using conference boards and communal writing spaces

greenspun.com : LUSENET : LostSoulMates : One Thread

Whilst this is actually a posting I've just made to a Caucus message board , I thought it took a stab at a couple of issues which might provoke comment or ways people have found to resolve better than I...(The thread was about personal things one needs to confront in oneself to try to do better at managing interactively)

I don't mind confessing a problem with my human mind (I expect it's both common to a lot of people but became unpopular in our late 20th C management world of soundbite, one-minute-men etc). Whenever somebody says or does something that really needs a deep response from me (eg because its really stretching my imagination or whatver) I prefer to have about a day to reflect before I try to respond. (A day is needed for the full force of the stimulus to connect itself in my mind; to think of as creative response ways as I'm able etc; perhaps to discuss with a mentor).

This confession, also goes to the heart of the paradox for me of a space like this. Leaving a written (recorded) trail permits us to go back and reflect, nonetheless the flow of 100+ minds interacting inevitably moves the conversation on. And Caucus does NOT have a natural "replay" feel to the way it most obviously invites you to use it. eg do the most original points raised in these threads get their full share of reflective voice). If not, how can we tweak the system? I suppose one way would be to have twin threads everywhere, with the rule that the second thread could only be used to insert comments that had been reflected on for more than 24 hours.

Of course, I wouldn't ever burden a moderator with such extra work, but then it might be worth trying with one big thread -or as part of a summing up stage of the whole Another possibility is pre-mobilising issues by insisting you spend the first few days getting everyone to voice questions they want to raise on a theme before asking anyone to give "answers". I have been looking at such action learning approaches for 5/6 years now. It's a whole separate ballgame of what might be possible. (You can always contact me any time , a day, a year later! if you want to pick up on this - I'll still be exploring it! )

-- Chris macrea (ben@timedesk.net), March 04, 2001

Answers

Chris ,

I have taken the liberty to play around with your comments.. This took me little under 1 minute to transfer from Yahoo to this board. You can use edit feature Your access code is tl5216 . You will notice ....

- no ads and no irrelevant information - various ways to edit text.In the professional edition every member can edit text without going in the moderator function, jsut by clicking a a buton next to their name if they discover the made a typo or want to add info to an existing post - easy to use without registration, unless you set the board up as a private space. - In the fully installed edition you can add immages and gives users an edit function so they can correct their postings. - It only requires posters to use a simple html code to make links clickable

I am currently testing this set up on the secretary network by means of a diary mock up. I.e I give them a forum page per day where they leave their comments on a theme I set as moderator. On top of that I am adding themes that are hyperlinked to wimpypoint for further functionality aswell as outside service providers like Yahoo.

Because in the final portal setup I hope to have up and running by the end of this month, everything is backed up by an Oracle database, it is irrelevant where information is posted (bb or wimpy or webpage, as it is in one database, with search functionality and e-mail broadcasting.

Now I did this for you, but if you would have typed in the message straight in the board, it would have been a piece of cake for me to correct the html. It's just one code you need to remember, so real simple. It is very easy to set up topical discussions, and the beauty is that members can simply indicate if they want an e-mail allert per topic. So if I am interested what's being said about travel,I can sellect only those discussions. If a moderator keeps track of what's beeing posted, and corrects serious mispostings, deletes garbage and corrects html, I am sure you have great tool that could even be used to write a Lost Soul Mates e-book. In order to make sure every member knows what we are talking about, each chief correspondent should be willing to write a short recap with links per subject. I agree this is not a flashy presentation, but I did learn over the past few weeks hardely anybody is interested in those. They want info, it has to be fast, usefull and NO ADVERTISING. What also works is a bit humor, and silly things like being able to create their own text color on the buletin board. O yes, and being able to send sounds is real winner... The best feature is.... somebody there to talk to when the feel like it.

I also noted, people get extremly frustrated if things don't work the way they expect it to work, and will either just leave, vent there frustration at every opertunity, or both. The biggest killer of communication is a registration process they don't see the point of.

-- Ben Koot (ben@timerdesk.net), March 04, 2001.


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