Design State: A weblog about government web design

A month or so ago I spoke about creating hyperlocal community websites at the Cleveland Westside Leadership Training Collaborative. This is a three session course offered by a group of Cleveland CDCs to assist in training up-and-coming neighborhood activists/leaders. I was part of their guinea pig group the first year of the program.

I was asked to speak because in a previous life I spent four years running a hyperlocal community weblog for my Tremont neighborhood. I spent around a half hour or so giving an overview of the possibilities and answering quite a few questions about implementation. I was asked to put together a quick start guide with some links to the options I was talking about.

I’ve finally finished a first draft of the the guide, which I’ve called Waterwings: A Quick Start to Online Communities. This guide is deliberately targeted to folks who don’t have a strong technical background, and is meant more to help get them online doing anything at all than teach them how to be an award-winning A-list blogger.

It is deliberately simple and sparse. I don’t want to overwhelm these people with facts, figures and options. I’d rather help them get their feet wet online in the first place, and they can learn to do the butterfly or backstroke later.

I recognize, however, that my guide is still quite rough around the edges, and that I might be missing some good sources for these folks to utilize. I’ve deliberately left out social media sources like Twitter and Facebook, because I feel they might be initially too intimidating for users to adequately direct and form an online community. So please, if you disagree with anything in the guide, think I’ve left out something important, or have a question, comment, or point to make about it, let me know.

The guide is available on this page, or as a PDF.

Last edited on 18 May 2009

Download a PDF of Waterwings: a quick guide to online communities

Overview

I was asked to put this quick guide together to help non-technical community leaders start an online presence for the discussion of issues relating to their neighborhood, block club, or other interest group.

This guide aims to help folks start up a weblog, mailing list, bulletin board or other form of online communication at a minimum of cost, setup time and technical expertise.

Contact Information

If you’d like further information, want to make a comment or offer some feedback, feel free to comment on this page. If you’d like technical or design help setting up this stuff, I’m also available to do that, but it will cost you.

Permalink

The permanent home for this guide is here:

http://thedesignstate.com/waterwings/

Be sure to check it from time to time for changes and updates.

Pep Talk

There are three important things to remember when you’re ready to start an online community for your neighborhood, block club, or any other stakeholder group:

1. You can do it.
2. You’re in charge.
3. You’re not intimidated by the technology involved.

Things to think about

1. Which form of online communication suits you and your groups’ needs the best?There are a variety of ways you can get your message out, or provide a means of discussion for people in your communities. It is important to decide which option best suits your needs and your comfort level with the technology. Each item is described below. Read through them, and give it some thought.
2. Who is going to be responsible for it? Once you setup a mailing list, bulletin board, weblog or something else are you going to be the sole person responsible for managing all of its aspects? If there is a group involved, it might make sense to assign certain tasks (such as approving new members or moderating comments) to specific people.
3. How are you going to manage the tone and conversations?While we all hope that everyone who participates in your online forum will behave civilly, it is important to be prepared for the possible rotten apple or two, who can, if left unchecked, spoil the whole barrel.

Your options

Mailing List

A mailing list online works much like a mailing list in the real world. Everyone who is a member of the list receives any new message that is sent to the list. These items are sent to the email address that they sign up with. A new message can be sent to the group by sending the message to the group’s email address.

• Advantages: Users must sign-up to send messages, very easy to use.
• Disadvantages: Hard to organize or control, not easy to direct other people to specific sections.
• Examples:
  • http://groups.google.com/
  • http://groups.yahoo.com/

Bulletin Board

A bulletin board or BBS is only a bit like a bulletin board in the real world. Users can post their own topics to specific sections of the list. This can be used for a variety of options, you can have a section to talk about block club work, a section to for neighborhood classifieds (this actually is more useful than you might think) and a section for neighborhood news. Users can post anonymously without registering, or must sign-up, depending on your preferences.

• Advantages: Once setup, easy for visitors to use, easy to divide the discussion into specific topic areas.
• Disadvantages: Initial setup can require technical assistance. Managing the BBS has a small learning curve. Very easy prey for spammers.
• Examples:
  • http://www.forumotion.com/
  • http://www.phpbb.com/

Weblog

A weblog or blog is a well-established medium for communicating online. It can be authored by one or several people, with visitors leaving comments. A weblog can be as restrictive or open in access as you’d like it to be. You can setup your own categories, have an events calendar and share links with other neigborhood, city, or regional blogs.

• Advantages: Easy to setup, very flexible and adaptable to your needs.
• Disadvantages: Limited amount of authors means they are responsible for putting up fresh content, not the visitors.
• Examples:
  • http://www.wordpress.com/
  • https://www.blogger.com/

What to do now?

Once you’ve picked your poison and gotten everything setup remember to do the following:

1. Clearly state the purpose of the site, the rules, expectations and any other information that should likely be shared. Transparency counts for a lot online, so the more straightforward you are in all of your dealings, the more respect you will have from the visitors to your site.
2. Tell people about it. Post flyers around the neighborhood, tell people directly, send out emails. You’ve started it, now you’ve got to get people to use it.
3. Update it frequently. When people visit your site, the amount of material that is available for them to view will help them determine whether or not they want to visit again and contribute themselves. If someone visits and sees that nothing has been posted for a few weeks, they will be unlikely to visit again.

Final Encouragement

What are you waiting for! Get to it!