's mindsets of people who come across eachother at the same time on the Internet. I think that the temporal has superseded the geographical as a limitation. We are not separated by geography, but time. The web is does not overcome the time obstacle. The Internet is no faster than the old candlestick telephone. It's the number of people who have access at once that complicates.

What we need to do is take the old forms that Grandpa and Grandma utilized to bridge the geographical divides between people and apply them to the Time Divide.

EB: I live in one community that developed from a set of physical circumstances

Artie adds: We are facing a common physical limitation with the time issue. It governs us whether we like it or not.

Bee: When people come online they need a place to come to.

Artie says: How about small clubs that are easy to access according to local time? Small clubs of about 10 or 15 people meeting at a local time who are working on a program together.
Leigh ended the meeting with the suggestion that we also organize our own little 3 or 4 person meetings. I liked this idea because small groups are easier to schedule and to absorb. I think it would stimulate some good blogging.

The two meetings constitute two separate groups that are naturally divided by time as if it were a geographical limitation. They are united for one purpose as one community, but are not only two distinct meetings, but two distinct groups with distinct memberships. If they did not have two distinct memberships then there was no need for two meetings! (Get it?) They could present the same program at their own pace with full autonomy. Clubs should be as convenient to attend as those Rotary clubs that are distributed geographically. In Rotary, they put a club where people are, but we put a club when people are, in order to give a wide variety of choices as convenient as geographically placed clubs.

Looking at this page for Rotary Club meetings I looked up a few clubs and I found that traditional meeting times are breakfast, lunch and dinner, with dinner probably being the most popular. Most popular local times appear to be 6 or 7 pm, noon and 6 or 7 am. I think that clubs should be timed similarly with some minor tweaks. If you can't tell the local meeting time, then you are probably in the wrong club.

I don't think that times should be GMT unless the community of clubs has a thorough training session in Clocks and Time. At least a complete training session in the World Clock page. This would be covered in a practical dialogue form with no experts (as all practical dialogue is for the purpose of building community expertise within the membership).

Techniques for Looking

2008-08-18T17:12:00.001-04:00

Continuing to probe the questions that Leigh asks from Week 2-3:

In this course we will be looking for online communities in very different
places. It is important that we try and develop an understanding of what exactly
we are looking for, and techniques for looking. What is an online
community?

I don't know if I can say what "we" are looking for but I think I know what I am looking for. I am looking for a community that does not yet exist on the web. It is a community that I only imagine. What interests me more is this part of the question that deals with techniques for looking. The questions asked by Leigh are a good technique for looking. And these questions are not only stimulating answers but more questions from bloggers.

But how do you look for something that you imagine might exist? What are we looking for? My feeling is that I am looking for something that has been lost and am concerned to regain it. I feel a great sense of having lost something when I'm on the Internet. The traditions have been lost. I suppose that I am here in this course because I am looking for people who recognize this loss also and would like to regain, to rediscover, those things that we value in community. I hope that I am looking in the right place.

I want to rediscover the democratic traditions that were first developed by Lucy and her clan in Ethiopia and handed over to Neanderthal and passed down to Cro-Magnon and have now entered into some lower evolutionary form on the web, these forms that have been squelched and silenced and have introduced a new Age of Miscommunication. I want to get back to the circle form that rose up as the tribe gathered around the fire.

I think that this course is one way of looking. I'm enjoying blogging on this topic and this is my first experience ever as a blogger. I think it has some definite strengths, and now, due to the FOC course, I am experimenting with it. I also enjoy browsing all of the other blogs and learning how others view community. How they see it. What they think. This helps me to see and compare with my own views.

I wonder how others have answered this question of how to look? I have read through the blogs and haven't seen any other interpretations of this question. Leigh is inquiring about looking for something, not looking at it. And Leigh seems to suggest that it is not a thing that is lost but a thing that is unknown? So the question is confusing. If I am looking for something that is lost, at least I know what it looks like and maybe where it was last seen. I'm looking for something that has been lost and is clearly identifiable. What are other people looking for? Are you looking for something that is yet to be discovered, that is unknown? That might be a more difficult task. Kind of like looking for the Abominable Snowman. Should we bother to look for something that doesn't exist? Of course, we can't know that it doesn't exist unless we go a looking! Even with the Abominable Snowman, you still have a lead on what it is supposed to look like. This is more like looking for God.

Let's suppose we already have something before us and want to look at it rather than for it. In that respect, when Leigh says "techniques for looking", I think about the evaluation process and how important it is to have a good system of objective evaluation for web community faciliation. This requires making the members responsible for evaluating the whole shebang.

In our culture, we are taught the Scientific Method. So I suppose a good technique for looking is to measure. I really appreciate the structure of this course. It acts as a common ground and guiding force for the discussion. It includes realistic objectives and evaluation. The course itself can also be measured and evaluated.

I think that I am going to use the Scientific Method and be doing a lot of measuring of web community qualities.

People Who Share a Common Time for a Purpose

2008-08-18T11:46:00.002-04:00

click to enlarge the map 91k

Also see: latitude and longitude page

I have come to a definition of an online community that is the best I can think of: People who share a common time for a purpose. This is broad enough to include all communities from a collection of individuals to a formalized group.

One myth about the web is that it is instantaneous. Yes, it is from one machine to another, but messages are not recieved and processed and responded to by humans instantaneously everywhere on the globe. The limitations of personal time zone have a very great impact upon how we can percieve "global community".

The web is global but not in a spherical sense. The distance between any two longitudes (meridians) determines the frequency of message cycles. Global community only exists where the frequency of message cycles allows enough communication to form a community. The longitude that runs down through Sweden, Poland, Germany, Austria, Italy, Greece, Libya, Chad, Republic of South Africa, Congo, Zaire, Angola, Nambia and South Africa is global with the web. Frequency of messaging is highest where any two given longitudes are closest together. Message frequency lowers as the distance between two longitudes increases.

So if we traveled the same distance described on a latitude either from East to West or visa versa, we could not call it global community. The latitude that runs from Spain to China is not a global community in the same sense as those based within a relatively narrow time zone because those who live within two longitudes that are closer together can have a greater message cycle frequency, exchanging multitudes of messages in one day, while those who are exchanging within an equal latitude may have a frequency as low as one cycle per 24 hours.

When I speak of time zones and geography, I am using this as a visual reference. Someone working the night shift in Spain would span the divide to China. So, in this blog, my constant references to time zones and geographical location is only a hint or pointer that must be translated into personal time zones.

Organizing According to Time

2008-08-17T16:05:00.002-04:00

Reading What is an online community?

Unlike traditional communities in which geography is frequently seen as a common denominator, in the online realm communities frequently develop independent of geographical boundaries and can be found in a variety of different technical landscapes. Most commonly they fall into either centralised and distributed models, which refers to the space in which community members interact with one another.

What about time zone limits? In offline communities, I must choose a club that is within the geographical limitations of my residence. Likewise, online, we are limited by time. Half the web is always sleeping when the other half is awake. So every poster resides in a time zone and to visit one time zone that poster must be absent from their resident zone.

Example: my normal time online is during the hours of about 8 am until about 10 pm, local time. If I stay up late tonight to visit another time zone, I will sleep late tomarrow and be absent from my normal time zone at 8 am. I may change my habits and stay up every night all night and with that change my time zone residency, but I must of necessity no longer be a resident of my former time zone.

The web has responded with a very loose standard of unlimited numbers of posters, posting in an open circuit, in random order (or without order). The result is an inability among the "members" to maintain control of the mode of communication. Traditional ordinal forms help maintain the exposition of a deliberation but random posting has destroyed that form. The result is to enervate traditional discussion forms.

Random posting was a quick fix that has failed in many important functions. Random posting is bad for deliberations because it denies the democratic principle of equal time and equal say. A circle form secures equal time for each speaker and listener. It gives the whole group a better listening experience and it charges members with not only the right but the responsibility to speak (or at least signal that they are in attendance).

The circle dialogue is the basic problem solving form for it allows the members to self moderate and achieve a consistent expository mode of discussion. Random form is not conducive to the expository mode. Random posting in open circuits results in mixed mode, notably the digression of exposition into the dramatic mode.

People can speak in circle form when they meet within a given time zone. What is needed at this point is a movement toward circle form that will require people to meet according to time zone. This is not a geographical division since people who are awake at night in any zone can join a community in a suitable time zone. The division is primarily temporal and only incidentally, geographic.

Referring to any time zone map we can see that there are three seperate population regions:

1) The Americas
2) Europe, Middle East and Africa
3) Far East and South Pacific

Now think for a moment. Let's say I'm a member of a traditional service club (Rotary International, for example). I join at the club level because I live in a certain area of town. I am a member at the club level but also that club is a member of the worldwide organization. I meet in my club, but sometimes I go to visit another club, so at that time, I am absent from my home club. I may also move to another part of the city or country or world and join another club. I have not left the larger Rotary community in any of those instances, but it's quite apparent that I am limited by geography, which is why the service community is organized the way it is.

But I come to the Web and you tell me of the joy, the splendor, the complete ecstacy, that we are not bound by geography. Right. We can transcend geography a little but we are still limited by time zones and, incidentally, by geography. So what is the answer? You tell me that we can all just talk as much as we want and whenever we want. OK. But who is going to listen? A proper democratic form gives us a better listening experience.

The fact is that people congregate according to time zones. So why not use that fact to our advantage by giving people an organization that is divided by time zone residency (regardless of geographical residency).

Now translate the traditional service organization to time zones and what do you get?

When I am at a Rotary Club I can only be at that club, yet I am participating in the whole international community. When I visit another Rotary club on the other side of town, I can also participate in the programs but I have no right to speak or to vote in the business of that club because I am not a member. I am a member of one club that meets on a regular basis in my neighborhood. The neighborhood clubs gather in an area regulary but less frequently. The areas come together yearly for a convention of the whole community. The whole Rotary community does not need to gather and communicate on a daily basis.

If people gather according to their time zone then there is no reason not to meet at a certain time and also not to use ordinal forms.

I have been driven to consider this because it is a common misconception that online communication is instantaneous. Right. The communication from one machine to another machine is instantaneous but I am not a machine. If you email me from the light side of Earth tonight, I am not going to recieve your message until tomarrow morning, because I am sleeping on the dark side when your message arrives at my machine. Even if I answer you immediately in the morning, at that time you are sleeping because we are separated by the range of our own personal time meridians. The process is then repeated and it may take two days to have one complete transaction on the Internet.

Now, this can work for us if we work with it. I must first understand that I am a part of one web first, the one that is awake when I am. The other part is always awake when I'm asleep. And since we reside in separate zones we must keep them separate in real time because they are separate. The only way I can join that other side of the Internet as a continuously active member is to leave my membership on this side. Just as if it were a geographical limit.

But the traditional service organization transcends this geographical limit and successfully organizes people all over the globe in the millions. Can we also transcend the time zone limitation using the same form and applying it to time zones?

In this blog I am going to put this concept together so that you can see it.

This is the way I imagine it - The board is divided into five catagories that are not topical, but ordinal.

The first catagory is the Ozone. The Ozone is the contact point with the public and is open circuit with random posting from all over the world.

Then there are three catagories based on the three time zone limits (although I am aware that a time zone is personal and each individual can post within the limits of the range of their particular personal time meridian). Each catagory contains two forums, one random and the other ordinal circle form. People qualify for membership in a zone based upon their attendance to the circle. Circles are organized using the random forum. We may even qualify people for circle posting in the random forum. Circle posting naturally filters out people who do not reside in the appropriate zone. And since it organizes people according to their time zone, it enables the greatest range of choices for choosing a meeting time. The wider our club zone, the less opportunities to meet.

The fifth catagory is the Fellowship Ring which runs throughout the month for all members to post in a slower, larger circle. Each has an equal say each month or as long as it takes to make one complete round. This can work because we have widened the limits of time for posting and it only requires one post per month. So it looks like this:

The Ozone
random

The Americas (the geography is only a rough guide)
random
circle

Europe, Middle East and Africa
random
circle

Far East and South Pacific
random
circle

The Fellowship Ring
circle

From Guest status to Member status, the effect is to move people from random posting into an ordinal form and to do it on a large scale by focusing upon a more local area. I am reminded of that old bumper sticker I saw so many times:
Think Globally - Act Locally.

Here we have organized with and for the time that people live in, locally; and we have accomodated the global effects of time also. We are no longer fighting against time. People can reside and participate in the comfort of whatever time zone they choose.

And we have qualified a membership on a local level and admitted them to a global community. They can visit a time zone outside of their residency and participate in it's programs but have no right to vote in that zone. To become an elected member of a different time zone, they must leave their current time residence and move into the zone. We know that they live in the zone because they are able to post consistently in a circle form.

Ultimately, we can organize people constitutionally because we have simply replaced the geographical limits with the time limits. And random posting can not threaten ordinal form any longer.

So why all the fuss about ordinal form? I'll be writing another post about that but basically ordinal form brings order to the organization of people, allowing them to deliberate to the point of concerted action.

The Meaning of Community

2008-08-17T15:57:00.002-04:00

I am reading The Meaning of Community by Ann Boyles:

While pundits ponder whether or not Internet users form any kind of viable
community as they sit at their computers in farflung corners of the world, a
deeper and more serious issue is the manner in which the entire structure of
computer networks undermines more traditional kinds of community
organization.

The mainstream meaning of the word "community" has changed very much since the popularization of digital media. Language has been wildly stretched either because the meaning has changed or perhaps it has been this stretching that has distorted the meaning? I lean toward the latter description of how things have changed. Words have been used ignorantly by promoters of so-called "communities" just for the purpose of promoting a certain digital platform into popularity. A good example is all of the PHP forums out there. The vocabulary of the PHP forum is fixed.

It is possible to have Guest posting in relationship to the membership of members, but administrators, seeking to attract more traffic, allowed "members" to join who were in no way qualified for eachother. The person simply needed to fill out a short form that a 12 year old could do in less than 2 minutes, and "Presto - you're a member!" So the meaning of the word "member" has been enervated.

Traditionally, a membership of individuals must be qualified. I have been involved in many communities where the very minimum requirements were that I attend at least two or more consecutive meetings, and it was expected that I regularly participate in the programs that the community offered because these programs advanced the purpose of the community.

Words like "Group" too have no meaning because a group traditionally would be organized according to temporal and/or ordinal limits, and not only exist as a random and unlimited collection of individuals.

The very words "Discussion" and "Forum" mean little much like what we are accustomed to.

A discussion is a group speaking in an organized, ordinal form, the circle formation (ABC ABC...) being one of the most well known, popular and versatile.

A debate is an argument presented before a third party for evaluation or judgement. It has a beginning and an end, it does not just go on and on.

A forum is an organization of varied discussion forms, not just an organization of topics, but an organization of process.

I advocate a return to the traditional meanings of community. I feel that community should be an empowering experience. Most so-called communities culminate their communications in an offline action. I am interested in the power to organize an online action through democratic deliberative forms.

People use e-terms. It's eThis and eThat. I was searching the web for "eDemocracy" and found groups who were using the web as a messageboard to promote offline democratic organizations. That is not a true eDemocracy. The organizing efforts of an eDemocracy culminate in online action. The election of it's membership would be one of the basic online actions.

"Information is another word that has been stretched. People say that "information has increased". When I have a verbal conversation with someone, it is not catagorized by the public as "relevant information". So while a chat is information, it's not relevant. Does it require preservation?

I think the correct meaning is that there is a "people overload". There are too many people to deal with. Seems like everyone wants to have the biggest group instead of the better group.

As much as knowledge has increased with the recording of information, knowledge becomes obsolete as the technology changes and formats are replaced.

A "meeting" of posters along the line of a latitude can not be easily facilitated in real time, therefore a new form must arise deserving of it's own name.

Terms like "discussion" "meeting" and others have a meaning that includes "broadcasting the communication". Why should a chat or meeting be broadcast? People think that community will grow if it is accessible. How did traditional communities like Rotary International manage to grow their memberships to where there are more than 32,000 clubs and over 1.2 million members world-wide?

See the Glossary of Terms

Community of Practice

2008-08-15T19:47:00.001-04:00

One of the objectives of the foc08 course is stated as:

Define an online community

A few of the first bloggers mentioned "community of practice", a term that is familiar to educators but unfamiliar to myself. I suppose that before this new-fangled way of saying it came to be, people just used the words "service community". A service community was/is one that fills the needs of a greater community. The greater community already exists and the service community is a portion of the community that provides a service to the larger community. So, for instance, there is a need for leadership in the greater community, traditionally, some collection of individuals would form a constitutional society to provide the service of developing leadership. The community was larger than any one of the individuals in that it was self developing and self-perpetuating. The platform was secondary and either unowned or cooperatively owned. (A far cry from what we have gotten ourselves into on the web)

An online community ought to be all of that and more.

The JayCees are an established service community, designed for the purpose of providing leadership to the greater community. This organization has programs that give people training in leadership skills. Another very popular vehicle for developing speaking and organizing skills is Toastmasters International. These are great examples of traditional service organization or what we would call "community of practice" because they exists for the purpose of developing practical skills through training programs. And, because it's a community, the training is ongoing, it's always developing further, to learn more, to challenge the individuals, the community, and the greater community. This attribute of continuous growth set it apart from a classroom course.

One important aspect that we should not overlook about these service organizations is that complete control of the administration of the community is passed on to each new generation of members through a constitutional form. This allows the former administrators to grow the organization. This is not happening in web communities. Ownership of the platform has been elevated above the integrity of the community itself and is probably stifling growth. The traditionally organized service community may have a membership of 100's of thousands or millions of members spanning a worldwide geographical area, while a large message board community may only number in the few hundreds or thousands. What's the problem? More importantly, what's the solution? That's what sparks my interest.

FOC08 Starter Notes

2008-08-15T16:29:00.001-04:00

I'm starting this blog in response to an online course called Facilitating Online Communities. This blog is named for the tag that all of the participants are using on their blog posts - FOC08. I actually began posting on my other blog Artie's World but may move everything with this course to this blog.

I may do an evaluation of this course. The facilitator is Leigh Blackall. First off, I expected that "Leigh" was a woman! Well, OK. I can go with this. :) I like the approach in many respects. There are clearly defined objectives which were posted from the start:

Define an online community
Define online learning
Develop facilitation skills
Apply facilitation skills within an online learning community
Evaluate the facilitation of an online learning community

I notice that this outline was flexible, yet focused enough to stimulate some thinking instead of confusion.

I did all* of the first weeks projects which included attending a "meeting" with Nellie. I don't know if I could call it a meeting. I would call the whole course a "discussion" because it adheres to some temporal and ordinal structures but I can't call the "meeting" a real meeting for several reasons. First, there seems to be no limit on the number of participants. At this time, there are about 60 people in the course and it could be 100 or even more since there is no cap. A reasonable number would be about 10 to 15.

* Almost all. I didn't introduce myself in the start of the course because I am committed as an observer. Besides, I object to random posting with unlimited numbers of "members". I would prefer a small group of 10-15 qualified members posting in ordinal form. However, I see after reviewing the course assignments that the projects require that there be enough members to participate. (Still, I'm going to come back to this point again later)

Then there is no order to the speaking or posting so I can't even call the meeting a "discussion" although I will extend the term "discussion" to the course itself. Something like 15 or 20 people attended the "meeting" and hardly anyone spoke. A meeting requires ordinal form. I would expect at the least a circle form where people not only have a right but a responsibility to speak, even if it's just to post to let people know that you are in attendance.

I like a lot about this course but I think that those who wish to be better organizers on the web should leave off this idea that you can post randomly with unlimited numbers of posters and create a community. A community is much, much more than that.

Another thing, I noticed somewhere, maybe in some person's blog, that people are already speaking of this course (FOC08) as a "community". I would extend that term only if by the end of the course, the community has scheduled the next course and assigned some roles. Then it would be an ongoing effort energized by the community itself, and I hope that this is the route some of the participants will travel because such a community is desperately needed.

Something else that I didn't get was that there seemed to be two independent meetings going on. There was the one that could be heard and then another that was appearing in a text format in the chatbox. They were talking about some other issue in the chatbox. It seemed that the two "meetings" or "discussions" had two separate memberships in attendance.

Now, I understand the idea of autonomy and people are going to do whatever they want but it is not proper democratic form. Proper democratic form would give me the better listening experience. Random posting allows everyone to have their say as much as they want and as often as they like it. But democratic form allows everyone equal say.

I am getting a bit more familiar with the course outline and it is well structured. This promises to be quite an event!

Leigh did some excellent preparation and I feel confident that this is can be groundbreaking. From the course schedule down to the assignments, it's all very well planned. The three course assignments themselves are realistic objectives and we are given plenty of time to complete them. The choice of assignments is also commendable, particularly the evaluation of a facilitated online event. This is something that we can sink our teeth into. Kudos to Leigh for this fine preparation.

Browsing the blog posts has already helped me become acquainted with people's personal philosophies about community. The participant's blogs page is a great gateway to information and has been valuable to me in my orientation for this course. I found many tips on getting started with a blog and setting up Google Reader. Issues have already been raised about community of practice, privacy, and for some, a rethinking about fundamentals.

I feel challenged by this course and that's a very good sign.:)

Glossary of Terms

2008-08-15T16:27:00.004-04:00

A glossary is an alphabetized collection of specialized terms with their meanings to help the general reader to understand new or uncommon vocabulary and specialized terms. I wrote this Glossary of Terms for reference when discussing the traditional arts of democratic discussion form.

Anti-Community - a random and open set of individuals collected for an undetermined purpose; a collection of individuals who elect people out of rather than into the group, while allowing immunity to the owner; a community that is owned as private property with it's primary purpose of promoting the owner.

Average Personal Meridian (APM) - the sum of all personal meridians in a group divided by the total number of members.

Central Negative - the opposition side of the community; those who oppose the designated leader; often referred to as "Trolling", sometimes called "Borderline Personalty Disorder".

Closed Circuit - a circuit that can be measured by a whole number; a complete selection of individuals.

Collection of Individuals - an incomplete quantity of posters gathered on an open circuit and posting randomly; an Anti-Community.

Community (or Group) - an organization of people via intermitent meetings with a unity of purpose. (The interests of the individuals support the purposes of the community and the community is there for the development of the individual)

Conscious Day - the full range of the wakened day, not including the unconscious part of the 24 hour day.

Democratic Organization - an order that is accomplished through traditional democratic systems.

Designated Leader - a person formally charged with the official responsibility to lead or organize.

Discussion - a temporal and ordinal organization of people and speech used for the processing of information.

eDemocracy - a temporal group using ordinal discussion forms deliberates through the process of an online action, such online actions include the election of it's membership and officers; a constitutionally formed online community; an online community that practices ordinal form.

Fabricated Consensus - agreement brought about through IP checks, blocks and bans; a so-called "moderated community".

Forum - an organized presentation of various different temporal and ordinal discussion forms. A forum is a process of discussions.

Gripe's Law - the power of the central negative is equal to the power of the designated leader; a kind of ying and yang that governs the whole web; when the designated leaders eliminate the central negative, the community levels off and may decline but further growth is halted.

group - a number of individuals considered as a unit, people interacting in temporal/ordinal form, basic unit of the community.

Guest - an interested prospect who has no rights nor responsibilities.

Local/Global Web Community - A local/global web community is one that extends through the length of one longitude or of a narrow area between two longitudes. The closer the two longitudes are to eachother, the more local the community. It is also global in a limited sense, since it may span a multitude of diverse nations, languages and cultures. The wider the latitude, the less local the community becomes. The local/global model has the distinct advantage of offering the most possibilities for scheduling meetings.

Measured Discourse - a discussion that is measured in whole and part. (see Rational Form)

Member - a poster that has been qualified for and elected to the purpose of the community and sharing equal rights and responsibilities with other members.

Membership - a qualified and elected body; the membership may be in training to become qualified.

Mode of Discussion - all of the posters compose in the same mode; the three classic modes are:

Expository - the building up of logical and rhetorical dialogue; the natural extension of this mode is in ordinal forms.
Narrative - telling a story; chats and blogs are likely to be in this mode.
Dramatic (or Demonstrative) - role playing or acting; the forum is used as a theatrical stage.

Mudsucker - a poster who harasses trolls as a supposed defense to forum standards.

Open Circuit - a circuit that can not be measured by a whole number; a collection of individuals.

Opposite Longitude - extension of a longitude beyond either pole.

Ordinal Form - according to a limited sequence (ABC ABC)

People Overload - Too many people to have to deal with.

Personal Meridian - the center of a personal time zone range when a person is awake; example: if the range of my online day is @000 to @600, I am online for a total range of 600 and my meridian occurs at @300 (Swatch); half of a conscious day.

Rational Form - an organization of form based upon a whole number and it's relative quantities; equality, majority and minority; equality is the primary ratio in rational discussion; secondary ratios are simple majority and supermajority (2/3, 3/4...).

Random Form - without ordinal or temporal limits.

Temporal Form - according to time limits (begin - end), usually expressed numerically.

Time Meridian - the center of a given real time

Time Zone Residency (Resident Time Zone) - every Internet user resides in a limited time zone and is subject to that time as much as a geographical limitation; a user may visit another time zone only by being absent from the zone of residency; a person may change their residency by leaving their current residency.

Time Zone Tour (Touring the Time Zones) - leaving your resident time zone to visit another separate time zone. Posting outside of your normal biological time.

Troll - a change in the mode of discussion; a derogatory term for a poster; a poster who leads a collection of individuals through a dramatic sequence.

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FOC08 Course Outline

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1 Facilitating Online Communities blog
2 Participation
3 Learning objectives
4 Schedule
4.1 Wk 1: Orientation - 28 July - 3 August
4.2 Wks 2 and 3: What is an online community? - 4 - 17 August
4.3 Wks 4 and 5: Facilitating, moderating, or teaching - 18 - 31 August
4.4 Wk 6: Looking for online community: Discussion forums - 1 - 7 September
4.5 Wk 7: Looking for online community: Blog networks - 8 - 14 September
4.6 Wk 8: Open versus closed communities - 15 - 21 September
4.7 Wk 9: Looking for online community: Wiki collaborators - 22 - 28 September
4.8 Holiday Break: 29 September - 12 October
4.9 Wk 10: Looking for online community: Virtual Worlds - 13 - 19 October
4.10 Wk 11: Looking for online community: Social networking platforms - 20 - 26 October
4.11 Wks 12 and 13: Facilitate an event for an online community - 27 October - 9 November
4.12 Wk 14: Reflect on different kinds of online communities 10 - 16 November
4.13 Wks 15 and 16: Evaluate the facilitation of an online event - 17 - 30 November
4.14 Wks 17: Round up assignments, course review - 1 - 5 December
5 Assignments
5.1 Assignment 1: Weekly reading and blogging
5.2 Assignment 2: Facilitate an online event
5.3 Assignment 3: Evaluate a facilitated online event
6 Related courses

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