and unleashed my frustrations with the ppe-list and other intractable problems
associated with this neighborhood, some of the people in it, and way things are
done here; but I did not see the need as this stuff becomes second nature if
one participates in some forums for a time and consults the e-democracy.org
website and forum managers.
E-democracy.org has forums around the country and in a few others in the wider
world besides our Prospect Park Minneapolis Neighbors Forum; it is easy to look
up any of them on the website, e-democracy.org .
Once you find your way to one of these forums, either by providing your e-mail
address to those trying to interest folks in the organization or a specific
forum of e-democracy.org or by reaching the e-democracy.org website or that of
one of its forums on your own (I understand that many neighbors signed up for
this from a topic thread started by forum manager Jessica Buchberger in the
first posts to the forum; find that thread here
<http://forums.e-democracy.org/groups/mpls-prospectpark/messages/topic/6FpAxbm1vT2n6MzrINRKCL/>
for many points that I am reiterating now and continue on as there have been so
few posts to this forum that it wonât be a terribly long read to the most
current posts. I never read Ms. Buchbergerâs first post until recently because
I joined the forum well after it began), you can join a forum and set up a
profile with your information for the auto sign feature should you care to use
it (I used the auto sign feature a bit creatively for my mayoral campaign,
really my campaign for Council-manager government, with our old neighborhood
acronym and a fictional U.S. state with a name sort of homophonic creation
combining the words "picayune," âpecuniary,â and the suffix â-anaâ to make a
point and link my campaign website that the city clerk seemed to think didnât
merit linking on the candidate info page, but some prefer bare bones info and
must remember to sign with a location every post), and adjust your e-mail
settings.
When you join and post, you are bound to act under the rules of e-democracy.org
in posting to any forum of the organization; people like me will turn you in if
you donât follow the rules because that is how this all works with volunteer
forum managers who canât possibly monitor everything (Iâve even turned myself
in to the FM, but I think all in all that most forum memberships are pretty
good at following the rules; they hardly kick out anyone). Just remember that
disagreement is not the same as incivility and everything will be fine; I once
adopted a more formal or studied style for these posts to avoid breaking the
rules, but found it tedious and relatively useless after a time. I think it is
far better to not take things personally, to avoid reactive thinking or
reflexive posts, and then your forums will benefit greatly from more thoughtful
posts.
Nothing more is required unless you choose to post when a forum manager sees
your first post in a queue for moderation (more moderation on successive posts
for some folks, apparently), verifies your identity as possible (if you havenât
signed and included at least your city level location, she will or should
advise you that this is required), and release it to the forum where all can
see see it online or have it delivered individually or as part of a digest of
post titles and links you can use to follow them online (depends on how you set
this).
One can post online by signing on to your forum webpage or you send your posts
via e-mail to the forum address
<mailto:mpls-prospectpark@forums.e-democracy.org> (youâll get a auto-reply if
you arenât a member yet, I think).
All the information youâd ever need in using the forums is on the website and
you can consult with any forum manager about specifics for a particular forum;
they all use the same e-democracy.org rules along with any more rules those
starting and running a given forum care to add, found on the charter page of
each forum, but usually only defining the scope of topics allowed on the forum
along with how often you can post per day (most forums limit this to two per
day, but I think this one may allow more).
Not many elected officials participate on the city and neighborhood forums, but
our Council member has been a regular and valued contributor (as was his
immediate predecessor) to the Minneapolis Issues Forum and is one of the few
posting to this Prospect Park forum. Other pols typically donât and given
lawsuits, some donât say much at all outside Council meetings anymore, even in
their e-mail newsletters (one who was burnedâactually, the case was a relative
win for herâin such a suit, hardly ever mentions anything but city events and
what projects might affect you getting to any of them), but there really is no
reason not to as posts are available to the whole world and could never be
considered meeting or conspiring over any particular issue outside of whatever
body one is elected to (the danger to worry about is mostly of revealing a bias
before your body of government decides something or putting your foot in your
mouth over one thing or another; one also has to be careful if your politics or
your demeanor can make that kind of exposure a problem). Most forum members
donât give those in government, elected or not, a hard time as that is
considered bad form for the most part, but it happens; good thing most of these
folks are not thin skinned and weâre really all better off trying to emulate
animals with thick coverings.
What little I post from now on will go to both the ppe-list
<https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/ppe-list> and the Prospect Park
Minneapolis Neighbors Forum
<http://forums.e-democracy.org/groups/mpls-prospectpark/messages/topic/6FpAxbm1vT2n6MzrINRKCL/>
of e-democracy.org