One thing is clear, we can't compete with Facebook and multi-billion
dollar websites on features or finer details.
But we can be simple. We can be easier to use. We can strive to be
accessible across many devices.
Our community-generated content can be shared across many platforms to
reach more and more people based on our non-profit foundation while
commercial sites seek to box you into just their platform.
To advise our redesign, please join us here:
http://e-democracy.org/design
Existing site members may join easily by emailing:
<email obscured>
In the SUBJECT, write:
subscribe
We also need graphic design volunteers to help with new forum by forum
images/logos and to help us upgrade our print material templates -
http://e-democracy.org/print - for use with our forums.
Feedback was crucial with the new HTML based email digests - it helped
us serve BOTH those who just "wanted the facts" (subject lines) and
those who wanted the convenience of scanning the latest content to see
if it was worth clicking through.
* Volunteer - In General
If you would like get more involved in general, our "Projects" online
group is a good place to start. Join from:
http://e-democracy.org/projects
We post updates and calls for assistance there.
* Software Developer?
With Bill Bushey as our technology lead, we've been building for the
first time since our founding in 1994, our *in-house* capacity to
customize the open source http://GroupServer.org platform we use. In
the new year, we are planning to increase our support for volunteer
coding contributions - if you are a Python coder in particular, join
GroupServer's development group now:
http://groupserver.org/groups/development/
You can dig into Bill's customization/documentation, including GitHub,
here: http://e-democracy.org/groupserver
We are planning some sort of webinar and/or Twin Cities meeting to
share highlights about this under the radar tool.
One of our goals, building on our support for
http://OpenTwinCities.org and connections globally, is to experiment
with both new open source technology for community engagement and add
new features to our core platform that help people more from talk to
community action. Now that we've over doubled our number of members in
the last couple years and serve far more neighborhoods in particular,
we have an opportunity to do "what's next" with civic technology
building on our world leading inclusive base of participants.
* Last background note ... how you can help if you don't code ...
Our forums were designed to bridge the email list/web forum divide,
but user expectations mean we have to add social media and mobile
expectations to the core.
We fundamentally believe in hosting unified inter-generational,
cross-diverse community online spaces that reach people via their
*preferred* technology. At the neighborhood level, we don't want
people who do not use Facebook for example, to be excluded or have all
of the community dialogue move to .com resident-only private gated
community models hoping to suck advertising dollars from our local
neighborhood newspapers to Silicon Valley. (A storm is a brewing!)
Local online spaces tend to operate like natural monopolies. If the
"life" exists on a closed platform that many do not use, then we all
miss out from each other's more diverse participation. However, one of
the key challenges is about 2 years ago, email as the fall-back to
reach all started to decline and there are lots of folks 35 to 15 who
just want *everything* interactive to be on Facebook because for them
the "Internet" really only is "Facebook." Luckily we feed most of our
forums into Facebook Pages, but many users there do not want to leave
that platform to post to the entire community. Sharing pictures to
Facebook is 10x easier now than attaching a photo to email for most
users for example and some people have never heard of an email group
list. So, in addition to design changes to our website, we are looking
for volunteers who are experts in social media integration and can
help us build ways for Facebook-first users to participate fully.
Lastly, if we didn't see future value in having an open source,
non-profit foundation for community participation online - where we
start with "neighbors forums" and build from there - and did not see a
need to share in the revenue Facebook generates based on our
activities so we can fund our inclusive outreach efforts, we'd move to
Facebook Groups. The problem with that is once you move there, you can
never leave (no export function like YahooGroups, Google Groups, etc.)
and you have absolutely no control over how they change their features
or how they will use participants or the online group for their need
to generate advertising revenue.
Yes, this is in the weeds, but if you've read this far, then please do
consider a donation toward technology independence and non-profit
online communities!
Donate here: http://e-democracy.org/giveedem
Or please donate your time!
http://e-democracy.org/getinvolved
Thanks for being a part of E-Democracy!
Steven Clift
Founder and Executive Director
Steven Clift - http://stevenclift.com
Executive Director - http://E-Democracy.org
Twitter: http://twitter.com/democracy
Tel/Text: +1.612.234.7072
dollar websites on features or finer details.
But we can be simple. We can be easier to use. We can strive to be
accessible across many devices.
Our community-generated content can be shared across many platforms to
reach more and more people based on our non-profit foundation while
commercial sites seek to box you into just their platform.
To advise our redesign, please join us here:
http://e-democracy.org/design
Existing site members may join easily by emailing:
<email obscured>
In the SUBJECT, write:
subscribe
We also need graphic design volunteers to help with new forum by forum
images/logos and to help us upgrade our print material templates -
http://e-democracy.org/print - for use with our forums.
Feedback was crucial with the new HTML based email digests - it helped
us serve BOTH those who just "wanted the facts" (subject lines) and
those who wanted the convenience of scanning the latest content to see
if it was worth clicking through.
* Volunteer - In General
If you would like get more involved in general, our "Projects" online
group is a good place to start. Join from:
http://e-democracy.org/projects
We post updates and calls for assistance there.
* Software Developer?
With Bill Bushey as our technology lead, we've been building for the
first time since our founding in 1994, our *in-house* capacity to
customize the open source http://GroupServer.org platform we use. In
the new year, we are planning to increase our support for volunteer
coding contributions - if you are a Python coder in particular, join
GroupServer's development group now:
http://groupserver.org/groups/development/
You can dig into Bill's customization/documentation, including GitHub,
here: http://e-democracy.org/groupserver
We are planning some sort of webinar and/or Twin Cities meeting to
share highlights about this under the radar tool.
One of our goals, building on our support for
http://OpenTwinCities.org and connections globally, is to experiment
with both new open source technology for community engagement and add
new features to our core platform that help people more from talk to
community action. Now that we've over doubled our number of members in
the last couple years and serve far more neighborhoods in particular,
we have an opportunity to do "what's next" with civic technology
building on our world leading inclusive base of participants.
* Last background note ... how you can help if you don't code ...
Our forums were designed to bridge the email list/web forum divide,
but user expectations mean we have to add social media and mobile
expectations to the core.
We fundamentally believe in hosting unified inter-generational,
cross-diverse community online spaces that reach people via their
*preferred* technology. At the neighborhood level, we don't want
people who do not use Facebook for example, to be excluded or have all
of the community dialogue move to .com resident-only private gated
community models hoping to suck advertising dollars from our local
neighborhood newspapers to Silicon Valley. (A storm is a brewing!)
Local online spaces tend to operate like natural monopolies. If the
"life" exists on a closed platform that many do not use, then we all
miss out from each other's more diverse participation. However, one of
the key challenges is about 2 years ago, email as the fall-back to
reach all started to decline and there are lots of folks 35 to 15 who
just want *everything* interactive to be on Facebook because for them
the "Internet" really only is "Facebook." Luckily we feed most of our
forums into Facebook Pages, but many users there do not want to leave
that platform to post to the entire community. Sharing pictures to
Facebook is 10x easier now than attaching a photo to email for most
users for example and some people have never heard of an email group
list. So, in addition to design changes to our website, we are looking
for volunteers who are experts in social media integration and can
help us build ways for Facebook-first users to participate fully.
Lastly, if we didn't see future value in having an open source,
non-profit foundation for community participation online - where we
start with "neighbors forums" and build from there - and did not see a
need to share in the revenue Facebook generates based on our
activities so we can fund our inclusive outreach efforts, we'd move to
Facebook Groups. The problem with that is once you move there, you can
never leave (no export function like YahooGroups, Google Groups, etc.)
and you have absolutely no control over how they change their features
or how they will use participants or the online group for their need
to generate advertising revenue.
Yes, this is in the weeds, but if you've read this far, then please do
consider a donation toward technology independence and non-profit
online communities!
Donate here: http://e-democracy.org/giveedem
Or please donate your time!
http://e-democracy.org/getinvolved
Thanks for being a part of E-Democracy!
Steven Clift
Founder and Executive Director
Steven Clift - http://stevenclift.com
Executive Director - http://E-Democracy.org
Twitter: http://twitter.com/democracy
Tel/Text: +1.612.234.7072
