[ X-Posted from CitizenWill.org]
Did you know that UNC has created an online discussion forum?
Hey, I wouldn't have known but for this email:
Hello all,
I'm writing to let you know that the public discussion forum for Carolina North is now accessible online at http://research.unc.edu/cn/view_comments.php. If you would like to post a comment, click the "leave a comment" link at the bottom of the page, and you'll be asked to register your name and e-mail address. Once registered, you'll receive a confirmation e-mail, after which you can post comments.
Thanks,
Colie Hoffman
Office of Information and Communications
962-6137
which didn't appear on the normal UNC Carolina North LAC (Leadership Advisory group) email list - a list, by the way, which you can get on ONLY by contacting UNC here (no "self-subscribing").
UNC's Carolina North group has done a fairly decent job on their, admittedly biased, main website, including posting timely videos and minutes of the Carolina North Leadership Advisory Committee (UNC-LAC) meetings.
Creating a discussion forum is a bold step for the development folks in Moeser's administration, so points for trying, but 8am to 5pm EST moderation kind of misses the mark.
Please be aware that we only add new comments to the discussion forum during regular business hours (Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. EST).
Given that, I still wanted to heap credit on UNC for this apparent e-democracy effort but the lousy advertising and the the lack of forum rules (possibly undercutting open debate) really make that difficult.
Disappointing. Mustn't let Moeser's "freelance dissenters" engage in free form discussion ;-)!
Hey, I registered,
Your registration was submitted successfully. You will receive an email from “HTTPD Daemon†containing a URL that will allow you to view and participate in the Carolina North public discussion forum.
and added this question, "What rules of moderation will you be applying to this forum?"
Wonder how long after 8am, Monday, Nov. 20th, 2006 I'll find out...
Issues:
Comments
You gotta wonder about the
You gotta wonder about the folks working on this state of the art research campus when their communication technology remains so far behind...
Still at least they're trying, as Will said. This forum will (theoretically) be more than any of our local governments have done to enable two-way communication online, and they're supposed to be working for us!
So we have two valiant
So we have two valiant commenters. I was thinking of pinging UNC to remind them to participate but decided to run a small experiment to see how long it takes them to notice.
Do you think asking for RSS or Atom feeds presumptuous?
Why is it invisable if
Why is it invisable if people received an email about it? Why would they want to pay someone 24/7 to moderate it?
Since when is moderating a
Since when is moderating a forum a 24/7 job? Granted, with the good job Ruby does it's hard to tell that she's not doing this as a full time career. I moderate on a few forums across the vast interweb, and don't consider it to be more than minor chunk of my week.
Besides that, the point of Will asking if UNC intends to post a set of rules for forum discussion is to hopefully reduce the moderation load on the individual who would spend a few minutes a day doing so.
OK Jason. How do you
OK Jason. How do you interpred "Please be aware that we only add new comments to the discussion forum during regular business hours (Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. EST). Comments must include first and last names to be posted."
Will indicates that these times miss the mark. I think only 24/7 would hit the mark for some.
I certainly don't interpret
I certainly don't interpret that to mean that UNC has, or should, be required to hire a full time moderator in order to receive public comment through a web forum.
I'm not trying to criticize your reading of their message board, Fred. I just wanted to point out that I feel the approach they're taking is ineffective. Either have a message board, which is one thing, or have a daily chat, which is another. UNC is taking baby steps for public input while the world around them is moving by leaps and bounds.
Thanks for jumping in Jason.
Thanks for jumping in Jason. As far as 8am to 5pm, my criticism is similar to that of Ruby's when she points out that the DPC has 9am forums that the greater community might have difficulty attending.
One of the great benefits of a discussion forum is timeshifting and after-hours access. In this particular case, the forum, technology allows us to have a simulated cocktail party conversation over time (and distance).
Imagine someone outside our cozy STP/OP/etc. community actually wanted to participate in the discussion. Oh, and the happen to have a 7am to 6pm EST job without Internet access (or maybe is a UNC alumnus living on PST).
Waiting 24 hours between posts might feel rather stilted.
Now, there's other kinds of online interaction that works better in a stilted fashion, but most folks are moving away from it.
As far as the cost, why not knock %10 off of Jack Evans salary, a little more than $20K, to pay for an online information officer's overtime? Or maybe just know %2 off to use to pay a bounty for each prompt response?
Also invisible is one of the
Also invisible is one of the two short questions I submitted on the CN forum this morning. :-(
I guess I'm just not clear on what the point of it is. There was a threaded forum on the CN website a few years ago and I sometimes posted comments until it was clear that no-one would be responding.
If the site offered RSS (or any kind of feed) I would subscribe to it just in case anything interesting ever happened but it doesn't, so...
Ruby, if UNC is not yet at
Ruby, if UNC is not yet at the point where they can tell us what will be done at CN, how can anyone provide an intelligent answer to your question (Is UNC still planning to realign Estes Drive as part of Carolina North development? Shouldn't changes so potentially disruptive be discussed with the community that depends on that road as a major arterial connection?)?
Ah, but did you really ask it to get their answer?
And did you really ask me to
And did you really ask me to get my answer, Fred?
Sure. My take was that you
Sure. My take was that you wanted to see how long it took to "answer" what someone much higher up the food chain would have to answer.
What's yours?
Regarding the comments about
Regarding the comments about UNC's attempt at creating a Forum...
I never cease to be amazed at how biased most of the people who post on this site seem to be when it comes to the University. The poor guys at UNC just can't seem to do anything right in your eyes. IMHO - if everyone on OP keeps preaching to the choir, there won't be any souls left to convert.
I for one gave up visiting this site on a regular basis months ago because the comments posted by the regulars were so predictable and one-sided.
Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to have changed much.
Too bad. It used to feel much more yin/yang.
[UPDATE] As of November 20
[UPDATE] As of November 20 2006 4:45 pm, we've had two questions and two comments by "site admin".
Questions:
The comments referred to the "Attendee Comments Received at the Ecological Assessment Listening Group Meeting With Biohabitats Inc., Nov. 6, 2006" and "two maps created by Biohabitats of Raleigh. The maps were marked up in the Ecology Listening Session on November 6."
Good notes that haven't been previously published on UNC's Carolina North site or on the UNC-LAC mailing list (at least the one I'm a member of).
Not exactly answers to either of the questions or to my earlier third question on forum rules but a response all the same.
I don't know if that
I don't know if that qualifies as a "response," Will, but it seems to be useful information.
Fred, I guess I posted my questions in hopes of sparking a "discussion" since that's the supposed purpose of the thing. Someone let me know if any discussion accidentally breaks out there.
The discussion forum has
The discussion forum has been removed. I'm sending an email to see what's up...
We clearly jumped in over
We clearly jumped in over our heads in trying to create a discussion forum. I hope you will see the intention to do that as good news. In retrospect, I wish we had dragged our feet a little more and done a better job but we were interested in getting feedback and just dove in too fast and too deep.
So for the time being, discussion is limited to the Biohabitats work on the ecological assessment of CN.
You can find background on the recent technical workshops and the consultants at http://research.unc.edu/cn/technical_workshops.php with an invitation to post comments on their fieldwork and observations or your knowledge of the Carolina North property at http://research.unc.edu/cn/workshop_ecological_assessment.php#comment.
As Jason said, we are taking baby steps. This is new territory for us. I expect we will go through several attempts before getting it just right and count on the OP community for feedback.
Linda
Three OP regulars posted
Three OP regulars posted questions on the discussion forum before it closed down. Robert and Ruby asked specific questions about the design of CN:
Hi, I haven't seen anything lately that lays out the architectural
vision of Carolina North. Could you point me towards any current plans?
Thank you.
November 20 2006 9:46 am by Robert Peterson (peterson@med.unc.edu)
Is UNC still planning to realign Estes Drive as part of Carolina North
development? Shouldn't changes so potentially disruptive be discussed
with the community that depends on that road as a major arterial connection?
November 20 2006 9:28 am by Ruby Sinreich (editor@orangepolitics.org)
Good questions but I think you will see from looking at the postings on the technical workshops that we are at the observations and discovery phase of work with no focus on these issues yet.
And Will posted about the forum process:
What rules of moderation will you be applying to this forum?
November 20 2006 1:59 am by Will Raymond (campaign@willraymond.org)
Which I think I answered in my previous post.
Linda
Thank you Linda for the
Thank you Linda for the clarifications.
I know it might appear we expected more than baby steps, but to me it seemed reasonable in this age of MySpace, your online participation OP, UNC's overall tech rep (for gosh sakes, it's the home of Ibiblio!) that the CN forum would be more collaborative/integrative for the community.
Disengagement, if it persists, sends a pretty poor message (I suggest you read some Doc Searls [Cluetrain Manifesto] or Jeff Jarvis to see where that leads). Maybe PaulJ and his team or JasonB or TerriB or BrianR or any one of the UNC-affiliated cadres can lend a little expertise to get you back on the playing field.
Until then, I tried to post a message/question on the forums you referenced and got the following error:
I look forward to UNC "jumping back up on the bike" and taking a spin again with our online citizenry.