Discuss

There has been some recent discussion on the Google Groups 'Strategic Planning' list-serv, about the need to discuss the best way to facilitate Occupy Edmonton communications between all supporters.

This thread is intended as a (or just another?) start on this, since I either can't see current "communications" discussion on the list-serv, or . . . there isn't any. (I've subscribed, but have not been made a "member" of this pvt. group.)

Currently, there's a fair amount of traffic on the WG list-servers, and I think there may be better ways to handle on-line WG discussions.

This "Mingle" forums plug-in for WordPress web sites / blogs, isn't bad, I think. It has a good list of options, including pvt. areas, and so on. It also lacks some features I usually depend on, like preview, or easily changing text size. Perrhaps there's also the option of using even better external forums software, and just linking to it.

as far as structure, I would suggest taking a look at the occupytogether.org/discuss forum as a good model for the subcategories.

Greetings all, I am Bill Carley the current (for one more week anyway) bottom-liner for Sound and music.

Last night I was informed by a member of the communications working group that a press release for a concert (the Occupy Yuletide Party) would not be handled by the working group. So, I don't get it. The GA approved the concert,though it could not afford to fund it,members of Occupy Edmonton are staffing and other members are playing in it, we will all benefit it from it if it succeeds but I and a few other funders will lose if it fails but communications will not help me to promote it?

I have been seeking assistance from both the Arts WG and the Communications Working Group for 2 weeks now with no response until last night when I was told in no uncertain terms that I could not expect to see it being put out.

Colour me confused. Now I do not want to lose (my rent) money and I do not want to have the show fail so it looks I will have to go to you all and ask if you want to help to get you to request a copy of the press release (from the email address below) and get you to put it out to your favourite social media.

Cheers
Bill Carley
billcarley@hotmail.com

I am on the communications working group, Bill. I am really, really disappointed that this has happened... This is honestly the first time I am being made aware of your need for assistance... Press releases have ALWAYS been a job handled by the Comms group... I am not sure who you have contacted but they have not communicated your need to the rest of us... I regret this has happened but I am not surprised... I will be contacting you privately for a copy of the press release...

Everyone: With respect to the internal communications, I think I am more and more in favour of using this public forum to do Working Group communications and General Discussion on, even if we have to appoint moderators to clobber spam, move threads, and remove trolls.

Basic activist security culture should still apply, so that if a subset of us were planning an action that would involve an element of surprise, then we obviously wouldn't talk about it in a public forum.

My experience yesterday with putting out the agenda over our Google Groups "Occupy Edmonton Announce List" was horrible inefficiency.

This is because Google Groups is in a bit of a shambles at present. Specifically, there is one problem with Google Groups in particular: the "join this list" box that we can stick on the OE website (currently at the top right of the home page) links a visitor to the OE Announce Google Group page with all of our posts on it. So far so good, because you can see the list of announcements.

BUT, if you even FIND the "join this group" link on that page, it forces you to sign up for a Gmail account. Really bad — our announce list shouldn't force you or even "make it easier" to have one webmail address over another.

So, how would people feel about formally proposing to people next GA that we encourage people to move to the forum for General Discussion?

I know that a number of people are complaining about the sheer volume of email list traffic, and I suspect that many people's email accounts don't naturally let email discussion topics be threaded or organized in any way.