Work in progress. This proposal is focused on the likely needs through the "first 100 days" of the Obama administration. Key input: the consistent feedback is that we need to simplify our current mechanisms; and patterns from other successful social network/wiki activism campaigns. -- Jon As usual, there are discussion threads at the bottom of the page. Feedback, please!

Summary

• to see the top priority items: check the website at getfisaright.net OR the wiki at http://get-fisa-right.wetpaint.com
  

• to stay informed:
  
• read our blog at http://getfisaright.wordpress.com
• OR get action alerts and daily(ish) newsletters on any one of the channels listed in the "Broadcasts" section below (email, RSS, Facebook, Twitter, etc.)
  

• for discussions, use the discussion forum on the wiki -- anonymous participation okay (until we get overrun by trolls)
  

• for more active organizing and collaboration, join the wiki

• still under discussion: media outreach and radio
  

Detailed communications architecture

Website: getfisaright.net

• The place to go for members and observers for a quick overview about what's going on and the top priorities, as well as a portal with easy links to our other web presences
• Administrators and moderators: ?
  
• Implementation: Drupal

Blog: http://getfisaright.wordpress.com

• Dailyish updates and/or discussion topics, available via RSS
• Administrators and moderators: ?
  
• Implementation: Wordpress
  
• Eventual URL: getfisaright.net/blog
  

Wiki and discussions: get-fisa-right.wetpaint.com

• Collaboration, resources, organized information, photo and video galleries
• Discussions in the discussion forum.
  
• We'll work on remapping the URL so that it's available at wiki.getfisaright.net or something like that.
  
• Administrators and moderators: Jon, who else?
  
• Implementation: Wetpaint
• Eventual URL: getfisaright.net/wiki
  

Broadcasts: newsletters and action alerts

These should go out by as many mechanisms as possible to reach as many people as possible. To keep from overloading people, updates should be at most once a day except during action alerts.

• Authors: rotating team?
  
• Distribution (we should eventually get owners for all of these)
  
• getfisaright.wordpress.com blog/RSS feed
• email:
• to the "newsletter" alias on getfisaright.net. (see signup on the main page)
  
• to the GetFISARight-Discussion Google Group
• to the myBO mailing list
• Facebook:
  
• posted to the group
• members are also encouraged to post and/or share with friends
• particularly vital updates will also be sent as a blast message to the group, but with rare exceptions we will attempt to limit this to one every two weeks or so
  
• MySpace:
  
• posted to the group (or as a bulletin?)
• members are also encouraged to post and/or share with friends
  

• Twitter
  
• from getfisaright, marked with #gfr hashtag
  
• members blogs (tagged with gfr)
  
• progressive blogosphere
• OpenLeft quick hit
• Oxdown Gazette (to make FDL front page)
• Daily Kos diary
• libertarian blogosphere: ?

Organizers group

It's useful to have a private "organizers" Google Group as a backup communication channel. This should only be used for active communication in rare circumstances:

• for information that can't be discussed publicly (confidential matters, phone numbers, etc.)
  
• to discuss timing of key announcements
• when other channels get overwhelmed ... for example when there were 500 messages a day on the MyBO list :-)
  

Most of the people in the original "get-fisa-right" organizers group are no longer active; and the membership list has never been public. Rather than trying to clean up the existing group, we'll start a new group -- name TBD. Members will be asked to introduce themselves publicly (probably on a blog thread) and the list will be linked to from the main page of the web site and wiki.

As in the past, our criteria for joining the group will be inclusive: anybody who steps forward and helps out in a significant way will be invited to join.

Additional discussions

Discussions are likely to take place in lots of different channels. As interesting ideas come up elsewhere, people will need to take the action of reposting them in the the discussion forum on the wiki, which is the "official" discussion forum.

The MyBO list

The email list on the my.barackobama.com group was originally an unmoderated discussion list. When the volume became overwhelming and people started leaving the group because of the negative and attacking tone, the organizers changed it to a moderated discussion list. In mid-July, as members continued to bail, we changed it to an announce-only list and introduced the Google Group for those who prefer email. What do do going forward?

Options:

• continue as an "announce-only" list. advantage: this gives us an email channel to reach about 2600 existing members, and any new members, with updates and announcements. disadvantage: it can't be used for email discussions (although people can use the email group instead)
• return to an unmoderated discussion list. advantage: people can have email discussions on MyBO. disadvantage: many people will leave the list if it shifts back to discussion mode, so we'll lose the ability to contact them

Note from Jon: I have very strong emotional feelings on this matter -- I will not participate on a MyBO list, and most of the people I've talked to see it as one of the most unpleasant aspects of their Get FISA Right experience. However that's just my opinion and I don't mean to force it on the group. So I'm not presenting a recommendation here ...