Has anybody started up a local residents web forum?

[NiceCupOfTea]

I took over and administrated a yahoo mailing list for the town I used to live in, still do in fact, but it is very quiet.

There doesn't seem to be anything for the local area I am in now and we have some issues with a developer wanting to build on local green belt land that might benefit from a place to discuss.

I am happy to set up a new forum / pay for a domain name, but I am wary of putting myself into the firing line, so to speak...

What do we think? Recipe for disaster?

The other thing is, how to publicise?

I have visions of spending a day printing flyers, and another day pushing them through letterboxes. Now I would do this, but I don't want to create problems for myself "on my doorstep"...

[toxgobbler]

NiceCupOfTea said:

I took over and administrated a yahoo mailing list for the town I used to live in, still do in fact, but it is very quiet.

There doesn't seem to be anything for the local area I am in now and we have some issues with a developer wanting to build on local green belt land that might benefit from a place to discuss.

I am happy to set up a new forum / pay for a domain name, but I am wary of putting myself into the firing line, so to speak...

What do we think? Recipe for disaster?

The other thing is, how to publicise?

I have visions of spending a day printing flyers, and another day pushing them through letterboxes. Now I would do this, but I don't want to create problems for myself "on my doorstep"...

Local paper & Supermarkets if approached in the right way could be charitable as it's local interest and local is all the rage, also notes in newsagent windows also work wonders as well as parish magazine & churches. When forum is set up moderate well as any forum these days will be beset by spambots.

[ezi]

Not so much local, but Sheffield has www.sheffieldforum.co.uk and it's brilliant with it's classified's etc, never heard anything to do with "In the firing line" as you speak.

[threesixty]

Try facebook maybe?

On a smaller scale, the management company run a facebook page for the development I live in, its supprisingly busy and useful.

Im not sure if you could scale that up to a whole town, but I think its a bit more current and useful than an e-mail list.

[robodonkey2005]

In the process of doing so, for an apartment development.
Beware the grumblers, for they tend to leave messages far more than the happy folk.....

[HiRich]

Have a search on Google or BBC - there was a piece on local forums about three weeks ago. The highlighted person had exactly the same developer issue you have.

There are several networks of variable quality. Critical mass can be achieved with just a few hundred readers, and it can be a useful service for news, reviews and gossip ) of the good sort - who's moving into that enpty shop, burglars about in certain places).
I suspect it will take time to get running well, have a good plan/vision and look for contributors:

• Local plod providing crime report and useful info
• Get local councillors at least reading. It's a good medium for picking up problems (cheaper and more convenient than surgeries) and for justifying & explaining. Three or four of mine post regularly - explaining their plans on pot holes, picking up specific voter problems.
• Get the MP to write a monthly column (also the other candidates)
• Think of other groups and clubs that can contribute

And remember, if it works, you will probably end up replicating it with several more town forums.

To promote it, I would suggest just some business cards or strips lasered up:

• Issue (Interested in the developer's plans? Want to protest? Then visit.."
• We address

Stick some in friendly forums (pub, barber, local store)
Stick some through letter boxes
Or do those American posters where you can tear off a strip with the key details, and nail these to trees where peopel and dog walkers go.

[ShadownINja]

toxgobbler said:

parish magazine & churches.

Definitely!

[NiceCupOfTea]

Thanks guys, some cracking ideas there. I am in email comms with the Local Safer Neighbourhoods Partnership, and the local Councillors/MP seem quite savvy. There is an area popular for dogwalking nearby with noticeboards so I will look into that, as well as local churches and community centre

In the past I've not had much luck with starting forums as they tend to rely on people signing up and checking back. Plus, I'd be using a free one that are a bit pants really.

I took over one in the place I used to live which was a Yahoo group, so I am tempted to set up this new one the same way. It has the advantage that less computer literate people find "emails" easier to deal with than the web in my experience, and messages will be delivered straight to them rather than them having to check a forum. Of course a forum is preferable to me, but when I suggested a change over to a forum on the last mailing list I ran the general concensus was "no".

I hadn't considered Facebook, and it's a thought, but I'm not sure I want the loss of anonymity that a forum/mailing list prevents...

Keep it coming

[Famous Graham]

Google Groups might be useful?

[NiceCupOfTea]

Famous Graham said:

Google Groups might be useful?

That's just usenet as was isn't it?

Hmmm, need to decide what's going to be most versatile / easy to use / easy to administrate / most anonymous

Forum - easy to administrate, versatile, anonymous, but importantly not so easy to use (especially using a freebie website)

Mailing list - Easy to administrate, easy to use, not so versatile, but email addresses available to all and sundry so potential for spamming and privacy issues...

Google Groups - Not used recently but I suspect the disadvantages of forums combined with a lack of anonymity

Facebook - Easy to use and run, but no privacy and might well end up being overrun with kids! Can't see many of the local older folk signing up to FB

[Famous Graham]

No, that's Google News you're thinking of

Google Groups is similar to Yahoo Groups. ie send mails to a central name which then get mailed out to all receipients, or you can visit them online a la a forum.

[Arese]

NiceCupOfTea said:

Famous Graham said:

Google Groups might be useful?

That's just usenet as was isn't it?

Hmmm, need to decide what's going to be most versatile / easy to use / easy to administrate / most anonymous

Forum - easy to administrate, versatile, anonymous, but importantly not so easy to use (especially using a freebie website)

Mailing list - Easy to administrate, easy to use, not so versatile, but email addresses available to all and sundry so potential for spamming and privacy issues...

Google Groups - Not used recently but I suspect the disadvantages of forums combined with a lack of anonymity

Facebook - Easy to use and run, but no privacy and might well end up being overrun with kids! Can't see many of the local older folk signing up to FB

It's something I've considered doing myself, I just don't think I'd have the time to moderate it.

You could purchase a domain name and hosting for not a lot of cash, and use phpBB or something like that. Most hosting companies even provide scripts to set it up for you, so you can be up and running in a few hours.

Then start sneaking adverts in to pay for it all.

[NiceCupOfTea]

Famous Graham said:

No, that's Google News you're thinking of

Google Groups is similar to Yahoo Groups. ie send mails to a central name which then get mailed out to all receipients, or you can visit them online a la a forum.

Are you sure? I see there is a [e-mail] which is/was a usenet group.

[Famous Graham]

NiceCupOfTea said:

Famous Graham said:

No, that's Google News you're thinking of

Google Groups is similar to Yahoo Groups. ie send mails to a central name which then get mailed out to all receipients, or you can visit them online a la a forum.

Are you sure? I see there is a [e-mail] which is/was a usenet group.

It's possible some usenet groups migrated over to Google Groups, but it certainly doesn't have to be used that way.

[Chrisgr31]

The difficulty is getting to a critical mass. If the community is relatively small you might succeed purely because everyone knows each other and therefore wants to participate. In a large coimmunity you might succeed because the few percentage of people who participate are a significant number purely because theres a lot of people to be a small percentage of. The problem comes with thoise in between, where there is no sense of community as the place is too big for everyone to know each other, but too small for that percentage of people to be large enough to make a difference. If that makes sense!

[NiceCupOfTea]

It makes perfect sense and I fear we are in that middle group