First things first: Please admire our new logo [upper left banner, not the image embedded nest to this text!] courtesy the unsolicited volunteered artistic talents of Kysen, who was made an Admin of Meta Groupies for life as a reward (or not). Kudos and thanks!
Now, to work.
I culled the comments from last week's diary, looking for topics of Meta Groupies' concern that I could respond to. I've go a Little List.
* Messaging
* Stimulating Contributor Content
* Intra-Group Communications
* Contributor Duties
Just to begin!
The list seems to expose two general subjects: Contributor participation and duties and communicating to enhance group function. Today's diary will deal with Communications. Right off the bat. . .remember, Followers and Lurkers do not receive messages generated on site.
The DK4 internal messaging system lets you communicate with groupies in the following two ways:
At Individual/Personal Level
At Group/Editors & Admins Level
Personal Messaging
In the first case, you can send private messages for the eyes only of the named recipient of your message. That would be to anyone with Contributor on up status within the Group. Only, you can't message more than one person at a time. In my opinion, this is a weakness of the internal messaging system, which I hope will be addressed to allow multiple private recipients of a single message at the Contributor level.
Group Messaging
In the second case, you can "bulk" mail all groupies whose status is Editor and above a single message with one stroke of the SEND button. Some of you wish that you could bulk mail Contributors at the same time. There is a work-around that allows you to message everyone above Follower, but it's kludgy. Simply endow all groupies with Editor status. And there's another way that requires messaging off Daily Kos -- from an e-mail account, but that could be overwhelming and is best for restricted recipient use.
Such an approach -- endowing universal Editor status -- is what I take on Meta Groupies. But I have chosen to organize R&BLers (the other Group I founded) differently, which I outlined, in part, in my diary On Being an Editor. The reason I have not made everyone an Editor on R&Blers is because my vision for R&BLers mission, a Weekly Literary Magazine, does not require everyone to have to exercise the responsibilities of being an Editor -- only regular contributors of series need to be able to both queue and schedule diaries. Meta Groupies is more like an open forum with few regularly scheduled features, hence all groupies need to be able to queue and schedule diaries to suit their issues and to accommodate personal demands of time.
The take-away here is, organize your group duties according to your group's function -- a political action group, for instance, probably will not be organized the same way as a teaching group. Assign status to facilitate your group's purpose, knowing that not everyone need be burdened with the business of internal operations communiques. Like Disney World, some of what goes on behind the scenes to make the magic happen need not be viewed by everyone's eyes.
What if your Group depends on a high degree of coordination? What if it demands collaborative (multi-authored) diary writing? What if diaries provoke on-going discussion after comment life expires? How do my groupies stay in touch then?
In the case of action groups, coordination is key. Everyone has to be totally involved in whatever is the Group's mission or particular undertaking of the moment. Yet, maybe very few people contribute content to the diary -- say, for instance a Gang of Four. Further, suppose the action effort requires sub-committees to accomplish the overarching goal -- how do these sub-committee members stay in touch with one another and communicate their actions to the whole?
The Answer: By organizing the Group so that some communication takes place within diaries and comments; some by internal messaging/status granting; some by off-site e-mail. And there are other methods. Let's examine the various ways of communicating for how each is best suited to different communication requirements.
Diaries
Diaries are the best way to make announcements, seek participants, provide general interest information, issue regular updates, clarify policies and rules, and provide content. I use this weekly newsletter to that purpose. Comments in diaries are seen by casual readers, Followers, and any other status holder. Every diary published makes it to the Diary List where lurkers will even "participate." Collaboration on diaries by Editors and up can take place once a diary is in the queue. Policies regarding "editing" and "collaboration" need to be made clear. Collaboration on a diary by anyone and everyone can take place off-site using Google Docs, for instance.
On-Site Messaging
Group messaging to Editors and above is the best way to let people know about new regular contributors to the Group, scheduling changes and additions, problems that require consultation and consensus before solving, reminders and heads-up notices, and solicitations for guidance about the direction and mission of the Group. Private messaging is mostly to give the standard how-to information pertaining to a participant, to answer personal question, transmit special information (like "I have computer access on weekends only."), or to keep sociable contact among Editors and up oiled.
Because group messaging is for the eyes of all Editors and up it lends itself to being a forum for on-going discussion threads among sub-groups, or "action committees" that may arise after being stimulated by a diary and its subsequent comments. For example: Suppose you write a diary notifying Members of an upcoming rally or protest you want them to attend. Usually only folks involved in transportation to and from an event, say, will establish, read, and converse within the Group Message Thread "Transportation." Group messaging can function much like a chat forum since many can comment in a single thread and view all its content. People may miss a diary, but they won't miss incoming messages. A diary's comment life expires after a week, but messaging comment life potentially lives on forever.
Off-Site Messaging
Off-site e-mailing lends itself to communicating among Admins only. I don't anticipate Meta Groupies will ever need to use this method of communication because of the way it's set up. But R&Blers needed to very early on! For instance, when I am looking for a new R&BLers Admin, I solicit the input of the existing Admins for candidates, views of nominees, and consensus on who to issue the invite to before proceeding. I do this in a single bulk e-mailing. Replies are sent to all recipients; everyone stays in the same loop. Such a subject is beyond the concern of an Editor or Contributor, so I don't bother them with it, and take the discussion off-site. I've dealt with "sensitive" subjects, like the decision to refuse a solicitation to join the group via off-site e-mail, for the added assurance of privacy. There probably will be other circumstances when I'll choose it over on-site messaging.
Little Known Communication Methods
Queue Notes: A third internal communication "system" also exists. This is the Queue Notes, that little link on the far right and below any diary that is queued for publication. Anything written here is published immediately below the queued diary and can be read by all Editors and up. It's very handy. For instance, R&BLers Editors enter "DIARY SCHEDULED" or "DIARY NEEDS SCHEDULING" in the queue notes once they've queued an installment, or in the second case, when they've queued a "caught diary." You may recall from my previous diary that only R&BLers Admins are allowed to schedule casual diaries that do not belong to a series because they have access to the latest Weekly Magazine Schedule information and know available slots for publication.
Editor Comments: Finally, a fourth communication "system" is available to Editors and up, which can be read by all -- Lurkers, Followers, the entire genpub. That is the Editor Comments that appears in the box when a diary is queued. This is valuable when republishing content not original to your group. Upon republishing such comments appear at the very top of a diary, below the author's name. They let Followers know why a "foreign" diary is appearing in their stream as soon as they scroll over the title. An example of an Editor's Note is attached to this diary earlier republished to Meta Groupies.
That covers all the communications issues I can think of. It occurs to me that if you have specific ideas on how to improve or change the Daily Kos internal communications system, a comment on that topic in one of ct's, rs's, or elfling's next diaries would be appropriate. And it goes without saying that your comments, suggestions, and ideas are welcomed in the comment thread below.
Please share how you're utilizing the different communications options to best serve your Group's functions. Have you devised other methods for staying linked with Members and Followers? Finally, as a segue to next week's diary. . .tell us how you are using the communications methodologies to solicit content for your Group from Kossacks who are Editors, Contributors, even Followers, and that most elusive of Daily Kos species -- Lurkers.