Any thought of moving DDN to Moodle? I think Moodle provides a centralized
platform and better features than the email listing. It provides functions
where we can build library related to DDN issues, members can conduct training,
discussions etc. all within one location.
The 'meaning' of DDN has changed since the beginning of DDN. What I see the
future of DDN should go beyond discussions.
Cindy
=
cindyho...@gmail.com
--- On Wed, 31/12/08, Claude Almansi claude.alma...@gmail.com wrote:
From: Claude Almansi claude.alma...@gmail.com
Subject: Re: [DDN] in search of volunteer moderators (was The future of DDN)
To: The Digital Divide Network discussion group
digitaldivide@digitaldivide.net
Date: Wednesday, 31 December, 2008, 11:13 AM
Thanks for your constructive personal opinion, Taran: it is all the
more valuable because of your experience as admin. I've only been a
user - well, theoretically managing some on-site discussions for a
while before they got scrapped, but their were very few posts there.
Between your lines:
On Tue, Dec 30, 2008 at 11:36 PM, Taran Rampersad
taran.a.ramper...@gmail.com wrote:
Personal opinion, meant constructively:
DigitalDivide.net used to count, I think. I've gone through with admin
powers and removed spam blog postings, deleted spam users, and so forth.
I'm not sure exactly when that problem started - probably along the
timeline that all the spam comments on the blogs started showing up. The
explanation for how all of that happened and was handled is a bit
sketchy, so it's difficult to say.
As far as I remember, there was a chonological coincidence between the
rise of spam comments to blog entries and the big hacking of the
on-site discussion boards during the 2nd WSIS in 2005. Spammers
started using redirecting scripts in their profiles and in their
comments. So script use was made impossible by admins. Then they
directed to other free-hosted pages where they used those scripts.
Etc.
But already before that, the mailing-list had become the main exchange
tool for DDNers, I think. We'd post to our DDN blogs, but often just
fed them from another blog through RSS. I've been doing that for a
while, because the DDN blog filter always tells me I'm attempting to
post improper stuff I am unable to identify if I attempt to do it
straight, whereas it doesn't if the same stuff comes through RSS.
The email list is stifled. And honestly, if I did have the time and
energy to volunteer for moderating this email list, I would. But I have
moderated email lists and discussion boards before, and they can be very
problematic. Moderation requires someone whose eyes are on every message
and who has the time to do things.
Yes, the e-mail list is stifled. But isn't it because people hesitate
to post to it because they don't know when the post will get through?
And couldn't moderation be technically simplified in part by making it
plain-text no-attachments only (I'm thinking of Andy's
message about
people attempting to post messages with huge attachments)?
Sure, moderation can be problematic: in the 3 Italian ones I mentioned
before, I was made asst-manager because they had gone haywire in
various ways, yet all based on the fact that the archives were
private. People started to behave more decently after we made them
public - after due consultation none of the trolls paid attention to:
they left and limited themselves to sending the managers personal
insults and threats. The archives of the DDN list are already public,
so this should probably limit trolling. Present and past moderators
could perhaps tell what proportion of trolling and spam they have to
delete?
And all of this gets back to the future of DDN because in my mind there
is a question that there is a future of DDN.
I think a lot of things are the result of the best intentions. If there
is to be a future of DDN, we need to move past that and move into what
the community wants. And while the community has pointed out that
discussion has been stunted by moderation, the truth is that the wiki
was presented and remains largely unused.
There may still be a psychological reluctance to use wikis, even among
DDNers. In other socially oriented projects and actions I participate
in, the mailing-list seems to remain the prefered vehicle. Other tools
get used by smaller sub-groups (wikis for the preparation of a
statement then submitted to the list, e.g.). That might be a Digital
Divide issue we might address.
So before we get into technicalities again, as well as human moderation
of email messages, I suggest that people on the list consider whether
they want DDN to have a future. That seems to be missing. From there, we
can decide what that future will be.
Personally, I do. Web 2.0 - many applications of which I discovered
thanks to DDN mailing list discussions - raised great enthusiasm and
hopes, but it might time for an assessment of their actual
opportunities, uses and implications. Some
