Concern for the Community

[Jon_Jenkins]

Dear all

I continue to be concerned with the community.

The forum has a bit over 400 members which is a little less than 1/2 of the members of GRP-FACListserv. Of those who have posted something on the forum (I assume this is the whole Forum including those that are not related to the Listserv.) about 40% have visited the site in the last month. A little less than 60% have visited during the last 2 months. The rest have not visited since the 16th of June.

Of those who have not posted 20% have visited during the last month and 40% have visited in the last 2 months. Some 60% have not been on the site since 16 June.

A little less than 100 members (some 25%) have posted. This is good.

As I have said, I am concerned about the re-development of the community.

Gary R. that what is needed is for interesting posts be put on the forum and it will grow. I agree that interesting and meaningfull post are important but there is a lot more as suggested by Ramon and even more.

What seemed to be the keys to the GRP-FACListsev success over some 15 or so years?

1. It was interesting and useful for the members.
2. Everyone was welcome to partipate, inexperience and well as the very experienced.
3. There was no topic related to facilitation that could not be discussed. When topics related to other topics such as training were directed to other forums. This is good "customer relations".
4. People were respected for the ideas. It is not that we did not agrue or even fight at times. Only when things got really out of hand (meaning disrespectful) did Sandy intervene and usually that was done privately.
5. Sandy was very hands off. We usually heard from him once a month when he published the statistics and said who the sponsors were.
6. The thresholds for getting into the site and particpating were low for the most part.
7. People could choose how they wanted to participate, daily emails, daily digests, etc.

So what now? I would find it helpful to discuss ways of encouraging the redevelopment of the community.

1. The board or the E-Team send a letter at least once a month to all of those who were on the listserv explaining the situation and what is being done about it.
2. A serious look at what are the thresholds and how they can be reduced. The timeout issue is a threshold and having to use Word as a work around is an issue. My browser locking up is an issue if others are experiencing it. I find myself a little saddened that Gary is going to look into the time out issue and not mine.
3. Clarify who is moderating the Forum.
4. Consider clarifying who is dealing with the software.
5. Take a look along with old time members, Sandy and member so of the E-Team what made the old Listserv successful and how to replicate it as far as possible.
6. Take a look at managing the expectations of the memership.

best

[Gary_Rush]

Hi Jon,

Your assessment is fairly accurate. We do need to continue to rebuild the community. We also need to continue advertising through newsletters and the Global Flipchart as much as possible.

We look into all issues. As for your browser issue, I don't know how to help unless we have a number of them to know if it is the forum or your browser (not every glitch is a forum problem). The timeout is clearly a forum issue and can be worked on.

The moderators are listed for every forum - including their email addresses. We are training two new administrators who are eager to generate interest. Once trained, they will be introduced.

Tammy has informed everyone on the forum about the email issue - a number of times and we'll continue to inform about the progress.

When we set up the forum, we did look at what made the list-serve successful and have worked to replicate it here along with new ideas. Keeping the forums simple and allowing anyone to participate were some of the ideas. The email issue was also important - just more technically difficult than originally thought.

So, we will continue working on the technical issues to get them resolved as soon as possible. If the browser problem continues or grows, let the forum customer service know and it will looked into. We will continue to advertise the forum (we also emailed every member of the list serve and asked them if they wanted to be automatically added - and added those who responded). The moderators are listed by each forum - so contact them if you want. The new administrators will be working to develop more threads. We also count on the members to post - as they did in the list serve - so that people realize that the forum is alive and available for discussion - as we have been doing this past week. There are no limits on what can be posted (apart from obviously improper or inappropriate posts as in the list-serve).

Ciao,
Gary

[Allan_Mees]

Yes we can do everything to encourage people to post and respond. But what if people for whatever reason (techie, behavioural, head in the sand) just don't want to change to the new forum.

The sort of problem we deal with every day aka resistance to change.

I suppose one other suggestion would be to remove the member segregation from the forum to allow the people that were not IAF members, but posted regularly to the Listserv, to feel part of this community again. The segregation seems to go totally against our values of inclusiveness.

Why can't this be a totally open forum and have somebody try to encourage non members that post regularly to join the IAF. Rather than say sorry you can't see everything until you are a member.

I honestly don't think we can continue to grow if we pull the shutters down and continue to restrict people from window shopping.

I would like people from other professions to actively work with us not be excluded.

Allan

[Gary_Rush]

We discussed the separation at length. It's not to exclude - non-members can view the threads.

What we wanted was a benefit for members - they paid membership dues for some benefits, and we also hoped it might entice others to join. So it is very inclusive - we turn away no one who wants to join. The majority of threads are in the general section as well.

Unfortunately, I believe that we may lose some because of the newness - I wish that wasn't the case, but change does that. I also hoped that we could gain a lot of new people - the new technology may entice many younger people to join, thus growing our ranks and helping ensure future grow.

[Allan_Mees]

We discussed the separation at length. It's not to exclude - non-members can view the threads.

...the new technology may entice many younger people to join, thus growing our ranks and helping ensure future grow.

But how do we attract this new younger audience if the older and perhaps wiser mentors can't cope with the new technology?

If we lose the elders of this community because they feel disenfanchised after losing the Listserve and are struggling to cope with the new forum; we may lose a huge amount of experience and learning potential. Where will the younger people get answers to their questions. Perhaps they will struggle to afford to attend conferences and their access to experts in our field may be very limited.

I would hate to conside a future where we have a large membership of new young facilitators with no elders to coach and support their personal development.

A difficult balance to strike.

Allan

[Gary_Rush]

I agree. We'll keep looking for a way.

[Ramon_Tate]

But how do we attract this new younger audience if the older and perhaps wiser mentors can't cope with the new technology?

If we lose the elders of this community because they feel disenfanchised after losing the Listserve and are struggling to cope with the new forum; we may lose a huge amount of experience and learning potential. Where will the younger people get answers to their questions. Perhaps they will struggle to afford to attend conferences and their access to experts in our field may be very limited.

I would hate to conside a future where we have a large membership of new young facilitators with no elders to coach and support their personal development.

A difficult balance to strike.

Allan
Allan, I believe your concern is a legitimate one, but also that "can't cope with the new technology" is mostly a red herring. This situation, in my view, isn't really about technology but about the forced change in work methods required of the new forum.

I've been in the IT business a really long time, have used virtually every pre- and post- computing communication method there is, and have no significant difficulties using the latest methods. Each technology and methodology has strengths and weaknesses that make it more or less suitable for various styles of human interaction. What developed on the GRP-FACL forum was the product of the methodology, interest, and work habits of the participants, and it proved to be quite effective and efficient for a large number of people over a long period of time. The message from us "old-timers" is that the new forum is no longer effective and efficient in the way the original format was. Adapting to the new requires much deeper changes in workstyle than just learning how to navigate a website, AND it changes the "flavor" of the conversation as well.

In addition, part of my concern about the new forum isn't just the altered nature of our dialog but the process by which we got to this point. It seems to me that the move to the new format, driven by whatever forces, failed to live up to our own professional precepts regarding how one facilitates the unraveling of the important aspects of a situation and prepares the blueprint for a new, improved version. And first and foremost in that process, as I was taught and have always tried to do myself, you start with the users of the system and try to understand how and why they do what they do. I've not seen this precept in action in this case.

I do have hope that many of my concerns about the email situation will be resolved soon.

[Joseph_McIntyre]

But how do we attract this new younger audience if the older and perhaps wiser mentors can't cope with the new technology?

If we lose the elders of this community because they feel disenfanchised after losing the Listserve and are struggling to cope with the new forum; we may lose a huge amount of experience and learning potential. Where will the younger people get answers to their questions. Perhaps they will struggle to afford to attend conferences and their access to experts in our field may be very limited.
Allan

Forgive the frustration in this post, but I have to admit I find it mind-boggling that we took a system that worked, was active, was largely managed by the users (with the attentive hand of Sandy), and most importantly was useful and replaced it with something that is hard to access, more work, and less used. If I was working with an organization that made a change like that, we would be doing some serious dialogue around goals, process, and vision.

If IAF wants to add value, let's talk about insurance or practice development or meaningful discounts on professional materials. Restricting the flow of communications (intended or otherwise) is not a value adding proposition in my view.

IF IAF wants to see how online community works in the broader facilitator community, check out NCDD (National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation, http://thataway.org). IAF could learn a lot from NCDD about inclusion, working with younger folks, and engaging a new frontier of facilitation practice.

Finally it comes down who are we? A pale version of the OD Network, a "certifier" competing with university training programs, a learning community of practitioners... The conversion to this system leaves me wondering if we really have answered this question.

Again, please forgive my frustration. I know many, many people have put a lot of time into this conversion. I am appreciative of your personal efforts and am glad that IAF is here. I only wish it actually worked as you hoped...

Joseph

[Simon_Wilson]

I’m finding this discussion interesting – but also, I hope, I’m finding some causes for optimism under the frustrations being expressed by some.
It seems to me that in terms of a change process we are actually dealing with three groups: first, the people who used the list-serve; second, members of the IAF; and third the broader facilitation community. There are of course overlaps between these groups.
The introduction of the forum affects the different groups differently. For the people who used the list-serve, this is a change from ‘something’ to ‘something else’. For the other two groups it is a change from ‘nothing’ – in terms of opportunities to take part in an interactive community around facilitation – to ‘something new’. Personally, I gave up on the list-serve because I could not get registered and use it (pathetic I know, but some of us have no staying power). So for me the forum is something new where previously I had no means of engaging with fellow facilitators on-line.
I think that the perspectives of these different groups differ in particular in relation to time. Several posts have expressed frustration that the forum is not working well or that the change has not worked. From my point of view this is very much work in progress and will need to be developed over time. In particular, as the moderator of the ‘Member issues and ideas’ area I am planning to open up discussion on some key internal issues for the Association starting next month. I’ve deliberately not rushed into this as I wanted to see how the forum beds down. Taking account of the comments made in this thread, one thing I want to do is make sure that we keep users of the public forum informed about the sort of stuff that is going on in the members’ area.
So I’m optimistic for the medium term that we can continue to engage those who were using the list-serve; that we can build something that members will value; and that we can engage the broader facilitation community over time and in turn convert their interest in growing membership of the Association.
All best wishes

Simon

[Gary_Rush]

Forgive the frustration in this post, but I have to admit I find it mind-boggling that we took a system that worked, was active, was largely managed by the users (with the attentive hand of Sandy), and most importantly was useful and replaced it with something that is hard to access, more work, and less used. If I was working with an organization that made a change like that, we would be doing some serious dialogue around goals, process, and vision.

My concern with this is that the list serve did cost the IAF more money to manage. It was useful, but it replaced something else and is now being replaced. We developed it with input from the list serve members - not at all in a vacuum. Sandy helped us so that we could move forward. We solicited input from the entire list serve and asked them to pilot the forum.

It still boils down to the major problem has been the email issue - it's the change to getting online instead of responding to emails. The response was easy, but viewing a number of threads and responding to what you wanted to wasn't easy. In the forum, it's easier to review a number of threads and respond when you want but more difficult to respond immediately (until we fix the email issue).

If IAF wants to add value, let's talk about insurance or practice development or meaningful discounts on professional materials. Restricting the flow of communications (intended or otherwise) is not a value adding proposition in my view.

We are working on practice development and improving the profession. We have never restricted the flow of communications - we updated the technology.

IF IAF wants to see how online community works in the broader facilitator community, check out NCDD (National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation, http://thataway.org). IAF could learn a lot from NCDD about inclusion, working with younger folks, and engaging a new frontier of facilitation practice.

Finally it comes down who are we? A pale version of the OD Network, a "certifier" competing with university training programs, a learning community of practitioners... The conversion to this system leaves me wondering if we really have answered this question.

We have answered this. We are an association for professionals in our industry. We encourage anyone to join and participate. We certify to enhance the profession. We are a network to share ideas. We are a learning community of practitioners. Our success depends as much with our members as with the association.

Again, please forgive my frustration. I know many, many people have put a lot of time into this conversion. I am appreciative of your personal efforts and am glad that IAF is here. I only wish it actually worked as you hoped...

Joseph

Sorry about the frustration. Look at the other posts and see that there are discussions happening and people are participating. Like anything else, it takes time.

[Bill_Harris]

Jon, et al.,

Thanks for mentioning your concerns here. I'm checking back in just to see what's up; I think it's been a month or two since I was last here.

There are a few issues I have mentioned privately to the group that was setting this up and possibly to some of you here, too, that were key for me:


If it's not a system I'm using for a significant part of the day as part of my work, then I want a push system that I can navigate quickly. I don't have time to log into each and every list I belonged to just to see if there's something interesting. For that, a mailing list is ideal, USENET without the spam is equivalent, and an RSS/Atom feed is _maybe_ in second place. A Web-hosted site such as this is a distant third. (For concentrated work or a specific, time-limited class, my priorities may reverse.)
If you do send me email from the iaf-forum, _please_ don't rewrite headers to tell my automated system things that aren't true. While email was running here, I would get email from, say, you, Jon, which gave as the email address the address of the forum (which is _not_ your email address). That caused my address book (BBDB) to say your email address had changed to the group forum list, and I had to intercept it or change it back. The risk, if I miss or forget? If I do send you a private email, it would go to the entire list. Moreover, because we now don't see the sender's email, it's difficulty to send thanks or private requests to the individual, which could clog up the list were it as active as before.
I deal with all my text very productively in an environment I set up (it happens to involve Emacs, for those who know the tool). I can deal with text rapidly there, far more easily than I can with this editor.There may have been others; those are the ones I remember.

GRP-FACL discussions remained on my hard drive unless I deleted them, so I could refer back to desired reference material even when I'm disconnected from the Internet. In fact, this forum would seem to have little long-term benefit for me as a reference, for I have to come back here to find good reference stuff; I think I'd rather have that integrated into the rest of my computing world.

It seems to me that there is at least one fix that is easy, inexpensive, and fast: install mailman (free) on a server somewhere, configure it, and be running later tonight. Okay, you'll likely want to migrate the mailing list and archives, and that might take a bit more time, but I'd be surprised if a decent administrator couldn't get that up and running during the comig week. mailman is used by most of the lists I'm on, it seems to run well, and it seems to obey standard protocols (no rewriting of email addresses, for example).

IIRC, users can also administer their mailman accounts by email, which, I'm told, is key for people in parts of the world where they pay for connection time by the minute (contrast the time to get stuff done here with the time to compose email offline, log on, upload outgoing email, download new incoming email, and log off before reading new email offline). That's another aspect of inclusivity which I see mentioned in other groups but not here.

I do appreciate the time that people have put into this, but I very much miss the old GRP-FACL, as it was one of my top two or three favorite groups for the most of its existence as a mailing list -- I don't think I was around for much of its USENET days. Until this turns back into a mailing list _or_until I get a job at IAF so that I do have to spend 50% or more of my day here, I'll likely only check in every 6-8 weeks.

If anyone wants to stay in touch, feel free to email me at bill_harris@facilitatedsystems.com or to follow and possibly comment on my blog at http://facilitatedsystems.com/weblog/ (yes, it does have RSS and/or Atom feeds!).

And I do welcome your comments to my impressions, even if it's not likely that I'll see them for a few weeks or more.

Bill

[Bill_Harris]

After posting that message, I looked around a bit. I did not count postings or topics, but I think that has to be done with care, as I think some GRP-FACL threads were brought across to seed the forum. The fact that people are discussing the deficiencies of the current system here may be a sign of frustration more than a sign that it's working.

Look at the members list and the last time some of the old standbys logged in. One of the people I used to benefit greatly from hasn't been here since June 1. Apparently it's been over a month since Sandy has been here, even. Others I checked seem to have visited sometime in the last month, and I did see one strong contributor who had logged in today. I did not make a complete survey by any means, but I take this to mean that questions I might pose here would be answered slowly, if at all.

Just a bit of data. I'm not sure fantastic threads will be sufficient to fix this.

That said, there may be those who truly do prefer the new format and who struggled with the old, and there may be some who will tolerate the new format. That may lead to a new community, but I don't think it will be a continuation of the old GRP-FACL community.

Bill

[Ned_Ruete]

HI, everybody,

Jon, I appreciate your concerns, but none of them echo for me. And the reason is that I have not been served by the mechanism sufficiently to participate and develop the community concerns you have.

For me, this forum is NOT a community. A community-at least the community that I need in my life right now, and the GRP-FACIL community that I have appreciated for over 15 years-is one that reaches out into my mailbox and says, "Here is something I'm interested in, or something I'm doing that I find interesting, or something that I need help with, or a question I have." And I read most of them, at least the first paragraph or so.

I've changed email addresses to solve a problem with spam filters on my ISP and still I'm not even getting daily notifications, much less digests. As near as I can read (and I don't understand the terminology well enough to be sure) I have to GO TO the forum, see what threads are there, and decide to subscribe to the thread to even get daily notification of postings.

I really miss a simple listserve that threw everything into my email box and let me peruse it. I hate searching. I hate being told that I have to decide in advance what I am interested in. I like being surprised.

In one episode of "Roseanne" BJ asked, "Mom, was I a mistake?" "No," Mom answered, "You were a surprise." "What's the difference?" "A surprise is something you didn't know you wanted until you got it." I don't know what I want from this community until I get it. I think all those people who think tools that give us choice and control are a good idea are at best misguided and at worst seriously deluded. Give me back the mechanism to recieve daily surprises. Give me back LISTSERV.

What do others think? And I may never find out, because it was only by chance that I am here today and found this thread.

Ned Ruete
East Lyme, CT USA

[Maria Sanchez-Keane]

Hi All,

I have been a passive (in that I rarely post) but active member (daily reading) when we were on a listserve. The most frustrating piece for me is that I am still unable to get e-mails (as it was promised) or daily summaries on e-mail. While I have every intention of visiting the forum regularly it just doesn't happen. It has nothing to do with technolgy, it has everything to do with time. I'm hanging on hoping that these issues will be resolved and I can continue to be enlightened as I had been while it was a listserve.

Maria

[Christopher_Haydock]

Hi Friends,

Today I just read all the messages in this "Concern for the Community" thread for the first time. That's because the last E-mail notification I received of any forum activity was back in July. Back in May and June I invested quite a few hours in experimenting with the forum Web site, communicating with administrators, and setting my preference for E-mail notification. Saturday I received the "Forum Transition Complete" E-mail from Gary Boettcher and the unsigned "Regarding Notification Digests" E-mail. I wanted to simply reply to one of these messages in the old fashion GRP-FACL list serve way, but alas the messages apparently weren't threads and the instructions for how to insert "IAF-Forum-Response" into the subject line were inadequate. As a first iteration towards this goal I went online and looked for an appropriate thread on which to add a reply. So here I am responding to the "Concern for the Community" thread. I've already set my "Edit Forum Subscriptions" preference to "Instant notification by email", so I'm expecting instant E-mail notification of this post.

I'm really curious to hear confirmation from anyone receiving E-mail notification of this post.

Cheers,
Chris.

Christopher Haydock, Ph.D.
Applied New Science LLC
+1-612-235-6352
ChrisHaydockSkype
www.linkedin.com/in/chrishaydock (http://www.linkedin.com/in/chrishaydock)
www.appliednewscience.com (http://www.appliednewscience.com)

[Sean_Rush]

Hello Chris,

I have my settings set for daily notification and I'm responding via blackberry.

Yes, I received your response and I'm confident those who have their notification set to instant have also received the message.

The reason why this is the first time you read this thread was because the notification wasn't complete and stable until recent. This thread dates back to August and, like other old threads, you won't get notified unless there's a new post (like yours). The last messages you received were mass emails that were more like announcements rather than threads you can reply to. If it's a thread to reply to, you find the instructions in the digest received.

As for the instructions for IAF-Forum-Response being inadequate, it would help if you provide more details on what you don't understand so I can assist you further.

Thank you.

Sean


Sean Rush
Development Consultant
srush@professionalmisfits.com
(773) 480-9212

[Ramon_Tate]

In response to your request for anecdotal info, Chris, I did receive an "instant" notification this morning re your post, although my notification type is set to "daily", AND I also received a "daily digest" message as well! Both contained your message, a redundancy I can do without. However, the "daily digest" message did not include Sean's reply since it was posted after the digest message was sent.

Which leads me to observe there doesn't seem to be any consistency in when the digests are sent out. I found the original digest delivery behavior - send them shortly after midnight - to be the most logical in helping me sort through the conversations, so I would like to see a similar behavior in the new system. Also, I'm not sure why I'm getting instant notifications as well as digests.

Just the view from here....

Ramon Tate

[Bill_Harris]

Seeing Chris's note this morning (g'morning, Chris!) reminded me that I don't think a posting I made by email ever arrived on the forum, so I'll post it here and then try to remain quiet -- I've likely said enough. I might note, though, that my attempt to turn email off was apparently unsuccessful, as witnessed by my getting your comment today.

BTW, check out the Search feature of the forum: when I search on postings I've made, I don't seem to get pointers to my postings; I get pointers to threads in which I may have made a posting. That's not great, but it's not a problem if there are 2 or 3 responses. If there are pages of responses, though, that's not very helpful.

Anyway, here's the post I tried to make September 19 in response to a claim that email is working:

Gary_Rush <groupfacilitation@iaf-forum.org> writes:

> (Please type your reply below this line!!)
> -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Gary,

I presume this is where I'm supposed to type my response, which makes
quoting and responding to individual items challenging, to say the
least.

You say, "Yes, it [email] is working." I claim it most definitely is
not.

First, as you see here, quoting and responding by piece is, at best,
difficult.

Second, the iaf-forum configuration has now co-opted any email address I
might have had for you and made it into groupfacilitation@iaf-forum.org.
That's a show-stopper. For example, suppose you and I were also engaged
in a business engagement with a client. If I were to send you an email
now and didn't pay careful attention, find your real email address
somewhere else, and patch things up on my end, then my private email to
you about a client would be broadcast to the entire group and posted on
the iaf-forum Web site. That, as you can imagine, could be disastrous
for a professional's reputation.

I thought I was good about catching that before it corrupted my
address book (BBDB), but, because you weren't already in it,
apparently, it didn't query me before equating you to
groupfacilitation@iaf-forum.org.

In other words, _please_ don't lie about people's email addresses.

_Please_ give us our mailing list back.

_Please_ consider switching back to something like mailman (free -- I
realize that listserv was a commercial product and there's likely no
budget for it, but is the current system free?).

_Please_ provide a system where we can do intelligent quoting in our
replies (mailman would do that, as would almost any other list server I
can think of).

_Please_ don't modify a person's email address when you send us email
(i.e., if your email address is Gary.Rush@someisp.com, then don't tell
me erroneously that it's groupfacilitation@iaf-forum.org).

If you want a Web-based archive of results, _please_ find a system that
can sweep in email discussions and thread them for Web viewing. The
ancient learning-org list had that, and it worked successfully for
years. Most other mailing lists I'm on have that.

If you don't know where to turn and if money is scarce (that's not
something to be ashamed of), check out the free Nabble
(http://www.nabble.com/). GRP-FACL could have been added to Nabble,
and that might have made a useful enhancement.

For those I know who pay for Internet connections by the minute,
_please_ return to a system where our configurations can be managed
automatically by email.

If you're going to modify the system on which our former community was
based, _please_ practice good facilitation practices and involve us in
the decision before you make key decisions. Opening up a beta is fine,
but tell us you're fundamentally changing the architecture in ways that
many will find challenging, at best, and you want _everyone_ to consider
participating. I saw the early beta announcement, I think, but I
figured it was just to verify that you had configured mailman or some
other system similarly to the way Sandy had configured listserv, and I
figured it was hard to go wrong there if you simply accepted the
defaults. I was wrong.

Because of the problems this has made and has the potential to make with
BBDB, I will go into the forum today to cancel any email that I might
get from the group. I will try to check in every few months to see
what's gone on. I wish you success. I'll miss the community. I invite
any of you to keep in touch through email
(bill_harris@facilitatedsystems.com), Twitter
(http://twitter.com/FacilitatedSys), or my blog
(http://facilitatedsystems.com/weblog/).

And thanks to Sandy for the work he did over the years; it now seems to
me as if he contributed more than I even thought he did.

Bill

> -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
> (Please type your reply above this line!!)
>
> You may increase the space between the above lines as needed.
>
> ______________________
> CURRENT MESSAGE FROM: Gary_Rush
>
> Hi Anna,
>
> Yes, it is working.

{more quotation elided}

[Bill_Harris]

... and here's part of a follow-up I sent four days later when my attempt at unsubscribing to email failed:

PS: This email response protocol, too, seems broken. If I put my .sig
file at the end of the message, it won't be posted to the list. If I
put it here, the '-- ' that signifies the end of the message body and
the start of the .sig may cause some MUAs to cut off the ending
delimiter of the section to be posted. Neither seem like a good idea.
What do the RFCs say about that? Maybe my understanding is incorrect.
--
Bill Harris http://facilitatedsystems.com/weblog/
Facilitated Systems Everett, WA 98208 USA
http://facilitatedsystems.com/ phone: +1 425 337-5541
Trying to respond to Chris's message from this morning as a test suggests that you've changed the email response system to work more like a regular mailing list (i.e., you accept anything in return, not just text typed between two markers), and that eliminates my concern expressed in my PS. If that's so, great!

Thanks,

Bill

[Christopher_Haydock]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Sean_Rush <>
Date: October 2, 2008 7:05:22 AM CDT
To: <private-email-address-deleted>
Subject: RE: [Group Facilitation-t-157] Concern for the Community
Reply-To:

IAF Forum Instant Email - Group Facilitation

You may reply to this email to post a reply to the forum.
You can also begin a new thread by sending an email to
Remember to add anywhere in the subject the following :
IAF-Forum-Response
______________________
CURRENT MESSAGE FROM: Sean_Rush

Hello Chris,
...
As for the instructions for IAF-Forum-Response being inadequate, it
would help if you provide more details on what you don't understand
so I can assist you further.



Begin forwarded message:

From: International Association of Facilitators Forum <digests@iaf-forum.org
>
Date: October 1, 2008 12:55:56 PM CDT
To: <private-email-address-deleted>
Subject: Group Facilitation - IAF Daily Digest - 1 October 2008

Group Facilitation - IAF Daily Digest - 1 October 2008
There are 0 new thread(s) and 1 updated thread(s) in the Group
Facilitation Forum.

http://www.iaf-forum.org/forumdisplay.php?f=2 ('http://www.iaf-forum.org/forumdisplay.php?f=2')

++++++++
New Post by: Penny_Walker at: 10-01-2008 03:25 AM

To Reply by email:
Email Subject: [Group Facilitation-t-212] IAF-Forum-Response
Deliberative events
View online: http://www.iaf-forum.org/showthread.php?p=1279#post1279 ('http://www.iaf-forum.org/showthread.php?p=1279#post1279')

Dear Simon and all


Hi Sean,

Thank you for your prompt response.
Now I have both an "IAF Forum Instant Emaill"
and an "IAF Daily Digest" for threads to which
I can reply. (Above I have quoted both
E-mails verbatim for the first 10 or 12 lines.
I pasted these in as E-mail forwards to show
the headers From:, Date:, To:, and Subject:.
Note that I manually removed my E-mail
address from the To: headers so that it doesn't
show up in the body of my post where it is perhaps
more vulnerable to being picked off by spammers.)
It's starting to become clearer how to reply
to a post by E-mail. This post is in fact
being submitted by E-mail, so it's a test
of the reply by E-mail feature.

Cheers,
Chris.

PS: I find the first lines in the body of the Daily Digest
more helpful that those in the Instant Email because
the Daily Digest explicitly gives the "Email Subject:"
line and shows exactly how to include the
IAF-Forum-Response tag in the subject line.
It doesn't matter to me that this tag can be
anywhere in the subject line, that's a programing
detail mainly important to the forum's technicians.


Christopher Haydock, Ph.D.
Applied New Science LLC
+1-612-235-6352 (work)
ChrisHaydockSkype
http://www.linkedin.com/in/chrishaydock ('http://www.linkedin.com/in/chrishaydock')
http://www.appliednewscience.com ('http://www.appliednewscience.com')

[Christopher_Haydock]

Hi again Everyone,
O.K., my E-mail reply test post worked fine and appears just above. This post is being made online. One interesting feature of the E-mail reply process is that the Group Facilitation reply to address groupfacilitation@iaf-forum.org, a.k.a., groupfacilitation at iaf-forum dot org, is stripped out. (I entered the address twice in the previous sentence to test what's stripped out online.) I also note that Sean's address wasn't stripped from his post made earlier today.
Cheers,
Chris.

PS: I'm sorry for all the messages today, but how else are we going to find out if this system is working?

Christopher Haydock, Ph.D.
Applied New Science LLC
+1-612-235-6352 (work)
ChrisHaydockSkype
http://www.linkedin.com/in/chrishaydock
http://www.appliednewscience.com

[Sean_Rush]

If you want to remove your personal email address from showing in a post, simply don't include it in your signature. My email address shows because that's what I show on my signature when I replied. The forum does not insert personal email addresses.

Hi again Everyone,
O.K., my E-mail reply test post worked fine and appears just above. This post is being made online. One interesting feature of the E-mail reply process is that the Group Facilitation reply to address groupfacilitation@iaf-forum.org, a.k.a., groupfacilitation at iaf-forum dot org, is stripped out. (I entered the address twice in the previous sentence to test what's stripped out online.) I also note that Sean's address wasn't stripped from his post made earlier today.
Cheers,
Chris.

PS: I'm sorry for all the messages today, but how else are we going to find out if this system is working?

Christopher Haydock, Ph.D.
Applied New Science LLC
+1-612-235-6352 (work)
ChrisHaydockSkype
http://www.linkedin.com/in/chrishaydock
http://www.appliednewscience.com

[Sean_Rush]

Daily Notification comes once a day. The notifications are sent throughout the day in batches to keep the server from overflowing. Keep in mind, we're talking hundreds of emails for the daily notifications and thousands for the instant. Also, this is a worldwide forum with international members all with different time zones. The only other solution would be to provide the IAF with a faster server which would increase cost significantly.

I'll check with IT to see why you're receiving both the daily digest and the instant notification. Remember, everyone was recently defaulted to daily since the last email installment so, if you turned everything off earlier or changed it to weekly/instant, you'll have to go back and change it again. This won't happen again in the future. The IAF requested we set everyone back to default once things were stable.

But the daily digests go out once a day, depending on whether or not there was a recent post. Last weekend there were no updated posts so no digests were sent out.

In response to your request for anecdotal info, Chris, I did receive an "instant" notification this morning re your post, although my notification type is set to "daily", AND I also received a "daily digest" message as well! Both contained your message, a redundancy I can do without. However, the "daily digest" message did not include Sean's reply since it was posted after the digest message was sent.

Which leads me to observe there doesn't seem to be any consistency in when the digests are sent out. I found the original digest delivery behavior - send them shortly after midnight - to be the most logical in helping me sort through the conversations, so I would like to see a similar behavior in the new system. Also, I'm not sure why I'm getting instant notifications as well as digests.

Just the view from here....

Ramon Tate

[Sean_Rush]

Your post was made before things were stablized. In the future, be sure to include the phrase 'IAF-Forum-Response' anywhere in the subject heading.

As for the search feature, you can search by thread or by post. From what I see, you searched by thread which showed threads that you may have posted in.

Seeing Chris's note this morning (g'morning, Chris!) reminded me that I don't think a posting I made by email ever arrived on the forum, so I'll post it here and then try to remain quiet -- I've likely said enough. I might note, though, that my attempt to turn email off was apparently unsuccessful, as witnessed by my getting your comment today.

BTW, check out the Search feature of the forum: when I search on postings I've made, I don't seem to get pointers to my postings; I get pointers to threads in which I may have made a posting. That's not great, but it's not a problem if there are 2 or 3 responses. If there are pages of responses, though, that's not very helpful.

Anyway, here's the post I tried to make September 19 in response to a claim that email is working:

[Barbara_Streibel]

I emailed a response to Chris's earlier email and it did not make it onto the forum/list. I am now logged into the iaf forum to leave this message. I assume that email response to the forum is not currently working--at least it did not register me email, and I find no record of my email on this list of responses. That's too bad since it puts up another barrier to participation.
Barbara

[Jay_Wisecarver]

I too have failed with email responses in the past so try again.

I believe the tech team members (under Gary's guidance) have been
running and jump best as can to address this and the various
issues.

Mail is moving and some have caught on.

Maybe we could do more reflections on how this change from one
system to the other went - what happened both technically and
what happened with the group/community and the various
perceptions about each step?

Best,

Jay


-----Original Message-----
From: Barbara_Streibel [mailto:]
Sent: Saturday, October 04, 2008 2:30 AM
To: IAF-mail@wisecarver.us
Subject: RE: [Group Facilitation-t-157] Re: Concern for the
Community

IAF Forum Instant Email - Group Facilitation

You may reply to this email to post a reply to the forum.
You can also begin a new thread by sending an email to

Remember to add anywhere in the subject the following :
IAF-Forum-Response
______________________
CURRENT MESSAGE FROM: Barbara_Streibel

I emailed a response to Chris's earlier email and it did not make
it onto the forum/list. I am now logged into the iaf forum to
leave this message. I assume that email response to the forum is
not currently working--at least it did not register me email, and
I find no record of my email on this list of responses. That's
too bad since it puts up another barrier to participation.
Barbara



______________________
PREVIOUS MESSAGE FROM: Christopher_Haydock

Hi Friends,

Today I just read all the messages in this "Concern for the
Community" thread for the first time. That's because the last
E-mail notification I received of any forum activity was back in
July. Back in May and June I invested quite a few hours in
experimenting with the forum Web site, communicating with
administrators, and setting my preference for E-mail
notification. Saturday I received the "Forum Transition
Complete" E-mail from Gary Boettcher and the unsigned "Regarding
Notification Digests" E-mail. I wanted to simply reply to one of
these messages in the old fashion GRP-FACL list serve way, but
alas the messages apparently weren't threads and the instructions
for how to insert "IAF-Forum-Response" into the subject line were
inadequate. As a first iteration towards this goal I went online
and looked for an appropriate thread on which to add a reply. So
here I am responding to the "Concern for the Community" thread.
I've already set my "Edit Forum Subscriptions" pref
erence to "Instant notification by email", so I'm expecting
instant E-mail notification of this post.

I'm really curious to hear confirmation from anyone receiving
E-mail notification of this post.

Cheers,
Chris.

Christopher Haydock, Ph.D.
Applied New Science LLC
+1-612-235-6352
ChrisHaydockSkype
www.linkedin.com/in/chrishaydock
(http://www.linkedin.com/in/chrishaydock) ('http://www.linkedin.com/in/chrishaydock)')
www.appliednewscience.com (http://www.appliednewscience.com) ('http://www.appliednewscience.com)')

______________________
View this thread online:
http://www.iaf-forum.org/showthread.php?t=157 ('http://www.iaf-forum.org/showthread.php?t=157')

To unsubscribe from this forum, please visit this page:
http://www.iaf-forum.org/subscription.php?do=addsubscription&f=2 ('http://www.iaf-forum.org/subscription.php?do=addsubscription&f=2')

[Teresa Michelsen]

I get a few messages as a digest, but only from one thread, apparently. I also have trouble getting onto the forum site - I often get a blank page. If I spend a fair amount of time nagivating around, I'll eventually come to a page that comes up for me (sometimes I have to go back to the original digest e-mail and click on various links until one works).

I am using Mozilla, but so is something like a third of the population. I'll never go back to IE, because it's too big of a security risk for my home business computer.

So, between not really getting most of the messages in my e-mail and having trouble with the forum site, it's likely I'll only participate once in a while, when my threshold for dealing with computer issues is overcome. - Teresa

[Simon_Wilson]

Hi Teresa

Sorry to hear you are having difficulties with the site. It's not Mozilla, though, as I use it and have none of the difficulties you describe. Not sure what any other technical issues may be but it's not Internet Explorer domination!

All best wishes

Simon

[J_LaTrobe]

for me this feels like a massive flip chart in the middle of the internet. It doesn't feel very cosy out here and the bright lights obscure the audience.

[Andi_Roberts]

It's not Mozilla, though, as I use it and have none of the difficulties you describe.

All of my posts have been done with various versions of Firefox 2 or 3 and I have had no connecting, editing or speed of access problems at any time.

It could just be the internat Gremlins or something like that :mad:

Regards from Spain, Andi

Andi Roberts MBA
Freelance (Spanish/English) Facilitator-Coach-Trainer
Facilitation & Training : MasterFacilitator.com (http://www.masterfacilitator.com/)
Coaching : AndiRoberts.com (http://www.andiroberts.com/)
TEL: +34 628 897 362 Skype: andiroberts

[Ned_Ruete]

FROM: Jon_Jenkins


I continue to be concerned with the community.

Jon, does the old GRP-FACL email list still exist? I am starting to feel
more content with this community now that I get every post from every thread
in my regular email inbox. The instructions on how to do that are not all
that difficult to follow. A few things are different: I can't reply to an
individual instead of the forum without going to the forum and sending a
message that way, and I have to remember to move the phrase about "reply" to
the subject line.

Could we email the instructions on how to make this community "a lot like"
GRP-FACL to everyone who used to be subscribed?

Best,
Ned

[Sally_Murfitt]

I can't speak for the rest of the community but the disconnect since the introduction of this new facility has a profound effect on my willingness and ability to contribute.

I get the impression that many messages are just posted here and don't come through on the Daily digest - which means I have to log on to keep track of conversations.

and - believe me - logging on has been an interesting experience until recently!

There is also - to be blunt - now a plethora of social media going on. I Twitter, I facebook, I Yammer (an organisational equivalent to Twitter) I blog. Keeping all these networks "warm" is becoming a full time job and, to be honest, unless it is made relatively easy for me - it falls by the wayside

which would be a shame in this instance because facilitation is still my passion. It's the area I want to learn more about and grow in.

It is the area in which I would like to become employed but I've been looking for opportunities for YEARS and found nothing yet.

So I will struggle on and I will enjoy conversing with as many of you as I can, but it may not be as full or frequent as in the past