local website conference - help

andy

I've been asked to go to this local website thing on Saturday and I'm going, despite it being called an unconference. <http://lno-unconference2010.eventbrite.com/>; <http://groups.google.com/group/LNO-unconference-September-2010?pli=1>; Anything I should ask? Or say? Without some useful contributions from you lot, I'm not sure I've got loads to add. Looking at the list of sites going, stroudgreen feels quite different from a lot of them.

Domino

Looks interesting. Wonder what 'taking things to the next level' means. I'd be interested in feedback even on how, that, not having an agenda (ChicagoCamp) thing works/doesn't work in practice.

helen

I suppose the big question in my head is that sites like this are brilliant for helping to make things happen at a very very local level. What I have no idea about is how we make things happen at a london level beyond a mayoral election every few years
I'd love some kind of way that we can have both a micro and macro effect on London

ShaunG

I think with these sorts of things the best thing to aim for is to allow learning/ tips/ inspiration from what other people are doing, but not try to do anything more ambitious. Community websites are getting a lot of attention from people trying to define the Big Society, and I would dread to think that people would start wanting to "take it to the next level" by "rolling out" to all parts of the country. Even worse, thinking that state bodies could help get things going with public funds. What Andy, David and whoever else have set up here is a thing of magic and joy, and if there were a way to pay some micro-amount to cover the costs I'd gladly do it. But if it were to be co-opted into something more organised, or extended to a wider area I think it would lose its appeal.

Rona

ShaunG I couldn't agree with you more. I am writing a critique of the Big Society, and reading other organisations' contributions I think that the Govt might well want to 'roll out' social networking sites as they are so fashionable at the moment. So Andy can you say that - oh dear, here comes another trite comment - one size doesn't fit all. This is a community site and is defined by the people who use it. The thought of a standard and 'professionalised' site would be awful. I agree though that some micro-amounts of money would be useful for the people who sort out this site (do you do it in your 'spare' time, Andy?). Anyway Andy you must go and feed back to us. Good that you've asked to go - you will get to meet the wondrous Hugh of Harringay!

andy

Thanks for the comments. I'll report back. The beauty of independence is that no-one can tell us what to do. Nor are we thinking about changing what we think works. But there are some interesting things going on that it's worth keeping in touch with.

andy

for those of you interested, there will be a twitter hashtag for this event: <http://twitter.com/#search?q=lno10>; i might use the @stroudgreen account whilst I'm there. for those of you who have no idea what I'm on about, carry on.

miss annie

I don't really have anything to offer in terms of questions etc, but I would like to second ShaunG's positive comments - I too regard sg.org as a thing of magic and joy. I do hope you enjoy the unconference, please tell the chap who runs the Spitalfields site that he is also doing a splendid job. Loved the feature on the woodgraining specialist, I've tried that myself - it's much more difficult than it looks.

Rona

omg i looked at that twitter stuff but it was too much! Will there be a write up of the day - or is that too structured a concept for an unconference?

andy

It was good to meet a bunch of people doing vaguely similar things, and there were some interesting characters involved. It was also good to put faces to names I had only otherwise seen online. It was my first experience of an 'unconference' and it was pretty unstructured, and had been advertised as such. Not one for tidy minds really. There are a bunch of write-ups here: <http://journallocal.co.uk/2010/09/27/lno10-round-up/>; I didn't especially get on with the unconference format, because it tended to rambling and allowing those with louder voices to dominate, as some of the quieter folk were doing the most interesting things. My observations: You could broadly divide people there into one of three groups: 1. Local campaigners, who want to build a platform for their views (mostly about their council, and mostly the view that their council is rubbish). White, middle-class, over 40s+, left-ish politics, . 2. People who want to create a space for their communities to come together online. White, middle-class, 30s, square glasses, freelancers. A subset of these people have vague ambitions to make money from their projects. 3. Others looking to connect to people like 1 and 2, based on the assumption that 'hyperlocal' is a hot new thing. (Includes government types, startups, community projects, proper media owners etc) Some people are running great sites. But overall as a group, it felt very precarious, as if we could very quickly be made irrelevant if anyone at the Daily Mail or Facebook ever works out how to be the platform for this nationally. Other observations: 1. This sort of thing is completely flavour of the month with councils, politicians and whatnot. Lots of people are circling trying to work out how to do it or how to make money out of it. 2. There's no money in it. (www.london-se1.co.uk/ is about the only one that's a real business. www.londonist.com might be viable too) 3. Stroudgreen has less editorial content than most of the sites, though our election videos were well received. It is technically one of the most sophisticated. 4. Everyone else moderates heavily and has rules and things. We don't. 5. Technically, it's a pretty lo-fi world. We were talking about ning and wordpress, rather than mobile and geolocation.

Arkady

Interesting. Thanks for the feedback. It will be very interesting indeed to see how the sector progresses in the next few years. Andy, what are your thought about the prospect of adding editorial content? Or, like Harringay Online, blogs? Mixed feelings about it myself.

ADGS

"Everyone else moderates heavily and has rules and things. We don't."

Well, you've banned a couple of spammers that I recall, so it's not total anarchy, just light touch regulation. Which - on a community forum, as against a major financial system - is surely the best approach. Most people who are free with the moderator's hammer are doing so out of low-level megalomania (acknowledged or otherwise), whereas you seem to realise that the site is not primarily about making you a little emperor.
In summary: good on you.

andy

We've got 1200-odd members and we've banned 2 people. I've probably removed three or four posts out of more than 29 thousand. Everyone else was removing posts and managing threads every day and fretting about how to do it. So there's light touch and light touch. My strong view is that a community, when trusted, is much better at moderating itself than an individual ruling by diktat. That, and we're too busy. I once banned David, but he has all the passwords to the site and unbanned himself. I had to learn SQL to get out of that mess. @Arkady - thought a lot about it, but don't like the idea of privileging some content (and by definition, some members) over others. On the other hand, there's a role for it and we're open to ideas. I vaguely like the idea of a [tumblr](http://www.tumblr.com) or something integrated into the site that people could email photos to. For me, the big step forward, when (and this is probably when, not if) we upgrade the site, is to enable proper private messaging between users.

miss annie

I have a tumblr and a blogger blog. For a forum like this I'd say tumblr would be a fabulous move.

andy

and when I say *"we"*, I mean *"when I watch, gawping like a child, as David upgrades the site"*.

ADGS

I thought whispers were private messages between users? Or do you mean something more instant messager-y? NB I have never used whispers but this is the impression I've got whenever they've been mentioned.

andy

Yes, but they don't have notifications and they're hard to find. The upgrade pulls them together in more of an 'inbox' and you can get notified if you've got a new one.

Arkady

@andy, can the moderators view private messages if they so wish?

andy

As I think we've said on [this](http://www.stroudgreen.org/discussion/1455/whispers/) and other threads, admins can see whispers. We've also whispered this to people whispering. In practice, hardly anyone uses them because they're so clunky. I'm led to believe that in the future release, private messaging is genuinely private. Which would be better all round and more people would use it.

Domino

I like the idea of 'live chat', seems more sociable somehow. Sometimes I see someone I know is online, and I want to say something to them, but can't do it. (I don't mean mindless chit-chat, but very important stuff about Stroud Green obviously).

sincers

After my social profiling, I'm not sure I'm on the right site.

andy

Your social profiling?

sincers

The points made above.

andy

That was about the attendees of the conference, not the members of this site.

sincers

I noticed that after I re-read the post. Although, I am planning on emigrating next year and have often thought that sharing the SG.org model might be for the wider good. Perhaps considering myself a non-attendee of the un-conference is a bit of a leap.

miss annie

Where are you thinking of emigrating to Sincers? Surely you can't have found somewhere better than SG.

sincers

Sydney. You're right I had to search the planet to improve on SG, but I think it just pips it on preponderance of sand - although very little else. Probably a good year off, mind.

Ali

Go and live in Balmain, slightly posher version of around here, decent pubs, a not bad Indian and if you work in the city you get the Ferry to work everyday under the Harbour Bridge

David

Chat might be fun but not sure how easily done that is. What about some form of Stroud Green Wiki? Not really sure if it fits, but would give a platform for publishing content by members and perhaps remove the 'privilege' aspect as all can chip in and modify stuff?

Arkady

I like the wiki idea a lot. I’ve been thinking of trying to set up a ‘virtual Stroud Green’, something like this, only good: <http://www.streetsensation.co.uk/camden/hs1_west.htm>; It could include reviews, stories, history of each street and building, etc. It strikes me that a wiki would be perfect for this as it would allow the content to be built up over time with any member who had something to add chipping in. Would you be willing host something like that on SG.org? I’m aware that it would potentially add another layer of moderation duty, but member’s actions would be noted in the wiki back page, and I guess it would be less contentious than the forum. Maybe.

David

I started photographing all the shops a few years ago to make a local street sensation map - idea was to hopefully get the shops to pay for some advertising to pay for the site. I ran out of steam on the idea. Suppose if I put the structure there and it was populated by the community that'd sort it. Still quite a bit of work. We could do all these things but Andy and I need to talk them through and then there's the not inconsiderable issue of having time.