We would like to make one final pitch for our Community Forum this month.  We strongly believe that the forum could develop into a great platform for the community.  It would allow you to efficiently communicate with others in the neighborhood and discuss topics and issues that you have particular interest in.  The forum has not seen much activity since its inception last month but we find this understandable since such community assets often take months, even years to build any kind of momentum.  As of yet, we haven't tried promoting the forum as much as we probably should have.  The primary reason for not pushing our forum quite so much was to give deference to the Columbia Heights listserv which has served the community for over six years.  But in light of the frustrations expressed by many participants of the listserv recently (including ourselves) and the limited participation it receives by all but a handful of highly vocal members, we thought we would try to highlight some of the advantages of a more feature-rich platform that a forum such as ours could offer and explain how it could serve as an excellent alternative to the listserv.

Forum Features 

First we would like to highlight some of the features of our forum.  It currently has the following categories:

• General Discussions
• Announcements
• Family Matters
• Pet Matters
• Crime
• Home Improvement
• Entertainment
• Development Talk
• Suggestions
• Classifieds (Marketplace, Help Wanted, Homes For Sale, Homes For Rent).

You must register with the forum and login before you can begin posting your messages.  We went through several iterations to come up with what we felt were the most appropriate categories for the forum.  If there is a particular category that you think should be added, modified, or deleted please contact us with your suggestions.

Columbia Heights Listserv In Perspective 

It would be difficult for us to proceed without acknowledging the importance of the existing listserv.  It has been around since the summer of 1999.  It has served the community for over six years and has gained a loyal following.  At the moment, it is among the most effective platform for reaching a large number of Columbia Heights residents.  When the listserv is not embroiled with controversy and relentless personal attacks, it is effectively used by government officials, organizations, and local businesses to make announcements to the community.  But when members try to engage in real discussion, more often than not they are either strucked down for perceived irrelevance, largely ignored, or the discussion quickly degrades into a battle of insults.

Its a little difficult to understand why the Columbia Heights listserv has followed such a sour path when similar listservs for other neighborhoods (Adams Morgan, Mt. Pleasant, U Street, Petworth, etc.) are virtually free of such intense acerbity.  No doubt, some are drawn to the shock value and notoriety of the Columbia Heights listserv.  Many posters seem to lurk behind the scenes and wait for opportunities to say something shocking, whether it is vulgarities or biting insults, seemingly with the singular objective of getting a rise out of people.  The following is an example of how someone sought the the listserv for advice but was quickly pounced with irrelevant vulgarities:

I don't think we ever heard from "Book Person" on the listserv again.  It is clear that many residents are simply fed up and have made a conscious effort to cease participation on the listserv.

Listserv Limitations 

Aside from the "broken" nature of the listserv, it carries the inherent limitations of essentially being just a mass emailing list.  Any message that anyone emails to the listserv is sent to all subscribers, completely uncensored and uncategorized.  It is up to you to filter through all the messages and find those that you feel is worth your time.  Yahoo! Groups is advertised as a way to bring together a group of people who share a common interest.  Yes, those on the listserv share a common interest in Columbia Heights in general, but there are so many nuances to a community that a simple mass email list cannot adequately address.  A community is tied by a particular geographic location but the issues that arise and the many interests that member have run the gamut.  A full-fledged forum provides the structure and the organization to most effectively serve as a multi-faceted platform for the community.

Mount Pleasant Example 

We urge you to visit Mt. Pleasant's Yahoo! Groups listserv as well as their forum page.  Both mediums coexist harmoniously and each continue to have very active participation.  If you visit the Mt. Pleasant forum in particular, you will notice that a much wider segment of its 1115 registered users actively participate on the forum.  It is well categorized (maybe excessively so) and members can visit and participate in only the categories that they have particular interest in.  This model may be a lot less intimidating than the listserv and much more useful to the Columbia Heights community as a whole.  It better addresses the inherent dynamics of a real community.  And the fact is, Columbia Heights residents deserve no less.  

We know that the success of a forum cannot happen overnight.  It takes time to gather membership.  In fact, the Columbia Heights listserv only had ten postings in the first month and fourteen in the second month since its inception in June 1999.  And the vast majority of those posts were made by the listserv originator. 

If you've read up to this point, we thank you for bearing with this rather long-winded post.  We hope that you at least have a better appreciation for what our forum has to offer.  We urge you to at least register with our forum and try to participate in any of discussion you find appropriate.  And of course we always welcome comments and suggestions.

Comments

Written by on 2006-02-04 18:27:28 can I get the forum posts in my email? I don't see how to do this in the FAQ.

Written by on 2006-02-04 18:30:21 I don't really see any features here other than suggested topics.    Why not just encourage some vigilance to chase out the bug bears on the existing list? Will you ban trolls from your forum?    You don't indicate whether you will be moderating the list in any way.

forum moderation Written by on 2006-02-04 19:05:18 When you post a message on the forum, it will appear immediately. I will try to practice minimal moderation. If someone alerts me to a post that is particularly vulgar and has no value to the discussion at hand, I will probably remove the post and perhaps give the user a warning. But nothing is set in stone at the moment and I am open to suggestions.    I'm not sure if there is a way to have all posts automatically emailed to a user. If this is important, I will try to find a way to implement it.    Though I do value the existing listserv, I don't have vested interest in it. It would be nice to see it improve its dynamics, but it is not my job to see that this happens. The originator of the listserv decided to keep it completely unmoderated. This is out of my hands.    Thanks for your comments.

Written by MZD on 2006-02-04 20:13:40 sorry for subsequent posts...    You are absolutely wrong about the yahoo list being basically a mass emailing list.  There is the home page:  http://groups.yahoo.com/group/columbia_heights/  which is a web interface.  You can view by thread.  You can sort.  You can view it in your own email client and thereby sort messages any way you want. The email headers support threading in your email client as well as on the web page.  I use the computer to make my lively hood. Web interfaces are limited and using a mouse gives me repetitive stress syndrome and makes me take my hands off the keyboard which slows me down.    Anarchy and flexibility are the best features.

"not my problem"?? Written by MZD on 2006-02-04 20:34:10 The yahoo group has no owner, Dave donated it to the community. That is a good thing and we are all responsible. Deleting messages after the fact is of little use and as you yourself know, it is easy to hide one's identity on the internet, so banning someone is difficult.  And it is not just that Dave chose to leave the list unmoderated, he is one of the "offenders". A perfect example that humans are fallable. What makes you think you have better judgment?     The only solution is to drown people out and set standards for courtesy and constructiveness.  When people like you and Lisa throw up their hands and walk away, then you let the community down.  Did you try emailing "book person"? If you can be a steward of the community under your own domain name, why not do it on the yahoo group?    if you haven't gathered from my last post, yes email access is important to me.

Written by on 2006-02-04 21:50:31 Columbia Heights News along with the forum is our donation to the community. We originally set out to serve merely as "webmasters" and allow the community to drive the content. We have had a fair amount of contribution from the neighborhood but we can't run the website on autopilot.    Again, we see no reason why the forum and listserv cannot successfully coexist. It is obviously your choice whether you are going to participate in the forum or not. All we are asking is for you to at least give it a try. I am an advocate for the "forum model" over the "listserv model" when it comes to active community discussion. You may think differently now but how will you know for sure unless you try it out?    We will participate in the forums just like everyone else. But we will have the extra responsibility of maintaining it whether it be upgrading the software, deleting spam, or using a commonsense approach in removing truly offensive posts that have nothing to do with the discussions on hand. Again, we need the feedback from the community so that we can determine how much moderation we need. Most people don't like to see spam or messages that have no other purpopse than to insult and be vulgar.    I think you need to make the distinction between serving the community as a whole versus supporting the people on the listserv. Columbia Heights is not the listserv and the listserv is not the community. By choosing not to actively participate on the listserv does not mean that we are any less devoted to the community and the issues that we all face.

Forum Emails Written by on 2006-02-04 23:17:21 MZD, currently, the only option you have in terms of receiving emails from the forum is if you choose the option "Always notify me of replies". Although this option will not allow you to get emails for every post made on the forum, you can receive email notification if someone responds directly to a posting that you personally made on the forum.

Written by MZD on 2006-02-07 06:47:14 I don't know why you think that i don't have experience with web forums. I don't need to try yours because I already have experience with others and know that I prefer email.    Your answer to "not my problem" was evasive or you were trying to read into my intent and missed it. Do you think the "broken"-ness of the Y!group is merely indecency? Do you really think a little moderation is all it will take? If you agree that moderation is not the only answer, what will you do when the same people come to your forum and start getting on people's nerves?

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