[open-government] The Open Government Data list is moving to a new home. Come and join.

Mon Jul 20 12:46:53 UTC 2015

As a mailing list lover, at E-Democracy, we invested in GroupServer.org a
good compromise between the mailing list and web centric people. Also,
Mailman 3 is just out with a better web interface FYI.

If Discourse can fully function as mailing list which has stood the test of
time, then it has a chance. I've been busy, so perhaps you had a group
discussion on the mailing list about this. All I know is that 90% of what I
am in a position to share comes into my mailbox from some obscure source
and I can forward in seconds if appropriate for the group.

I fear that swapping out the bonding and broadcast nature of a mailing list
for the destination nature of web forums, you've just cut the reach of this
community by 80%.

Or, I could be wrong and say you've just killed off participation of 95% of
those over 40. Time will tell. I don't really know.

My reflection on CfA using Slack versus the Brigade Google Group to ask
questions and exchange knowledge is that 20% of the most involved people
are even more engaged in a chatty quick sort of way - it feels great for
those with the time and energy to mix it up there multiple times a day.
Sort of like a distributed workplace. However, for most of the 3,000 people
on that online group the value of slower pace in-depth exchange in a Google
searchable public archive is now gone. Slack is not Discourse, but I do
think you will want to survey those left behind on the mailing list if a
few months who didn't make the jump or didn't like the complexity of
switching to a web-centric format to see if you've lost your reach, etc.
One suggestion is that if you can pipe a digest from Discourse on to the
list for six months or something, you might move more people over.

Cheers,
Steven Clift

P.S. One of the reasons I created the Open Government and Civic Technology
Facebook Group was to reach new people with these topics. It has become a
great global knowledge sharing engine with nearly 4,000 members with no
funding. As people forget how to share via email or new people enter who
don't know what a mailing list is, then what about them. That was my
thinking. Join up http://facebook.com/groups/opengovgroup - Will people
feel motivated to share via Discourse, that will be a key test. The problem
with my Facebook Group is that I have absolutely no sense of actual reach.
Likes and comments give a relative sense, but who knows perhaps only 40 or
400 people see any particular post. So if Discourse can display views AND
open rates from email digests, etc., that would be hugely useful in your
effort to motivate people to post and share on something new or more work
than pushing forward on an email.

Steven Clift  -  Executive Director, E-Democracy.org
   clift at e-democracy.org  -  +1 612 234 7072
   @democracy  -  http://linkedin.com/in/netclift

Also with Knowledge Hub - steven.clift at khub.net
   World leading online public services exchange: http://khub.net
   Call # above or +44 203 808 1118  (After 13:00 UK time)

On Wed, Jul 15, 2015 at 8:50 AM, Mor Rubinstein <morchickit at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Hello all,
>
> Time has changed, and so does this platform. From next week, the Open
> Government Data group is moving from the mailman system (the list that you
> are now on) to the Open Knowledge Discourse forum (discuss.okfn.org).
>
> *Why are moving?*
>
> The mailman is a mailing list, it is old and it does not allow advanced
> features such as easy search on messages or tag users. The discourse, a
> great open source project, allows easy search, tagging and many more. It is
> friendly and got a nice UX as well. Lastly, it also function as a mailing
> list!
>
> Discourse also has a very powerful spam protector. Today we are getting at
> least 10 spam messages a day which we need to filter. Discourse will allow
> better communication between people by already inviting people. In
> addition, the more actions you will do in the forum, to more trust you will
> gain from the system.
>
> In the next couple of days I will send all of those who didn't join our
> forum an invite to the OK Open Government Data
> <https://discuss.okfn.org/c/working-groups/open-gov-data> category, but
> meanwhile, here is how you can join the forum yourself:
>
> 1. Go to - https://discuss.okfn.org and click on Sign Up
> 2. Enter your details.
> 3. Log in to the system and choose Open Government Data
> <https://discuss.okfn.org/c/working-groups/open-gov-data>.
> 4. At the top right hand side of the page there are three icons -
>
> Click on the right hand side icon (the circle). This will help you to set
> up you notification preferences. Discourse default is *not* to send you
> any messages, unless your name is mentioned. If you want to keep up to date
> with the forum, you should change it. :-)
>
> The move to discourse also means that the mailman will be closed from
> August onwards, so please bear that in mind for future communication.
>
> Please post any question about this as reply to this email.
>
> See you all soon on discourse!
>
> Mor
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> open-government mailing list
> open-government at lists.okfn.org
> https://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/open-government
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.okfn.org/mailman/options/open-government
>
>
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