Comments on: Winooski: Scale and online conversations http://frontporchforum.com/blog/2008/01/15/winooski-scale-and-online-conversations/ ... about community within neighborhoods and Front Porch Forum. Wed, 07 Jan 2009 20:38:46 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5.1 By: Michael http://frontporchforum.com/blog/2008/01/15/winooski-scale-and-online-conversations/#comment-132972 Michael Wed, 16 Jan 2008 17:13:50 +0000 http://frontporchforum.com/blog/2008/01/15/winooski-scale-and-online-conversations/#comment-132972 Good question Dan. It's more of a fuzzy transition zone than a hard thin dividing line... for starters. And it depends on several factors, number of households within the boundaries among the most prominent. We've been hosting 130 of these online neighborhood forums for a little more than a year (and our flagship neighborhood forum for about eight years)... and it's given us keen appreciation for the complexity of human participation, communication, community, technology, etc. So while an algorithm could be written that might get close, ultimately there's an art to setting up optimal neighborhood forum boundaries vis-a-vis our service. And our "art," while viewed favorably by most of our public, is not uniformly successful... some neighborhood forums are hits and others are not... yet. ;-) Good question Dan. It’s more of a fuzzy transition zone than a hard thin dividing line… for starters. And it depends on several factors, number of households within the boundaries among the most prominent.

We’ve been hosting 130 of these online neighborhood forums for a little more than a year (and our flagship neighborhood forum for about eight years)… and it’s given us keen appreciation for the complexity of human participation, communication, community, technology, etc.

So while an algorithm could be written that might get close, ultimately there’s an art to setting up optimal neighborhood forum boundaries vis-a-vis our service. And our “art,” while viewed favorably by most of our public, is not uniformly successful… some neighborhood forums are hits and others are not… yet. ;-)

]]> By: Dan http://frontporchforum.com/blog/2008/01/15/winooski-scale-and-online-conversations/#comment-132966 Dan Wed, 16 Jan 2008 17:04:23 +0000 http://frontporchforum.com/blog/2008/01/15/winooski-scale-and-online-conversations/#comment-132966 "One supersized forum, I’m afraid, will be dominated by a few loud voices focused on larger issues and official pronouncements. Gone will be the small voices and the “need to borrow a ladder” and “my teenager is available to babysit” postings." I'm very curious: where do you reckon the line lies between 'loud voices' and 'small voices'? A certain number of houses? Do you have a system, or just work it out case by case? “One supersized forum, I’m afraid, will be dominated by a few loud voices focused on larger issues and official pronouncements. Gone will be the small voices and the “need to borrow a ladder” and “my teenager is available to babysit” postings.”

I’m very curious: where do you reckon the line lies between ‘loud voices’ and ’small voices’? A certain number of houses? Do you have a system, or just work it out case by case?

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