Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: sample document library: laying the groundwork

[Fred H Olson (fholson]

I have  a few comments on this topic including:
* offer of hosting files at http://L.cohousing.org
* encourage creation of a Cohousing Wiki (not for just "documents")

Tree Bressen (tree [at] ic.org) wrote:

> Personally i think that as long as there is a link from the Coho-US
> site, it would be ok if the library were hosted elsewhere. Putting a
> project formally within the purview of an organization means grappling
> with organizational politics, and that can slow things way down.

The nature of the web not just organizational considerations make
hosting of documents "elsewhere" (as long as "permanent") reasonable.

> I notice how well this email list functions, without any organizational
> affiliation (hats off to Fred, of course).

Tree, thanks for the "hats off".  I've been quite pleased with the way the
cooperative but independent connection that cohousing-L (and Justcomm.org,
my org that hosts the list) has worked and recommend it.  Tho I have
generally not been able to clone the relationship for other lists.
Organizational politics (and bureaucracy ) can be an impediment.  (The C-L
/ Coho/US gets complicated (the sharing of / ownership of the domain
cohousing.org) but I'd be interested in discussing it some time.

-- Cohousing Wiki --

I think a cohousing wiki - not just for documents - would be a great idea.
Curiously I've been pondering evolving some current and proposed
listserv's into what I am calling "Lifelern" sites that would tie a
listserv and a wiki to form collaborative learning projects.  Ideally
special facilities could be developed to easily link archived list
messages to topics.

I am not currently familiar with the various flavors of wiki but have done
a bit of editing at Wikipedia ( http://en.wikipedia.org ).  Anyone have
experience with managing a wiki?  I would not expect the cohousing
documents to be "in" the wiki but rather linked to wiki articles with a
little description and maybe some comments about each document. Note that
this would allow adding and editing the descriptions and comments by
"anyone" but not the documents.

An example (sort of) is the way there is a link to article:
Barry Yeoman, Rethinking the Commune, AARP: The Magazine
near the end ot the Wikipedia Cohousing article at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cohousing

Having links to documents implies the document needs to be "on the web"
somewhere.  Sometimes this is already the case but if not getting a
document on the web is a less widely held skill.  See my page:
http://justcomm.org/web-put.htm

I do have an a page that allows uploading files with a web browser for use
with the cohousing-L resource page  http://l.cohousing.org/ (may be
reorganized soon).  It has not been used widely but I think it is pretty
easy.  To try it email me for details.  The notes and links on that
page are similar to what I'd expect to be in a wiki.

It happens that earlier today I was checking the useage for the
cohousing.org account that applies to  http://l.cohousing.org/
and I'm only using a tiny fraction of what is available.  Therefore
I'd be willing to host documents at  http://l.cohousing.org/
if someone else helps keep them organized.

Tree observed that:

> 2. My observation is that most people who are comfortable enough with
> technology to use email can send documents as attachments (or as text
> within the body of a message), but that there are many email users who
> find wikis too much of a technical challenge to use--they might read
> pages  on a wiki just like they would on any website, but they will
> not post or edit.

On the other hand I have been surprized how relatively savvy cohousing-L
folks are.  The vast majority subscribe themselves - not true of other non
techy lists.  And I think we should encourage people to learn to use
Wiki's.  That does not mean everone has to be able to do so.  Volunteers
can get descriptions and comments by email and do the wiki editing for
those who prefer not to.  At lest a wiki makes it easy to have several
volunteers collaborating to maintain things.

Lastly, on file formats.  I would suggest allowing:
.txt
.pdf
.html / .htm  (some less paper oriented communites might use html...)
.odt OpenDocument for word processing (text) documents - Open Standard xml
      based - not too widely used but hopefully will be - used by Oppen
      Office Suite
.doc as a last resort, discouraged. (sometimes problematic proprietary
     format used by monopolistic Microsoft in MS Word  )


Fred, listserv manager

PS this has been discussed several times over the years.  A bit of
research as to what has been done , could be revived would be useful.
Search the list archives and talk to Coho/US folks.

-- 
Fred H. Olson  Minneapolis,MN 55411  USA        (near north Mpls)
Communications for Justice - My listserv org.           UU, Linux
My Link Page: http://fholson.cohousing.org       Ham radio:WB0YQM
fholson at cohousing.org   612-588-9532   (7am-10pm Central time)