Current Forums

Grant,

This seems to be another angle on my point, but I'm not sure that I follow.

I agree entirely that that this site will go the way of ORCA unless it is utilised. Certainly it has hope in that ORCA had no money available for maintainance or development, while I understand the Australia Council intend ongoing support for this site.

I Agree we need more projects listed and ongoing discussion, but is the site preventing this from happening? Or as a field are we slow to take up the opportunity??

You say "this site needed to remove barriers to participation if it wished to encourage contributions."

Please expand - what barriers are they, and how can the site remove them?

You also call it a 'dreary empty space' while I agree that the discussion area in particular looks ugly, flash looking graphic sites are reportedly those which prevent access by disadvantaging site impaired and poor computer/modem/phoneline resourced people.

Finally, what are the principles of online community building you refer to, and how can this site address them better?

I too am keen to see this site become vibrant and useful rather than a waste of money, I hope you will follow up your rant with more information and some useful, practical advice to the site organisers.

Other messages for this discussion:

Does anyone else remember ORCA?

http://www.orca.on.net/frame.html

Spectacular, in my view, only in it's abject failure to engage the community it purported to serve. A trifling amount of traffic, negligible utilisation, minimal engagement, practically zero observable benefit delivered to community and yet OzCo have funded CANSA to develop a second, expensive effort???

A year ago I argued strongly in correspondence with the developers of CCD.net that no amount of recurrent funding could match the collaborative power of the internet to leverage the contributions made by individuals and organisations. That in order to be successful the site needed this site needed to remove barriers to participation if it wished to encourage contributions. Advice that apparently feel on deaf ears.

A year later, the site (_still_ in beta??) appears doomed to irrelevance in much the same manner as ORCA. A few projects listed. Some contributions on the message boards, but hardly anything that could be called ongoing discussion. I struggle to see how anyone could expect such a dreary empty space to perform as a "community building tool".

Whatever your experience in CCD, in my view, this site displays a discgraceful misuse of money and an utter failure to comprehend the most basic principles involved in community development online.


Now we'll see if anyone even reads these message boards.

Cheers
Grant

Hi Carmen

Thanks for the response. Sorry it's taken so long to get back to you. Mind you, you could be forgiven for thinking that you're talking to yourself around here.

> I Agree we need more projects listed and
> ongoing discussion, but is the site
> preventing this from happening?

Preventing? Almost. Discouraging? In my view, most definitely.

> You also call it a 'dreary empty space'
> while I agree that the discussion area
> in particular looks ugly, flash looking
> graphic sites are reportedly those which
> prevent access by disadvantaging site
> impaired and poor computer/modem/
> phoneline resourced people.

'dreary empty space' was more a reference to the lack of apparent life, rather than a call for bells and whistles. Has anyone else tried checking the site to see whether it validates as reasonable HTML? I wouldn't seek to make the site any more inaccesible than it already is.

> what are the principles of online
> community building you refer to, and
> how can this site address them better?

A site endeavouring to build an active online community and encourage contribution needs to remove as many barriers to participation as possible and demonstrate clear returns to participants on the time and effort they're investing in contributing.

Barriers? Registration and moderation are barriers to active participation. The site should offer graded opportunities for participation from open contributions to those requiring registration and moderation. It's not possible to directly contribute to this site without either or both. This sends a clear message to potential participants that they are neither trusted nor valued and implicitly their contributions are not really wanted.

As implemented, requiring registration for participation in this forum performs practically no useful purpose. Any 12 year old will show you how to create a hotmail-style account providing yourself with an effectively anonymous registration in a matter of minutes.

In terms of time and effort, restricting all modes of contribution by registration and moderation increases the cost of contribution for potential participants. Sites endeavouring to encourage voluntary contributions need to facilitate microinvestments, small contributions of time and effort e.g. an anonymous vote in a poll, an unregistered/unmoderated message, open submission of a useful link, etc. Keeping the cost of contribution as small as possible encourages active contribution. How do you imagine requiring registration might limit participation in this forum? Would this explain why there are relatively few contributors and contributions?

Contributors will return again and again to watch for contributions by others and to see the value of the shared resource, the social capital, they are creating grow. They'll be looking for a return on their microinvestment.

How many clicks does it take from the home page of this site to realise that there's been a fresh message added to this forum? How many potential contributors could be forgiven for peeking at one or two of the largely inactive forums and writing this site off as a dead space, simply because there's no easy way of seeing recent contributions?

I had a go at adding a project to this site. Did you realise? Will anyone ever notice? The information is hidden away in a database. I can't even find it myself! Where's the return on my microinvestment of time and effort adding that project? Why would anyone waste their time adding a project to the site, when the chances are that no-one will notice and hardly anyone will ever find it?

There are any number of value adding strategies that could be employed to make the effort of adding a project, message or weblink worthwhile. E.g. a randomly updated resource weblink on each page of the site? Rotating featured projects on the homepage? Weekly ezine to subscribers listing fresh submissions?

As I indicated in my earlier post, I believe it's appalling that a federally funded initiative should demonstrate such a dismal grasp of such commonly understood principles of online community development - and the second time round!

I'm incredulous at the claims made for CCD.net on the CANSA website:

"Throughout the year many CCD enthusiasts have become members of the ever - growing site and have participated in the many informative and creative Forums, projects and register their own CCD news. With 334 registered users to date, ccd.net has become an excellent resource tool to bring ccd, arts workers and Graduate Diploma students together from all over Australia."

In the context of the discussion above, my report card for CCD is nowhere near as glowing.

As near as I can tell, after an initial spurt of activity, participation in the forums and contributions to the projects have dropped away almost entirely. I'll confidently predict that the International Theatre and Development Forum will be all but devoid of life within a matter of weeks.

The news section seems to retain some vestiges of life, but for it's purposes, it is a poor application of the available technology. If news is to be new, it needs to be pushed not pulled.

Given the trifling number of projects listed (only 50!?) and the largely inactive forums, the number of registered users would appear to far outnumber the contributions - which doesn't say much for the participation rate.

An "excellent resource tool" is clearly very much in the eye of the beholder.

Cheers
Grant

Dear Grant (and any lurkers out there enjoying this exchange)

thanks for coming back to the discussion. Yours is a very detailed post, which will take some digesting. I for one don't know that much about the theory of online communities and so on, so I guess I can just respond as a ccd practioner keen to see the online environment work.

On the whole, I think your criticism is a little harsh. Yes, this is (obviously) a beta site which hasn't been taken any further, but they haven't had the response from the field to work out what changes to make. Hopefully your post (and other people's..hint hint) will be responded to by what the site offers and how it operates. My suggestion re a closing dates discussion was certainly responded to quite quickly.

I don't have a problem with money being spent to set up a resource for us, and I wouldn't expect the organisers to get it right the first time, or ccder's to take to it right away - we can be a conservative lot. I'll reserve my judgement until I see what changes are made.

I do remember ORCA, but my recollection is that it WAS an unmoderated, no-need-to-register site, and that was one of the reasons it quickly became useless. It was filled with junk like chinese cutlery manufacturers advertising for investment in a new factory and things like that.

there may be research which shows registration is a barrier to participation in sites such as this, and I would be happy to go along with it if that is the prevalent view. Obviously something is keeping people away in droves, but I really don't understand how that can be the cause. It was dead easy to register, and it isn't as if it cost any money, or more than a few moments of time. It certainly didn't discourage me, or make me feel untrusted or unwanted. Indeed my thought was it would keep the Chinese steelworks out of a discussion on ccd terminology. I will defer to the experts on this.

Your idea about anonymous polls is a great idea...especially if people can set up their own. I'd have done one on the Australia Council closing date issue right away, and something like that would give us a great way to see how many people are visiting the site (and not registering/posting) and what they think.

Open submission of interesting and useful links would also be a good addition to the Resources section, which is particularly bare at the moment.

i certainly agree with you about the way you have to trawl through to see if there are fresh posts. I am, of course, always disappointed when I do check through. there must be a way to alert you to fresh material from the home page.

i suspect that the 'closed' fora are getting more use than the open ones. short life discussions like the Theatre and Dance ones do seem to meet the description CANSA have given the site so I wouldn't write it off just yet.

I think this site is a good framework and has the 'potential' to be 'an excellent resource tool'. Hopefully the organisers can identify and remove all of the barriers to participation with the help of those (few) of us trying to use it.

thanks Grant.

Anyone else out there with two cents? (sorry mine turned into a marathon post as well!)

Carmen

You know, one of the barriers to participation is that people think they might be flamed, or be addressed negatively in an aggressive tone.

If it is increased participation you are after, I don't think your hostile way of frazing your message will help very much.

Mind you, it inspired me to finally register after visiting a few times. But I think you should tone it down.

I'm with Carmen. Potential? yes. Is it there yet? No. Is it better than Orca? yes. Is it better than the Ferals debate? not if it is dominated by a few pushy types which make others feel they haven't anything to contribute.

I thought that would appear under Grants Post, not yours. It is his tone I'm referring to.

Fitzy

Grant,

In my opinion, ccd.net is a good resource and a good tool for promoting ccd activity.

I find it very easy to use, especially so far as projects are concerned. In the interests of clarity and ease of searching, I think the database format that you complain of is necessary (how else would you have projects listed?)

I disagree with you that "Registration and moderation are barriers to active participation" - Carmen's point about the flood of advertising is well-made and, I would have thought, pretty obvious. "[Registration and moderation] sends a clear message to potential participants that they are neither trusted nor valued and implicitly their contributions are not really wanted" - I don't agree with this either; if anything, I think it implies that discussions slated for various fora are valid and important, and while everyone is welcome to state their view, they should take on the responsibility of 'naming' themselves, of standing up for their opinions.

Are you passionate about promoting CCD activities, or about making your sometimes-unconstructive criticisms heard? If you are concerned about a possible waste of funds through lack of use of the site, then why not do your own bit to promote ccd.net, instead of carping about a few perceived shortcomings (which are surely going to be inevitable anyway)?

I think CANSA have created a viable website and a useful tool. People are obviously using it (look at this discussion!).

Melanie

Dear Carmen, Fitzy and Melanie

Thanks very much for your responses. Particularly Carmen for her polite post when faced with such a long response.

:-)

I would have liked to respond to each person individually, but as Fitzy discovered there's apparently no threading available on this message board. Another surprising CCD.net omission. I'm not aware of any current commercial or open source message board products that don't offer message threading - except maybe dinosaurs like WebCT.

Carmen wrote:

"On the whole, I think your criticism is a little harsh."

I appreciate that my remarks regarding CCD.net may have sounded overly critical. It's a measure of how far short I believe CCD.net has fallen of best practice in CCD online. I'm involved in an online CCD project that has at least 50 times the constructive community participation found here at CCD.net. That we're still talking about the "potential" of CCD.net after a year in "beta" in my view points to serious problems with the way in which CCD.net has been implemented. This sounds to me rather like the long gone language of the Dot.Com era where people invested heavily in potential that was never realised.

Fitzy suggested:

"You know, one of the barriers to participation is that people think they might be flamed, or be addressed negatively in an aggressive tone. If it is increased participation you are after, I don't think your hostile way of frazing your message will help very much."
Arguments about hostility aside, I'm not sure that the facts support this claim. A quick check of the message boards here reveals that the original posting in this discussion has prompted more responses than any other post since April this year. My posting would appear to be more a spur and incentive for participation than a barrier.

:-)

Melanie wrote:

"I think the database format that you complain of is necessary (how else would you have projects listed?)"

In my second post I made a number of practical suggestions for additional display formats that would add value to items stored in the database.

Melanie also wrote:

"I disagree with you that "Registration and moderation are barriers to active participation"

I think I explained fairly clearly my rationale for that statement. I don't deny that there may be other reasons why registration and moderation might be implemented, but these considerations need to be weighed against the knowledge that registration and moderation are barriers to active participation.

Melanie also wrote:

"Carmen's point about the flood of advertising is well-made and, I would have thought, pretty obvious."

Flood? I counted three cutlery posts over a period of a couple of years.

Then again, given the trifling number of community contributions to ORCA over that period, perhaps three just about constitutes a flood.

:-)

A little judicious editing after the event is probably a far more effective strategy for dealing with a few inappropriate postings.

Melanie also wrote of registration that:

"I think it implies that discussions slated for various fora are valid and important"

I agree that registration might go some way to validating discussions, but not as implemented here.

"[W]hile everyone is welcome to state their view, they should take on the responsibility of 'naming' themselves, of standing up for their opinions."

As implemented, registration provides no such assurance. Any number of "faked" registrations can be created in minutes.

I'm not anti-registration. But it should be implemented strategically to serve the overall goals of the site. Almost invariably, this will mean that there should be graded opportunities for people to participate - some requring registration and/or moderation, some not.


"Are you passionate about promoting CCD activities..."

Passionate and actively involved.

"or about making your sometimes-unconstructive criticisms heard?"

I'm afraid if I was to be any more constructive I'd be rolling up my sleeves and rebuilding the site.

"If you are concerned about a possible waste of funds through lack of use of the site, then why not do your own bit to promote ccd.net,"

I don't believe that promotion will remedy the situation. I consider there are flaws with the online community development strategies employed by the site. Until they are addressed, further promotion will simply be "flogging a dead horse" - and inviting more people to come and watch while you do it.

;-)

It's pleasing to see from Mark's 2003 Plans post that further development is in the offing. Third time lucky?

Merry Christmas all.

Cheers
Grant

Hello, Grant, Carmen, Fitzy and Melanie.

Regarding the further development of this site, I'm happy to say that ccd.net will soon pilot an open source-type project that will allow for a collaborative approach to site development. This project will include getting developers to modify or extend the existing code of the site to fix problems or add functionality. I'll be involved in the project and look forward to "rolling up my sleeves" to fix things. Grant (and the others), care to join?

I don't mind working on the site open-source-style as I too have had criticisms and suggestions for enhancing the site (though I have not posted them here, and have expressed my views at ccd.net committee meetings). More important, I've been advocating an open source approach to developing the site for a while now as I think there are a lot of things the CCD and open source movements have in common and can collaborate on.

Hmm. Interesting! I've been involved in developing online communities for a while (see http://wilganews.anne-t.com http://express.anne-t.com and http://techart.anne-t.com) and came to this site because of my involvement in Arts in Action's Tech Art Project for artists with disabilities. Web usability and accessibility for people with disabilties are my special interests.

There's a huge amount of information on these subjects free of charge on the net. eg take a look at usability guru Jakob Nielsen's site www.useit.com and the W3 Accessibility guidelines at
www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG1A-Conformance.
For a giggle while you learn what not to do, go to www.websitesthatsuck.com.

To be sure your web designer is going to observe usability and accessibility principles you must specify this in your brief. Even then, you need to find out whether they have any knowledge in this area. Web designers as a race are pretty keen to showcase their technical rather than usability skills (viz the proliferation of pop-up menus on the ccd site.)

Re the undesirability of "flash graphics". Usually this refers to an issue with the use of Microsoft FLASH, a software package which produces animated graphic sequences which might be purely decorative (pictures and patterns) or for navigation purposes (eg rollover buttons, pop-up menus).

The animated "FLASH movies" (pictures and patterns) are problematic because they take a long time to download and require special software to be visible to the user.

Pop-up menus are also problematic because they jump around and are difficult or impossible for users with low dexterity to use. The ccd site is a wonderland of pop-up menus created in FLASH or equivalent.

While the idea of "open source" development sounds nice and would probably produce a wonderful site in the end, let's remember that a web designer has already collected a large cheque for designing this site. I'm not sure I'm willing to give away my professional knowledge free of charge to fix it.

Also, I'm not sure there's such a thing as open source licencing in Australia. I believe that the designer owns the copyright until and unless this is transferred by legal means to another party. CCD would need to check this out.

One free tip before I go: Requiring the user to download pdf/doc files is a barrier to participation. It would have been so simple (for both designer and user) to have the user click on a mailto: link that activates an autoresponder which sends the appropriate form by email.

:-) Cheers for now!
Anne Tichborne
Independent Web Designer
http://anne-t.com

at the last ccd.net steering committee phone conference, we decided that rather than open up the source of ccd.net, we would support the open source development of a web application that could be integrated into ccd.net with little or no intrusion into the existing code base.

i suggested this approach to go beyond problems with current licensing arrangements to do with the ccd.net code. this way, we can work on an open source project that meets the field's need rather than being bogged down with licensing arguments.

So, any suggestions for developing a web application that is needed by the field are welcome.