Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
How to describe HarringayOnline.com
I've shared a few Hangouts with a US E-democracy advocate - Steven Clift. He's a congenial guy, active in Network Neighbourhoods and will be over here in October. . Here's what he posted on another forum:
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It looks like I'll have much of the day on Monday, October 20 to explore civic tech/open gov/open data in Manchester.
I'll be at SOCITM on the 21 - http://www.socitm.net/events/socitm-2014 - folks here should ping me if you want to say hello.
On Wednesday is my Consultation Institute conference keynote -
http://www.consultationinstitute.org/events/conference-2014/ - where I'll share major lessons from our "e-democracy" movement from the first twenty years(!). This will be a completely new speech.
On Thursday, I am working with Involve on an event focused on emerging "Facebook-native" councillors and "friending for office." We are looking for interested sponsors to cover some costs. Ping me if interested!
At some point I'll be visiting our neighbours online project in Norbiton in Kingston upon Thames: http://e-democracy.org/norbiton (p.s. looking for web-friendly open source Mailman replacement - note that we use http://groupserver.org )
On Friday, I'd love to meet folks from places like ODI, OKFN, the parliament's digital democracy commission and others. Suggestions?
And Sat-Sun I'll be at Mozilla Fest. Monday morning I fly home to Minneapolis.
Also, I am super passionate about "neighbourhoods online" be it on Facebook Groups, some other platform, e-democracy.org ... as long as groups covering large areas aren't private resident-only "gated communities" only really serving home owners. I do like resident-only
online spaces for streets and buildings. So, if you know projects doing great and inclusive work to connect neighbours online, please make an introduction.
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I began to write a description in reply to his email but many others here are much more experienced than I on HoL. I thought to try to pick out the 'highlights' but am not aware of all of them, and have had difficulty finding the 'key' threads for, say, the St Anns corruption, the Banksy thing etc. I'd like to set up a meeting locally if there's enough interest.
Can anyone please help describe this site to a stranger who has a lot of experience of similar sites elsewhere?
Tags for Forum Posts: HarringayOnline.com
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Hugh on
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Steve will know all about Harringay Online. My colleague Kevin Harris and I had him over to co-host a seminar a couple of years back. Fascinating to hear that he's adopted neighbourhood networks as his phrase of choice.
He's now running an e-democracy business.
If you're stuck for a description, look at our studies on London neighbourhood networks from 2010/2011 or look at some of the press coverage.
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Permalink Reply by Chris Setz on
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Thanks Hugh - glad I asked. As he already knows you guys, there's no need to remind him, is there?
BTW I couldn't find the major threads on this site where people are engaged. Usually it'll be threads with a heck of a lot of postings, but I can't see a way to identify them - I suppose I was looking for a 'table of contents'.
There doesn't seem to be a way to be aware if there's a major discussion going on - the Friday ketchup helps, but there's so much in it and it tends to highlight weekly whereas many topics last a lot longer. Also, do you have a 'ketchup' archive one could use to 'catch up' :)
Do you maybe have a way of identifying the most posted-to, or the highest number of views or whatever metric does the job of describing the most significant threads?
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Permalink Reply by John McMullan on
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Hugh, you need an intellectual property lawyer if he's making money out of your work...
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Nobody is making any money out if this, John, we can't afford your rates!
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Not quite true. Steve is running a business. He combines some pro bono with other work charged at healthy rates. Also my study was financed by sponsorship from London Councils, Cisco and Cap Gemini. The report's findings weren't influenced by the sponsors, but it was part of a business I was running at the time.
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Click the forum tab then play around with the drop down options at the top. It will give you by most posted to but not by most viewed. Can give you HTML ketchups if you let me know what you want.
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Just wanted to know, for instance, what are the top five threads that show what HoL is all about?
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Here are the "most popular" threads of all time. Whether they are a good indication of what HoL is about for most of its users is another mater entirely.
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Thanks Hugh - that's what I meant. Maybe you might consider some way of adding the 'X' factor that makes one topic better than another. That way, over time, the 'personality' of the site becomes self-documenting.
At the moment, for me, the HoL experience can be pretty random - apart from the Ketchup, when I visit, I start with the scrolling front page, most of which seem to be single posts or news of a reply with no indication of related activity and zero likes.
I simply am not aware of the 'busiest' stuff unless I see it referred to somehow elsewhere, which rarely happens. So it would be quite possible to visit HoL and completely miss the fact that, for instance, the Banksy thing was happening.
Perhaps you could consider adding a 'hot topics' section and attaching the number of posts associated with each on the scrolling front page? And/or using colour code 'likes' for quantity? Blue (as at present) for zero and red for 10+ or something?
I'd still like to see a sort of 'kudos-based' system where people rate posts and those who post them - that would do it too. Be nice to see if people were nicer to each other because of it...
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As things stand now, Chris, it is what it is.
Are you aware of the 'views' feature showing how many times a post has been viewed? That's how newspapers calculate their 'readership', both online and off. Don't fall into the trap of going just on "likes" or responses. They measure something else altogether. The last JICREG figures I was able to get for the local 'Journal's showed that, when compared with HoL's Google Views Stats, we had a higher readership than the journal. Now they've mashed all figures together so a comparison is no longer possible.
If you wait a couple of weeks the stellar LSE study will be published. It looked at the local comms infrastructure in Harringay from HoL to the hairdresser's chair - a much needed piece of work that moves on from the days when we were all star struck with anything digital. (Having said that, I'm giving warning that I'm planning a smear and cover-up campaign when it emerges that only ten people have ever read HoL!).
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>> only ten people have ever read HoL!
Nine - I just unread :)
People might think that the nicest place on the internet is, well, TheNicestPlaceOnTheInter.net but they are all strangers there.
There are lies and damned lies- what I want is more information about how I'm going to spend my time before I spend it. Am prepared to invest a bit of it to get that.
So, I wouldn't mind, for instance, a profile menu that allowed me to specify 'interests' more general than having to specifically sign on to say, the gardening or business groups. I like local politics for example but national politics is best steered clear of on HoL I guess.
Something that let the site tailor itself more towards my interests. Oh and witty and interesting eye candy - why aren't there any cats?
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