Self-appointed Ombudsman?
This was a comment I received, which I'll reprint in its entirety:
Solomon,
As a PFC member and hard-core co-oper, I support any constructive discussion of flaws and potential solutions in our institutions, and look forward to seeing what you have to say. Looks like you're off to a good start.
Let me make two requests in the meantime:
1. The first person I mentioned the name of this blog to replied, "My god, do they have to dump all over everything?!" You're going to inevitably get the question, over and over, "Why do you hate PFC so much?" Be prepared to answer, over and over, "No, I _love_ PFC, which is why I care enough to do this!" and take pains to make that clear throughout. (So far, so good, imho.) There's a tragically fine line in the blogworld between critique hopefully leading to improvement and making people say, "Yeah! PFC suxorz! I'll never shop there again!"
2. Could you enable comments by people without blogger accounts? Is there an option to allow people to post a name and non-blogger url but not to allow totally anonymous comments? I understand the motivation behind not allowing anonymous comments, but a blogger account is hardly an accountable identity, and I think that forcing that step will discourage some readers from participating.
Murph, thanks for responding. Obviously, I'm just in the beginning stages of this, and I am hoping to incorporate suggestions as they come regarding the structure/tone of this.
In regard to your first point, I'm glad to hear that you came out of the blog feeling that I do care about PFC, because I do. I believe that the people who are running it, who are employed by it, who are members of it, and who are on the board care for it as well. I also think that they are all very busy and creating an honest (rather than a marketing/sales) communication structure for the PFC community is low on the list of priorities. Organizing thoughts and people into a structure, shaking people up, and asking questions are all things I'm good at, and I give those a high priority. Right now I'm seeing myself as an ombudsman, but I'm also going to go the extra step and say what I think needs fixed. (I wonder if being an unofficial ombudsman for the coop counts as volunteer work?)
In regard to your second point, I have only three options: allow anyone to comment, force people to take the 30 seconds to register, or allow only members of this blog to comment. I don't mind anonymous comments, in fact I welcome them. The reason for the registration requirement is because blogs without registration required inevitably fall victim to spammers.
Thanks.
Solomon,
As a PFC member and hard-core co-oper, I support any constructive discussion of flaws and potential solutions in our institutions, and look forward to seeing what you have to say. Looks like you're off to a good start.
Let me make two requests in the meantime:
1. The first person I mentioned the name of this blog to replied, "My god, do they have to dump all over everything?!" You're going to inevitably get the question, over and over, "Why do you hate PFC so much?" Be prepared to answer, over and over, "No, I _love_ PFC, which is why I care enough to do this!" and take pains to make that clear throughout. (So far, so good, imho.) There's a tragically fine line in the blogworld between critique hopefully leading to improvement and making people say, "Yeah! PFC suxorz! I'll never shop there again!"
2. Could you enable comments by people without blogger accounts? Is there an option to allow people to post a name and non-blogger url but not to allow totally anonymous comments? I understand the motivation behind not allowing anonymous comments, but a blogger account is hardly an accountable identity, and I think that forcing that step will discourage some readers from participating.
Murph, thanks for responding. Obviously, I'm just in the beginning stages of this, and I am hoping to incorporate suggestions as they come regarding the structure/tone of this.
In regard to your first point, I'm glad to hear that you came out of the blog feeling that I do care about PFC, because I do. I believe that the people who are running it, who are employed by it, who are members of it, and who are on the board care for it as well. I also think that they are all very busy and creating an honest (rather than a marketing/sales) communication structure for the PFC community is low on the list of priorities. Organizing thoughts and people into a structure, shaking people up, and asking questions are all things I'm good at, and I give those a high priority. Right now I'm seeing myself as an ombudsman, but I'm also going to go the extra step and say what I think needs fixed. (I wonder if being an unofficial ombudsman for the coop counts as volunteer work?)
In regard to your second point, I have only three options: allow anyone to comment, force people to take the 30 seconds to register, or allow only members of this blog to comment. I don't mind anonymous comments, in fact I welcome them. The reason for the registration requirement is because blogs without registration required inevitably fall victim to spammers.
Thanks.
posted by Solomon at 3:54 PM
3 Comments:
I was at a board meeting where they talked about setting up some kind of member communications - you can see this prototype I put together:
http://vielmetti.typepad.com/cafeverde/
naturally the domain name is wrong and the content is also something to be desired (mm, blogging about panini).
I'll make sure I link from that blog to this one and see what if anything transpires.
Edward, when was that board meeting, do you remember?
Matt, I'll email you at the email you have listed and ask you more about this offer.
It was the April 20 or 21 meeting - when I spoke there Duane Thomas seemed to think there was a lot of board interest in the project, though to be fair I haven't pursued it back with him. I'll ping him (noting the discussion here) and see what he says.
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