[LINK] RFI: How should virtual group members interact with one another?

[Roger Clarke]

Thanks all, this is useful stuff!

Responding to one aspect only:

On 19/8/20 11:38 am, David Lochrin wrote:
> I'm not clear about the requirement for primary & secondary
subchannels.   Is this intended to be a hierarchy of interest groups,
each with its own moderator, membership, and list of topics?

My thinking is that an alive group generates topic-areas where the
short-term 'thread' notion becomes inappropriate (particularly for
everyone who *isn't* interested), and a medium-term venue is better.

Yonks ago, for example, someone (Tony Barry?) instituted the unlink
list, as a generic Link Institute parking-space for such things.

In some contexts, some would no doubt formalise.

'The Committee' or 'IT Support' could of course create and seed a few
'secondary sub-channels' (provisional descriptor, and a pretty awful
one).  I'm unimpressed with Slack, but it does make the available
sub-channels visible, without imposing them too much on channel-members.


Declaration:  I'm interested in the topic for a range of organisations.

A particular area of interest is the ACS.  It currently provides *no*
capacity for members to cross-communicate.  Agreed:  There are dangers
in a 5,000-prof'l-member, or a 10,000-voting-member, list / forum.

But there are also dangers in having no channel at all.
(The attempted hijack of the ACS has been made much easier by the
preclusion of opponents of the clique from reaching the membership).

Another interest is Internet Australia.  As Coy Secy I need to think
about whether we should be shifting members to a new environment, or
whether the existing listman lists are about as good as it gets.

I'm not sure whether the privacy community feels such a need, but again,
as Secy of APF, I should be thinking about such questions.

________________

> On 2020-08-18 15:47, Roger Clarke wrote:
>> A virtual organisation (e.g. The Link Institute, or a professional, occupational, advocacy or common interest group) needs a channel for communications among members.> 
>> In 2020, what would the Link Institute recommend as that channel?


On 19/8/20 11:38 am, David Lochrin wrote:
> This is an interesting question.  I think much of DEC's success during their salad days in the 1980's when revenue grew to half that of IBM was due to a package known as DEC Notes.  This allowed every DEC employee to discuss pretty much anything within the company, and some product-engineering managers copped quite a roasting on occasion.  Notes also allowed restricted membership where necessary, e.g. for discussion of gay or women's issues.  It was simple to use while covering a lot of ground, with no "eye candy".
> 
> The closest thing I know would probably be Whirlpool, but IMO its page layout should be revised and the content better organised, and its possibly attempting to do too much.
> 
> I'm not clear about the requirement for primary & secondary subchannels.   Is this intended to be a hierarchy of interest groups, each with its own moderator, membership, and list of topics?
> 
> On 2020-08-18 16:53, Karl Auer wrote:
>> TBH in this space less is more.
> 
> Absolutely...   
> 
> David Lochrin


-- 
Roger Clarke                            mailto:Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au
T: +61 2 6288 6916   http://www.xamax.com.au  http://www.rogerclarke.com

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Visiting Professor in the Faculty of Law            University of N.S.W.
Visiting Professor in Computer Science    Australian National University