Creative Commons Aotearoa New Zealand discussion

[Matt McGregor <mcgma709 AT gmail.com>]

Hi all,

Thanks for that Danyl. Good questions all. Some of these preceded my tenure, but I'll do my best.

 

Wayne and I intend to meet up soon to dicuss the Ōtepoti event. If any other  southern folks want to be part of that, please contact myself or Wayne and we'll find a time to meet that suits everyone

Grand! 

Can I ask why the decision was made not to have user accounts?

Though I wasn't present for the discussions, I suspect it was felt that the old accounts were more or less inactive. I know you will have a few points to make about why that was the case, but it *was* the case, nonetheless.

As you suggest, the user accounts serve two purposes: to showcase CC work; and to facilitate community discussion and participation.

On the former, I am putting out case studies with some regularity. I'll continue to put out open calls to showcase CC work on the website. I've put out 5 or so thus far, and have completed around ten interviews, with more in the works.

I explained some of my position on the latter in an earlier email. More to the point, I am, as you know, currently working on bringing new voices to the CCANZ blog. Watch this (or that) space!
 

While I'm in feedback mode, I'd also really like to see a wiki on the
site. This would allow the community to build up our own
documentation, in a community-run space which is clearly marked as
"user-contributed", and not official communication from CC ANZ. I've
been arguing for this since the site was first built, and I'm still
not sure why it's never been done.

While I see your point about making something NZ specific, a wiki already exists: http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Main_Page

Why not make a "CCANZ portal"--separate from our current wiki page--and link from there to CCANZ specific wiki posts? I can link to that from the homepage. I can even make it.

May I suggest this as a starting point? http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Aotearoa_New_Zealand_Portal

Let me know if this solves the issue. 

>> The old forum had a few dozen posts, and few comments <<

The forum was a failed experiment for a number of reasons:
1) It was added to the site without any consultation with the
community about whether we wanted a forum, or whether we would use it
2) like all web forums, it required people to remember to go and look
at it, and there was no way to have it inform them by email when
someone had replied to their topic
3) the Project Lead and other community leaders, such as those who
have served on the Advisory Board, did not contribute to the forums,
start discussions, reply to the discussions etc. I made some attempt,
but since I felt it was doomed to fail for the reasons given above, I
didn't keep it up.

There are currently two general  goals for CCANZ. First, we want to serve the community as it exists. I agree that this email list and the wiki could do that very well. Many in our community is tech-literate--many are tech-professionals--and are used to dwelling in online spaces.

The second goal is to grow the community (or to grow the commons, as I somewhat pompously like to put it). There are thousands of teachers--to give but one group in sympathy with CC--who are very unlikely to join this email list, but are quite likely indeed to check out the CCANZ site. I've spoken to about 40 of them over the last two days.

If we want these people to join the community, then that community needs to have a presence on the front page. Hence, the goal of an active comments thread (which I haven't yet managed, though again, watch *that* space!)

Hei kōnā
Strypey

--
Danyl Strype
Community Developer
Disintermedia.net.nz/strype

Thanks Danyl! Everyone else, I apologise for the logorrhea!

Best wishes,
Matt McGregor

-- 
Creative Commons Aotearoa New Zealand
Twitter: @cc_aotearoa