We are in the process of setting up a Discussion Forum for RAS and the other Alberta PLAN Affiliates. Watch here for a formal link to the forum.

RAS Discussion Forum: A Great New Way for Us to Communicate

At our website, http://theroadahead.ca, I've opened a link to a Discussion Forum that can help us communicate with each other, draw in new members and serve our community better. Discussion forums need a solid critical mass to work well, so I hope that we all make extensive use of the forum. If you had planned to send an email announcement about something involving our community, consider adding it to the RAS Discussion Forum instead. If you want to find out information on an important question, check at the Discussion Forum.

How Does a Discussion Forum Fit with the Internet?
There is a spectrum of communication options on the internet. At one end, there is the website with carefully controlled content and lethargic updates. Websites are passive for the user: they can read information, but are at the mercy of the website maintainer as to the content they view.

At the other end of the spectrum, there is the mass email. With email, users can send out their ideas and information, but it is very hard to organize the information the reader receives. Senders use subject lines that don't help the reader look back and find what they want. Multiple senders may decide to send the same information and the reader's mailbox becomes clogged. The reader may lose the message with junk mail and it is hard to go back and find an important message that was sent a month ago. It is hard for he sender to know the best list of recipients: many people needing the information are missed.

In between, there are two web-based systems: weblogs (blogs) and discussion forums. Blogs are just variations of websites that are easier for the content creator. To write a blog, you don't need to be an expert website developer, but just someone who thinks and writes well. This allows the writer to post information more frequently and the content tends to be more up-to-date. But, the blog is still a passive information system for the reader. The reader cannot ask questions, debate with the blogger or offer solutions to the problems that the blogger poses. Some blogs do allow posting of comments, but rarely does this lead to a really really dynamic exchange that advances understanding or passes on useful information. In particular, the blog reader cannot initiate a discussion about a new topic: that right is reserved for the blogger.

Discussion forums fill in the gap between blogs and mass emails. They are almost as easy to write as an email, so they are not as formal as a blog or a website. Content can come from the user, and other users can read or contribute as they see fit. To keep things from getting out of hand, each forum has a moderator to remove inappropriate posts and to help the users to post in the right forums. As interest develops in various topics, the moderators create new discussion threads in order to keep the contributions focussed on a single topic, but still lively enough to induce readers to want to visit the site regularly.

The Value of Dynamic Discussion Forums
In my own personal activities, when I need advice about a problem, such as how to use my camera, or how to upgrade my satellite receiver, or how to fix a computer problem, or where to get financial data, I am like most people, and turn to a search engine like Google. Web search engines crawl over the internet indexing information on websites, including information posted in discussion forums. Since people can readily pose their questions and answers on discussion forums, this tends to be a very rich source of information, and we can find the content with search engines.

Moreover, discussion forums draw people to the host website (the RAS website in this case) and get them interested in the other issues of the organization. It can draw in members and people to join networks. It can be a source of information for RAS to develop lobbying positions, policies and programs to serve our community. Over time, the information posted can be edited and put into information documents, or in a list of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) on the website.

The RAS Discussion Forum is an example of the social entrepreneurship that PLAN advocates. The Forum will provide a valuable service to many people and, in return, they will provide valuable resources to RAS. Those resources will be membership revenues, information and critical mass to help us grow to a stable size where we can be confident that RAS will outlive its founders and match the lives of the Lifetime Members who need its service.

Please help yourself and RAS by going to our website and participating in the forums. Instructions on using the Discussion Forum will be on the website. If you have problems making this work, please email me at webmaster@theroadahead.ca, and I will help you to use the forums and enhance my instructions to assist others in using the website. Most of the Forums will be open for anybody to read, but you will need to be a member of an Alberta PLAN affiliate, such as RAS to be able to post on the Forum. We will probably set up some private forums that are not publicly viewable, to use for Board and Committee communication, for example. Other Forums will address issues specific to Alberta, or to Calgary, Edmonton or Lethbridge.