[Chapter-delegates] [Chaptersadvisorycounciltaskforce] Chapters Advisory Council

[CW Mail]

Good morning:

>	 … game systems, web apps and small screens, which has led to a very different kind of multi-user-conversation preference. 
 	Think (in order of age) Slashdot, XDA Developers and the current king of the genre -- Reddit -- 

For what it is worth, personally, I have no experience with any of these things.

Although I doubt that I understand the technicalities of this discussion, I have little doubt as to which side of the argument I might fall.

Regards


CW


On 15 Nov 2014, at 07:41, Evan Leibovitch <evan at telly.org> wrote:

> On 15 November 2014 00:59, Alejandro Pisanty <apisanty at gmail.com> wrote:
> Evan,
> 
> we are complaining about the communications tools that removed standard e-mail and list functionality, not only Netiquette. Some chapter delegates are showing how this is breaking our communications, discussions and participation.
> 
> 
> ​Fair enough. But this raises a challenge.
> 
> A segment of Chapter membership prefers the long-form editing, threading and attribution that has long been available using email. For long-time users it is not broken and does not need fixing.
> 
> Another segment -- one not well represented ​within leadership right now -- had grown up on game systems, web apps and small screens, which has led to a very different kind of multi-user-conversation preference. Think (in order of age) Slashdot, XDA Developers and the current king of the genre -- Reddit -- for examples of this style that have been implemented. They can be very scalable and very effective, and codes of conduct can be strictly (and easily) enforced. But their techniques and culture can be VERY different, indeed jarring, to a long time email user.
> 
> There are many questions at hand:
> Is the current Connect software a good implementation of the cloud-based-forum method of communications? Now that we've given it some stress-testing, I would say that the preponderance of opinions is negative on this.
> 
> Might other tools offer easier integration with mailing lists? Would email users be happier with a style more like, say, Slashdot?
> 
> Is there a need to expand the communications offerings in order to encourage those who are more comfortable with the online-forum style of discussion? And must this be done at the expense of traditional users who will find the style completely alien?
> 
> Is inertia from email-users good enough reason not to diversify communications methods?
> The invocation of "netiquette" and breaking of standards has not brought clarity to these issues; indeed it has obfuscated them.
> 
> One of the reasons I am moving so hard on the Advisory Council is because I think that is not only a Good Idea, but absolutely necessary to assist in the kind of collaborative problem-solving that could have made this issue a lot less painful. It might indeed be able to help extract us from the current situation.
> 
> Perhaps one good start now is to survey the membership on their preferences of communications tools. I did that using SurveyGizmo for the Canada Chapter and the results -- even with a small sample size -- were stunningly diverse. Without this kind of research, we never know how many people are being shut out of participating because of the insistence on email-only for multi-user conversations. (and that's just from _existing_ members!)
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> - Evan
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