I'm looking for pointers to especially good political organization forums. Most politics takes place on blogs these days, which are unmanageable for conversations.

Is anyone here running such a forum? Know of one? Thanks for your help.

We have a customer forum called "Capitol Grilling" that is vibrant and well-managed:

http://www.capitolgrilling.com/cgi-bin/ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=forum&f=1

In our Winter 2002/03 YouMeWe newsletter, the manager of that site gave us an interview that might contain some pointers for you. The newsletter archive is on this page:

http://www.infopop.com/aboutus/newsletters/?newsletter=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.infopop.com%2Faboutus%2Fnewsletters%2Fyoumewe%2Fjanuary2003.html&x=14&y=15

I'm sure we have other political/campaign sites out there, so hopefully some of those community managers will chime in with tips and suggestions.

Thanks for the compliment Rosemary.

Did you get your forum running yet, Bob? I'm interested in seeing it when its done.

Capitol Grilling - The Political Parlor Game
http://www.capitolgrilling.com

Thanks for posting the Capitol Grilling forum. It's pretty darn good.

The forum I'm starting is called the Dean Issues Forum. It'll be a place for Dean supporters and others to explore the Governor's policies, make comments, and suggest enhancements. I'm hoping the official policy team will tune in.

I'm right now recruiting domain-expert moderators, Zero. I have about 18, need 25 to cover the topics, 50 to make sure each one is co-moderated. Of course, we won't wait until we have 50 signed up and trained...that will happen organically.

I estimate that we will turn on the forum for the moderators in about two weeks, then go public one week or 10 days after that. We should be going full force by November.

This is a really fun process. The moderators are going to love one another. What the Dean people will say, I have no idea. But I think they'll like it, right up to the top!

I have a further question.

There are at least three different places where a forum owner interacts with Infopop: web hosting, the UBB.x control panel, and the forum itself. How does one keep track of all of these items? I have the info on three different sheets mailed to me by Infopop. But there aren't buttons on the Infopop website, for example, so that I don't have to memorize all of the different IDs, domain names, passwords, and so forth.

What works for you to make the job easier? This is my one criticism of Infopop's service. A pop-up palette would be so much easier!

quote:

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I have about 18, need 25 to cover the topics, 50 to make sure each one is co-moderated. Of course, we won't wait until we have 50 signed up and trained...that will happen organically.

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Am I understanding correctly that you are planning on having 25 forums?

Sounds a bit excessive although I have no idea about the quantity of content and amount of traffic you are dealing with.

Speaking of Dean and the Internet, you may find this article interesting:

WSJ.com - Behind Dean Surge: A Gang of Bloggers And Webmasters* This article will be available to non-subscribers of the Online Journal for up to seven days after it is e-mailed.

Source

Capitol Grilling - The Political Parlor Game
http://www.capitolgrilling.com

Thanks, Zero. Yes, there are 25 forums, may be 30 by the time we're done. With about 40-45 moderators. Remember, Dean has signed up 450,000 individuals online, all of whom are potential Dean Issues Forum members. So the problem is, how to handle the administrative tasks? The forums will take care of themselves.

Thanks for the pointer to the article. The Dean people are cognizant of the major changes they're promoting in politics; like everyone else, they're learning on the job. Those of us who have been online for 20 or 30 years have a responsibility to help them weather the experience -- but we accept some major challenges in return!

Hi Bob:

Finding suitable moderators is a challenging yet rewarding task. Once that's done, you can create numerous security groups within UBB.x that can afford your moderators certain rights without giving them the Administrator flag (which, as you may know, gives them the same powers that you have, including the ability to remove your Administrator flag). With eve these permissions will be even more granular.

You might get something out of our YouMeWe community management newsletters too; you can find all of our newsletters here. The Fall 2002 issue had an article about choosing moderators that might give you a couple of ideas, though it sounds like you're quite knowledgable already.

Cheers,
Kimberly

--
Kimberly Quan
Business Affairs

Bob,

Don't forget to post the url when the site is opened to the public...

You bet. We're debugging the moderators at the moment. About 10 days, for Howard Dean's birthday present.

Some scoop we got at CG regarding Dean. Thought it would be of interest:


CA Teachers Union to Endorse Dean

10.24.2003

While the AP is already reporting that Howard Dean will be getting his first union endorsement next week from the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades, there is also buzz that the California Teachers Association, with over 300,000 members, will endorse Dean as early as this weekend. This would be a big boost to Dean's candidacy as he pleaded with labor leaders in August and September to hold off endorsing his opponents until the beginning of October, so as to prove his own electability. These endorsements then would indicate major erosion in Dick Gephardt's assumed strength among organized labor.

http://www.capitolgrilling.com

That's heady stuff. I forwarded the note to Dean's Outreach Director, Zephyr Teachout, to see what she thinks. I may hear back, I may not; it's the weekend. Thanks for the heads up.

The Dean Issues Forum is now fully staffed (about 38 moderators) and ready to go. Our expected "go live" is ten days from today. Stay tuned!

BTW: Kimberly, thanks for the tip. Exactly where can I get the best help/support regarding Security Groups? I can't quite divine how they work from the published materials in hand.

My pleasure, Bob. If you post a ticket, our customer experience team can help you with specific questions. The admin guide is as far as the published documentation goes on that.

Cheers,
KQ

--
Kimberly Quan
Business Affairs

Hey Bob,

Just checked out your forums (got the url from your profile since you didn't provide one).

I have some feedback and comments which may or may not be helpful:

Your registration requirements may end up costing you some traffic. Particularly the following:

1. The COPPA requirement: By itself it isn't a problem, but providing a DOB along with a valid e-mail address and Real Name is perhaps more than most would entrust any site with short of an e-commerce site with SSL certificates.

2. Real Name Requirement: I can't figure out what the purpose of this requirement is? Leaving aside that most anyone can get around it by providing a fake name (therefore, I don't think its very effective in fighting disruptors, if that is the intent), it seems to be a requirement that hurts the interests of the forum, more than serving it. I can think of several reasons why:

1. This isn't the official campaign site. You're not engaging in fundraising on behalf of Dean, or subscribing users to his official newsletter. The Real Name requirement from that perspective is moot. There is no reason to provide it.

2. If the site is meant as a grassroots tool to promote Dean, you are effectively scaring off users of non-democratic stripes who may be interested in discussing or asking about issues of interest. Online grassroots advocacy derives part of its power from the cloak of anonymity that the Internet provides... allowing users, supporters...etc. to leave their shell, explore, debate without fear of repercussions. If they want to do this on your site without any concerns, your are essentially forcing them to lie about their name.

I'll use myself as an example: I am a Libertarian with many political clients. I run a non-partisan site online. I am not going to register my real name in your forum, which would then be spotted by another user or picked up by a search engine, and then potentially construed as an endorsement on my behalf of Dean, or that CG is affiliated with Democrats...etc.

Just my two cents: I would eliminate both the COPPA and real name requirements to boost user involvement (stickiness) in your forum.
E-mail authentication is sufficient to deal with distruptors, spin artists...etc. unless your are really collecting the data for other uses.

I don't know if you are aware of this, but there is capability in the market to obtain mailing addresses' for direct mail campaigns based on the little info you require (DOB and Real Name). Add a zip code to the equation (which can be pulled somewhat accurately by IP) and it becomes a somewhat effective tool for tapping into residential databases.

Dear Zero,

You misconstrue the purpose of the Dean Issues Forum and so make some assumptions that shouldn't really trouble you.

The DIF exists to discuss and recommend policy. Specifically, Dean's policies. There are no ulterior motives. We're not fundraising, we're not registering new Dean supporters, and we're not going to contact members post hoc for some other purpose.

I'm not sure what the acronym COPPA refers to (something to do with personal profiles?). We request a lot of information with the intention of (a) restricting registration and (b) discouraging trolls and moles, who are more prevalent in political circles than almost any other domain.

I'm restricting registration because there are at least 500,000 Dean supporters signed-up online and even if only one percent registered in the first week, we'd be in something of a pickle. The DIF's discourse would become enormously chaotic. New applications would place a huge burden on the new-membership team. And, I'm not a rich guy and as there are no revenues, I have to hold down bandwidth costs.

In short, I'd rather have 500 determined, serious members than 5,000 or 50,000 curiosity seekers or only occasional users (only one-tenth of those who might drop by, just from within Dean circles).

As for using real names specifically: sure, someone can trick the system. (For those who are willfully deceitful, it will out in other ways.) We want to encourage pride of authorship and also build trust. Aliases don't do either. Most people will not employ aliases, I've found, if the rule is otherwise.

As a Libertarian, Zero, there may be another candidate who matters more to you (although I encourage you to check out http://www.switch2dean.com just in case you're in flux). If, however, you want to influence Howard Dean's policies -- maybe, there are no guarantees -- you'll want to be on our forum. The price you'll pay is the disclosure of relevant information. Or you can watch through the window.

Thanks for your good advice that, I know, would be totally apropos in most usual cases. This is just a little bit different.

Bob