Version User Scope of changes
Jan 2 2009, 9:59 PM EST (current) JonPincus 44 words added, 87 words deleted
Dec 10 2008, 2:23 PM EST JonPincus 395 words added, 42 words deleted

Changes

Key:  Additions   Deletions




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 stay informed:
    • checkread theour website/blogblog at getfisaright.nethttp://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)
NOTE: THIS IS A SIGNIFICANT CHANGE FROM OUR CURRENT IMPLEMENTATION. While there are a lot of advantages to the discussion forum here, the message board on getfisaright.net and email/Google Group discussions each have their own advantages as well. On the other hand, there's been consistent feedback that people would rather have discussions in one place; and putting it on the wiki means that there's only one login people need to remember. Thoughts? Please join in the discussion thread here.
  • for more active organizing and collaboration, join the wiki
  • still under discussion: media outreach and radio


Detailed communications architecture


Website/blog: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: DrupalWordpress
  • 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.netgetfisaright.wordpress.com blog/RSS feed
    • email:
    • 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
    • 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 ...