Barnraising Project Draft Outline
(Please feel free to suggest changes!)

Overview: This document is split into three sections. The first section outlines the "Goals" of the Barnraising project. The second section presents the "Ideas and Problems" generated by each Goal. And the third section is intended to remind us of our "Short Term Challenges," meaning anything we need to take action on right away.

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Goals

1. To learn by trial and error what tools hosts must have in order to be able effectively to harvest, edit, and organize information posted to topics in CommunityWare conferences. (RC)
   

2. To create a publicly accessible Web site that might serve as a trial balloon for CommunityWare conference Web pages. (RC)
   
3. To attract more participants to the Barnraising conference. (choconancy)
   
4. To provide Durand with ideas for the ongoing development of Electric Minds and the CommunityWare system. (RC)

    

Ideas and Problems

1. To learn by trial and error what tools hosts must have in order to be able effectively to harvest, edit, and organize information posted to topics in CommunityWare conferences.

   Problem of integration between LUSENET and CommunityWare

   • The information collected from Barnraising and stored in the "Barnraising FAQ" should also be made available inside the CommunityWare system. Perhaps the threaded messages in the toolshed could be duplicated right into the Bulletins facility of CommunityWare. (harr_i)
     
   • But the Bulletins facility has some serious limitations as a primary information-harvesting tool; the LUSENET system appears to be more flexible. (RC)

   What might be a workable procedure for collecting and posting information so that it appears in usable form both in the CommunityWare Bulletins and the LUSENET system?

   • [This is currently an open question. Someone with access to both systems will have to do some test posting.]

   What would have to be "fixed" to make the CommunityWare Bulletins suitable as a primary information-harveting tool?

   • Clean up the HTML parsing - right now it mangles carefully written/coded posts. (dalbatross)
     
   • Provide tools that would enable hosts to function as compilers and editors of information.
     • "Read only," "archive," etc. (dalbatross)
       
     • Allow hosts/editors to impose some sort of hierarchical (or other) structure on the information that's been gathered and to reorganize the information at a later date if necessary. (RC)
       
     • Allow hosts/editors to delete irrelevant information. (RC)
   • Speed. (dalbatross)
     
   • Thread maps. (dalbatross)
     
   • More robust HTML capabilities than currently available in "Conferences," like being able to override the preformatted text tags. (dalbatross)
     
   • Allow separate subdirectories for information from each conference. (RC)

   Advantages of using Bulletins for creating FAQs and other 'static' content? (assuming some upgrades to the UI and functionality are forthcoming)

   • Linking between conference messages and bulletins without the dreaded "your session has timed out" (theoretically). (dalbatross)
     
   • Deleting messages. (dalbatross)
     
   • Editing the content of messages. (dalbatross)
     
   • Pretty good stats, though not fully functional right now. (dalbatross)
     
   • Ability to subscribe via email. (dalbatross)

   Suggestions for improvements to the LUSENET system

   • Give moderators the ability to re-order messages within a given topic. Would be nice to be able automatically to sort the messages using various criteria, e.g., alphabetically by first line, chronologically, reverse-chronologically, etc.

2. To create a publicly accessible Web site that might serve as a trial balloon for CommunityWare conference Web pages.

   Elements of the site so far

   • Publicly accessible database of links (LUSENET).
     
   • Home page with links to the database of links and invitation to join Electric Minds.
     
   • Java chat room, Free-For-All Links, etc.

   Possibilities for future development

   • Facility so the host can regularly post highlights from current hot topics. (chocnancy)
     
   • Public pages to highlight the "Best of" each conference. (choconancy)
     
   • Detailed instructions on how to join the Barnraising conference once you've registered to use CommunityWare; users should be able to print the instructions on a single sheet. (RC)

3. To attract more participants to the Barnraising conference.

   [Ideas anyone?]

4. To provide Durand with ideas for the ongoing development of Electric Minds and the CommunityWare system.

   Suggestions for changes to the structure of eMinds/CommunityWare

   • Expand the Electric Minds home page to look more like an ezine, with more area to feature conferences within eMinds as well as other communities. (roble)
     
   • Electric Minds should be the main planet in the CommunityWare system, with the other communities like satellites around it. (roble) Other phrases that convey essentially the same idea: "eMinds as a metacommunity" (harr_i, et al.); "eMinds as a hub" (dalbatross); "eMinds as a community of communities" (RC).
     • Thus, unless a community is specifically against it, everyone who joins a community should also automatically be part of eMinds, and Durand could send a little email to each person who joins other communities with an explanation of eMinds and an explanation of how it is the center and welcomes all newcomers even if their primary interest is in the community they have joined. (roble)
   • Help people to get to know each other more quickly by emphasizing personal pages rather than the simple profile pages, but keep the messaging system intact. (roble)
     
   • Get chat more active in general. (roble)
     
   • Encourage people to think of communicating through discussions as more than just playing around on the Net. (roble)
     
   • Pay the hosts or offer some kind of other benefits in lieu of payment. (RC)

   Suggestions for new tools
    
   [Note: participants in the Barnraising conference have already provided an outline of suggestions for possible additions and improvements to CommunityWare. But that doesn't mean we have to stop brainstorming.]

   • Build a technical infrastructure into CommunityWare that supports conferencing "genres" other than the EMinds linear salon style. (dalbatross)
     

   • Provide specialized Web-site construction resources and advice for people who want to build personal pages. (RC)
     
   • Add some sort of groupware functionality to support "classroom" projects which could also be "fanclub" or "work group" or "what-have-you" projects. (dalbatross)
     [See our previous outline of suggestions for a few examples.]
     
   • Add a cool scheduling/calendaring component. (dalbatross)
     
   • Create event-spaces would allow communities to host temporary conferences. (axon)
     • Give communities the ability to restrict write access to temporary conferences so that only authorized participants are able to post. (axon)
       
     • Also give communities the ability to restrict read access to temporary conferences so that only registered visitors can attend. (axon)
       
     • Provide tools so that conference organizers can manage conference registrations. (RC)
       
     • Provide opportunities for each community to publicize its events to other CommunityWare communities and provide information on how to attract people from outside the CommunityWare family. (RC)
       
     • Allow banner advertising so that temporary conferences can be sponsored. (axon)
       
     • Allow communities to submit proposals for conferences that might be sponsored, in some fashion, directly by Durand. (RC)
       
     • Require that every conference include links to a brief tour that promotes CommunityWare as a viable venue for YOUR next conference. (RC)

   The Big Picture

   • There is a need for an overarching organization to promote communities in general. If building communities is to be taken seriously, the leaders should receive awards. An association of internet communities could have some type of yearly awards ceremony with prizes for hosts, participants, administrators, programmers, graphic artists with different categories for under 20, professional, guest or whatever. (roble)

      

Short-Term Challenges

• Engaging a few more people to see if we can build sufficient content to draw yet more people. (choconancy)
  

• Get feedback on usability to demonstrate what works/doesn't work. (choconancy)
  
• Find time to info-mine! (choconancy)
  
• Collect long quotations for the "Best of Barnraising" feature and short ones for "Voices from the Barn."

   
  

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And so on.

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-- Ragged Claws (wallace@raggedclaws.com), September 08, 1998

Answers

Now in document

-- Ragged Claws (wallace@raggedclaws.com), September 08, 1998.

Now in document

-- Ragged Claws (wallace@raggedclaws.com), September 08, 1998.