All posts in the topic Next Steps - Establish Moderation Agreements (Short link)

From: Lynn Benander Date: Nov 14 12:38 UTC Short link

We had too many complaints about the tone so as we prepare to open up
discussions again, we moved the forum to a moderated format.  That means
Catherine Miller and I will need to see if a post meets the moderation
agreements before it gets posted on the site.

I'm hoping that if we establish moderation agreements that make sense to most
people that people can monitor themselves and we will be able to lift the
moderated format.

Here are a few agreements some forums have about their dialog.
1) Stick to the topic of the forum.
2) No personal attacks.
3) Share air time - Don't fill up the space with your comments.  Leave room for
others.
4) No selling products for a for-profit business.

How do those sound to you?
Can you think of others you'd like to see?

The final version of the Pioneer Valley Clean Energy Plan is nearly finished.
We'll post it here.  We need to move our communities off our dependence on
foreign oil, into a way of life that uses far less energy overall, and onto
renewables for the energy we do. This forum is a place where we can work
together do to that, using the plan as a launching pad for our work.

The siting of biomass and wind projects has been very contentious in our
region. This forum will also have a place where we can look at the advantages
and disadvantages of specific projects.  If you're interested in talking about
the third party review of the Russel Biomass plant, please join the "Biomass
and the Russell Biomass Plant" group. Once we have our moderation agreements in
place, we will begin that discussion.

e-democracy.org is a non-profit organization in Minneapolis that has provided
this online resource to us for free. They work with groups around the world to
support direct citizen democracy.  We are grateful for all they have done for
us.   If you can make a donation to them in appreciation of that resource, we'd
be grateful.  We had some technical difficulty transitioning these groups over
to a moderated setting, but I think it's working now.  If you have a message to
post that isn't getting through, please send it to me directly at
<email obscured>.  I'll see that it gets up.  I'm eager to move off of this
moderated format as soon as we have agreements to set and keep a tone that's
comfortable for the majority, where people don't feel like they have to put on
armor to step into the ring.  We have difficult things to talk about.  If we
figure out what agreements we need with each other so that people in the middle
of an issue feel comfortable participating (not just the extremes), where we're
comfortable talking about why we feel strongly about the topics on the table,
we'll be creating the kind of community we want to live in.  The kind of
community we want to leave for our children.

Thanks for being here!

Lynn

Lynn Benander
Manager, Co-op Power
413-772-8898