Defining Our Goals and Scope

Implementation
1

There seemed to be some sentiment expressed in the GG discussion group that there were better ways of having discussions and accessing the knowledge available than the simple chronological flow of emails in GG, and the PDF documents on the INA website. To this end, a very small number of participants suggested that we explore other options. From that discussion and my own thoughts -

Goals

  1. Provide a searchable knowledge base of information of interest to the Nonsuch community. This would hold:
  • the information in the documents on the INA site (deconstructed into searchable and tagged articles)
  • information and “how to” small articles condensed from the topics in the on-line discussion
  • links to information of general interest from other web sites
  1. Replace the current GG based discussion group mailing list style interaction with one that is structured like a forum providing improved functionality, and encompassing (for example):
  • the ability to post topics by category
  • have an automatic search of past postings for topics related to the new one
  • the ability to easily harvest elements of postings and turn them into knowledge base articles
  • the ability to see at a glance the newest postings and the ones of greatest interest
  • the ability to search topics / postings
  • the ability to tag postings (with pre-defined key words)

Scope

This is not as clearly laid out as the desired scope is subject to some debate, and may be tied to the capabilities of the available software as well as the time and effort that community member have to invest in this project. IMHO some of the scope has us revisiting the goals, and comes down to questions.

  1. Do we want this effort to result in a replacement for GG?
  • will we / must we find something as easy to use as GG
  1. Are we looking for a simple forum for topic based postings (easily displayed and searched, e,g, https://crusiersforum.com ) or something more capable. Accessing a site like that is not much more difficult than the INA web site.
  2. do we want to fully replace the documentation, for sale, etc. links on the INA web site

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There are a few ways to respond to this posting - people can post additions, deletions, and reordering. We can put some items to a vote. We can split items into required and optional.

We can have a working document everyone can access that is a running rewrite or just continue to post replies under this first posting.

This is a shared task - Please share your thoughts.

(No ego here - if we have to throw out Discourse and start over there will still be progress in lessons learned. More than one person expressed the need to see something to know what we were talking about.)

At any time, we can post a link to this site on GG and have people browse it without requiring any account or login. I personally would like to have more items in the knowledge base first.

2

This discussion reflects an issue that is going to haunt the process (getting back to the comment about setting goals) - will we be able to fully leave behind email interaction as a means of participating in discussions → is that one of our goals? If it is, then we are not tied to Discourse as one of a very few options able to mix online and email postings. If we are saying that we can move on from emails, then we need to look for the simplest to use package, and perhaps sacrifice a little in the way of functionality for added ease of use.

I don’t know how to move forward on this question except perhaps to point the group at something clean and simple and ask if having something like that was acceptable. I would nominate https://www.cruisersforum.com/ except for all of the noise from the ads, and the small font.

Of course, there will be some who will accept no change - how large is that group.

3

Reviewing the feedback provided from users in the Google Group, seems clear that there is still a very strong desire to maintain an option to use email as the primary way to participate in group discussions. Not my preference, but because I prioritize having access to the expertise of our older participants above using a more modern platform, I support the option of participating via email and all the associated limitations of that decision.

I think we should choose between available options… and not be luring into thinking it is possible to have both simplicity and sophistication at the same time on the same platform.

There are fundamental differences between our platform options. I believe the complexity of trying to provide features of the modern platforms without letting go of simplicity and flexibility offered by email based conversations will result in the worst of both worlds instead of the best.

Trying to do both will be too complicated.

Useful insight can be derived from some of the linguistic differences. Email centric systems organize threads by “Subject” which is a freeform text string created by the originator of the post. It is neither unique nor curated.

“Topic” is a term used by newer systems to organize posts. The rules governing topics can ( in some systems) be set by the group or site administrator. Very powerful in the hands of a skilled community administrator, but problematic if left on autopilot.

The capability to control how information is organized is both a blessing ( when participants value consistency ) and a curse ( when participants want the flexibility of a more free flowing, low maintenance, and inclusive dialog ).

Some of the Google Group “bugs” mentioned are actually misuse of the system. One complaint is that posts contain “extra” unrelated information in them. I investigated a couple of examples that were cited, and found that participants sometimes reply to "Abridged summary of ina-nonsuch-discussion-group ". When they do this, Google sees their reply as a totally new post… which contains the entire summary of “ALL THE POSTS” in the summary. Folks who understand the platform see this as pilot error, folks that don’t understand the platform see this as a bug.

Moving to a platform with even more nuance and capability seems risky to me considering that our audience values simplicity, flexibility, and the ability to participate without learning new rules and conventions.

I encourage INA to stick with Google Groups until we are ready embrace structured collaboration ( AKA not free-wheeling email ).

There are lots of ways to support INA besides ushering in a new collaboration platform… today I will renew my membership and thank our board for steering our INA ship through 2024, into 2025, and beyond.

4

I went through the entire sometimes wandering “conversation” on GG use under the subject heading " Suggestion: Move from Google Groups to Circle.so?". I found four postings specifically mentioning liking or preferring emails. And a few more along the lines of “others may not like”. And I recall a couple more in other conversations about just walking away if they need to change anything. We have a great silent majority and a majority of that majority is a read-only population.

I disagree with some of what you say or assume. So it goes.

I think that saying that we must choose between supporting email participation vs. using a modern platform is false. Discourse is a reasonably full featured platform and it supports participation via email*. We need to fully check this out before we declare it unacceptable. We also need to dig deeper into the posting and organizing, editing and tagging features (plus chat, etc.) to see if switching to this particular choice, Discourse, is enough of a step forward to be worth the time, cost ,and overhead. I’m participating in this to see if we can have both options together.

Topic vs. Subject - is what we make of it. Maybe relying on “topic” will keep threads… on topic, and maybe people will spin off a new topic for an unrelated subject. The amount of control that is exerted is based on administrative decisions and time. My guess is that no control will be enforced and so we are left with a word that will be widely interpreted. On the other hand, this platform, like most others, can have a rewrite and review process before something is promoted to the knowledge base, and that is where we should exercise control.

If it’s true that 85% of the content comes from 25 people, then getting those initial 25 moved over and comfortable using Discourse, and having their postings fed back to GG, would be quite a start. (yes, I know, it’s not that simple). Beyond the emails, having a basic site with additional content up and running, something that requires nothing from the majority of the GG population beyond clicking on a web link, would move us along.

If we don’t make any progress towards moving the discussion off of GG, then IMHO we should look into attaching a wiki to the INA web site and build a knowledge base there.

If we don’t do something now, the reasons to keep the status quo will be the same 2 or 5 or 10 years from now.

5

I’d like to be wrong, but from what I see, email hinders our ability to implement the more attractive features of modern collaboration platforms.

From the use-cases I’ve looked at, the flexibility and freedom of email is contrary to channeling discussion towards themes. Let’s go beyond talking in generalities, and drill into to details.

  1. Take for example, our desire to channel new posts to existing dialog. Setting up a hierarchy of topics for posters to pick from is an approach we’ve talked about. How would a person trying to post from email choose a topic ? If we accept new posts from email do we forego organizing by topic ?
  2. Should we continue to use signatures or move to profiles to indicate boat & location ? How will participants react to the change?
  3. If we want to know how many folks want to continue to use email, why not post a survey ?
  4. Is now the right time to contemplate making this change? If not, what changes in technology or user perspective would improve our likelihood for success ?

I have a couple of winter boat projects that I’m going to dive into after New Year’s Day. I want to do something that is mutually beneficial for Soave and INA. I’m thinking I will document the projects with an eye towards sharing. I feel I’ll learn more from working on real communication challenges than having hypothetical platform conversations and I also don’t see the current community as being ready for a change of this magnitude.

We don’t have to wait 5-10 years before revisiting the collaboration platform question. I’ll bet in a year or so the perspective on email will have shifted and we could revisit the platform question.

Do you have any winter projects planned for Inua ? Maybe we can compare notes on different approaches to sharing information about our projects with the community ?

FaceBook is pretty good for documenting small projects. ( HERE ) is a FB Album that I used to document some work I did on my tractor about 7 years ago. Each photo has it’s own caption with details about the step.

I think I’ll see what I can do with FB for documenting my winter projects. Would be great to be collaborating with a few more folks interested in learning about collaboration options.

I’m looking forward to the coming new year !
Rob…

6

I now have a better understanding of your perspective on this project and how it differs from mine. No consensus yet.

(aside: I send an invitation to Thor and Joe Valinoti to join this group. Based on today’s postings, I see they desire email only)

GG content is conversations around random topics/subjects/whatever that just pop up. In moving to a “community” platform, my thinking was that we wanted to keep some of this flavor by having a General category while also having a structured area for topically focused posting, and following that as time allows, reviewed content. Other add-ons would be scheduling, chat, whatever - like a topic area for projects, what to look for when inspection a Nonsuch, etc
If I understand what you’re saying, one key difference here is that you don’t see this as a move (replacement, at least initially), but a supplement that will add value by having things well organized from the start - postings by topic, tagged, searchable, etc. You believe that this should be the structure/goal of the new platform, and we should not undertake any change until we are ready to move on from email.
Reading into some of the comments on GG, I don’t think that the perspective on email for a reasonable group of members will change any time soon, or perhaps ever. If the long time, older? members are the source of our knowledge, and that group only wants email, then IMHO we need to look for a way to accommodate them. I don’t think a year or two will matter here.
*
We can try a poll but I am not sure how we can structure what we are asking. We had a lot of comments to the “should we move” thread, but they were all over the place and from a small fraction of the membership. I’ll start a new thread.
*

7

I’ve volunteered at many volunteer organizations over the past 40 years or so. Over the years I’ve seen lots of recurring social patterns. Some patterns lead to consensus and others do not.

The pattern I’m seeing in our platform discussion seems unlikely to converge on consensus.

Volunteer experiences that I’ve found most rewarding are the ones supported by a broad consensus, so I tend to shy away when I don’t see broad consensus, even if I think the idea has merit.

Your ideas are good, skillfully timed and they will add value. Sailing on the Hudson, I’m sure you have plenty of experience timing your departure for favorable tidal currents.

Sometimes projects need to be timed for favorable circumstances.

BTW, Have you checked the mast step casting bolts on Inua ? Repairing my mast step is one of my winter projects that resulted from neglect of the previous owner. Something my surveyor missed.

8

I think the direction of this project might arrive at a consensus with input from other people. A compromise that brings about progress is still a worthy undertaking. It is certainly worth a shot. In that vein, I did rough out a survey but I am not sure how broadly or clearly people will respond. Plus, it’s kinda long.

My experience in groups and committees is that if options are phrased too broadly, things will be mushy and discussions will stay mushy (or maybe that’s just the modus operandi of higher ed). I have also seen that projects without broad consensus are either never finished or just fade away.

Lest you think I’m single minded about this, during the past week I’ve taken a quick look at vBulliten (which powers cruisersforum) as a forum, and bbPress (which fits into Wordpress, which in turn can connect up to the INA web site) as a wiki.

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Thanks for the comment about the mast step bolts. I have taken a look at them and put them on the things to revisit before spring launch.

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Who else should we pull into this Discourse group? Or should we wait until we do the survey?

9

A post was split to a new topic: Mast bolts maintenance