the need for a new modus operandi
Document Actions
The site needs a different modus operandi. The way that it currently works means that it is mainly a forum, supplemented by some other interesting material which is not particularly visible.
Our aim should be to establish a situation in which there is a flow of important and stimulating material to the "yellow folders" (which will need to be reorganised as part of changing our work-style).
This requires us to stop working in such an ad hoc manner and assign specific roles to members of the core group. We want people to start working in their folders to produce material for display within our folder structure (and sometimes in other places). This material could consist of original material, links to material people have been browsing on the web, entire articles from the web, photos, cartoons and so on. This is something we need to be able to encourage ordinary members to do . We also need to write a clear mission statement describing both our general stance and how people can participate in this way.Very few ordinary members are likely to just jump and do this. The first step is for us (the core members) to begin working in this way. If this becomes our approach, then as we continue to do it (and at the same time make some other necessary changes to our folder structure and so on) we will create an atmosphere in which other members will become aware that "this is the way the site works".
In order to get this happening it is necessary to formally institute the "reviewer role". People with the reviewer role can review and edit material which has been submitted by a member. This is a function that is built into Plone. Anyone with a Reviewer role would need to have a good understanding and agreement with our general stance, a grasp of the folder structure and the correct use of key words. Related to understanding our general stance, reviewers would have to have a clear grasp of how to deal with material with which we do not agree. We would need to discuss all this and produce a general written guide to help reviewers take good decisions.
We plan eventually (ie as soon as we can!) to replace our current forum with some sort of blog software. However there's nothing to stop us from beginning to institute a general "blogging style of work" whils still using CMFboard (our current forum). It's important to remember that if LS really did take-off and begin to attract a much larger readership, we could well be outnumbered 100-1 . Without a streamlined and efficient method of work we would be in deep trouble at this point!
As we develop this approach we should also be planning to establish specific sections of the site that we can ask various core members to take responsibility for. For instance, currently DavidMc is in charge of the "Bright Future" folder. This means that he has permission to edit and add material to this particular top-level folder. (Having permission to "take control" in one specific folder is somewhat different from the more general reviewer role). The idea is that people could be given responsibility for developing areas of the site in which they have a special interest .
One way that we can counteract the "narrow" and "kooky Maoist" image is by trying to cover the broad range of areas and issues that anyone who is a genuine communist woud be naturally drawn to. We need to understand the world in order to change it ! The site needs to grow in a way which reflects that.
If we were taking a more "blog-style" approach to the forum, our core members would be using material submitted for publication (and subsequently accepted by a reviewer and placed in one of our top-level folders) as the basis for new topics on the forum. We would be attempting to generate a flow of material from member foders to our top-level folder structure - some of which would then be discussed on the forum. (It is often relatively easy to generate a forum item which is a response to something someone else has written). At the same time we would aim to select the best forum postings and make sure that they were accessible to people browsing the material in our folders rather than just becoming buried somewhere in the forum.
An urgent propblem that we need to solve is our lack of integration in the blogosphere. Probably most of our core group seems unaware of the way in which the blogosphere is connected (via RSS feeds and track-backs). We are actually quite outside all of that. As a consequence we are quite invisible to most of the blogosphere. Certainly we would probably be found by any individual who was actively and intelligently looking for politics like ours, but we won't be found by most people who might be interested in our view of the world but don't know it yet.
As far as I can see, most people who visit the site (ie about 10,000 per month) find us through google searches in which they are looking for specific information. They tend to be sent to just one forum message, newsitem or document and this would not result in them exploring the site further. Most of these people would never return - they would click away from the site having not really gleaned anything much about what www.lastsuperpower.net is all about.
It's possible (from my reading of the google analytics stats) that we have about 200 regular visitors and this small group probably has some sense of what we are on about. However these people have not so far been inspired to engage actively in the site. I tend to think that this is because we have not been working in a way that would encourage this.
As mentioned above, the blogosphere is highly networked. Because of RSSfeeds and trackbacks, bloggers know when someone has written something on a topic they are interested in and they also know when someone has commented in a different blog on an item in their own blog. This is an automated process built into the software that they use. If we want to become part of this networked mesh of big discussions then we have to solve the technical problems which have so far restricted us. Bloggers just do not operate by surfing the web and by google searches (which is how we currently work).
Here is a link to the wikipedia page on trackbacks:
The site needs a different modus operandi. The way that it currently works means that it is mainly a forum, supplemented by some other interesting material which is not particularly visible.
Our aim should be to establish a situation in which there is a flow of important and stimulating material to the "yellow folders" (which will need to be reorganised as part of changing our work-style).
This requires us to stop working in such an ad hoc manner and assign specific roles to members of the core group. We want people to start working in their folders to produce material for display within our folder structure (and sometimes in other places). This material could consist of original material, links to material people have been browsing on the web, entire articles from the web, photos, cartoons and so on. This is something we need to be able to encourage ordinary members to do . We also need to write a clear mission statement describing both our general stance and how people can participate in this way.Very few ordinary members are likely to just jump in and do this. The first step is for us (the core members) to begin working in this way. If this becomes our approach, then as we continue to do it (and at the same time make some other necessary changes to our folder structure and so on) we will create an atmosphere in which other members will become aware that "this is the way the site works".
In order to get this happening it is necessary to formally institute the "reviewer role". People with the reviewer role can review and edit material which has been submitted by a member. This is a function that is built into Plone. Anyone with a Reviewer role would need to have a good understanding and agreement with our general stance, a grasp of the folder structure and the correct use of key words. Related to understanding our general stance, reviewers would have to have a clear grasp of how to deal with material with which we do not agree. We would need to discuss all this and produce a general written guide to help reviewers take good decisions.
We plan eventually (ie as soon as we can!) to replace our current forum with some sort of blog software. However there's nothing to stop us from beginning to institute a general "blogging style of work" whils still using CMFboard (our current forum). It's important to remember that if LS really did take-off and begin to attract a much larger readership, we could well be outnumbered 100-1 . Without a streamlined and efficient method of work we would be in deep trouble at this point!
As we develop this approach we should also be planning to establish specific sections of the site that we can ask various core members to take responsibility for. For instance, currently DavidMc is in charge of the "Bright Future" folder. This means that he has permission to edit and add material to this particular top-level folder. (Having permission to "take control" in one specific folder is somewhat different from the more general reviewer role). The idea is that people could be given responsibility for developing areas of the site in which they have a special interest .
One way that we can counteract the "narrow" and "kooky Maoist" image is by trying to cover the broad range of areas and issues that anyone who is a genuine communist woud be naturally drawn to. We need to understand the world in order to change it ! The site needs to grow in a way which reflects that.
If we were taking a more "blog-style" approach to the forum, our core members would be using material submitted for publication (and subsequently accepted by a reviewer and placed in one of our top-level folders) as the basis for new topics on the forum. We would be attempting to generate a flow of material from member foders to our top-level folder structure - some of which would then be discussed on the forum. (It is often relatively easy to generate a forum item which is a response to something someone else has written). At the same time we would aim to select the best forum postings and make sure that they were accessible to people browsing the material in our folders rather than just becoming buried somewhere in the forum.
An urgent propblem that we need to solve is our lack of integration in the blogosphere. Probably most of our core group seems unaware of the way in which the blogosphere is connected (via RSS feeds and track-backs). We are actually quite outside all of that. As a consequence we are quite invisible to most of the blogosphere. Certainly we would probably be found by any individual who was actively and intelligently looking for politics like ours, but we won't be found by most people who might be interested in our view of the world but don't know it yet.
As far as I can see, most people who visit the site (ie about 10,000 per month) find us through google searches in which they are looking for specific information. They tend to be sent to just one forum message, newsitem or document and this would not result in them exploring the site further. Most of these people would never return - they would click away from the site having not really gleaned anything much about what www.lastsuperpower.net is all about.
It's possible (from my reading of the google analytics stats) that we have about 200 regular visitors and this small group probably has some sense of what we are on about. However these people have not so far been inspired to engage actively in the site. I tend to think that this is because we have not been working in a way that would encourage this.
As mentioned above, the blogosphere is highly networked. Because of RSSfeeds and trackbacks, bloggers know when someone has written something on a topic they are interested in and they also know when someone has commented in a different blog on an item in their own blog. This is an automated process built into the software that they use. If we want to become part of this networked mesh of big discussions then we have to solve the technical problems which have so far restricted us. Bloggers just do not operate by surfing the web and by google searches (which is how we currently work).
Here is a link to the wikipedia page on trackbacks:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki
also a post on our forum: trackbacks
and another post: raw links
We do have some difficult-to-solve technical problems here. Whereas we can make an immediate start on developing a work-flow in which material submitted for publication is formally reviewed and then published, and we can also do substantial work on reorganising our folder structure, regularly updating the Welcome page writing better user documentation and a mission statement, it will be more complex to sort out our forum/blog software problems. Nevertheless at this stage it's important for the core group to be aware conceptually of what we are aiming for with regard to becoming a real part of the blogosphere.
Unfinished
