Bowling Together

Online Public Engagement
in Policy Deliberation

Stephen Coleman & John Gøtze

> About the report

> Introduction

> Representation, Engagement and Democracy

> Two-Way Governance

> Connected Citizenship

Appropriate Technologies For Online Engagement

> Global Case Studies

> References

> PDF (2.5MB!)

Chapter Four

Appropriate Technologies for Online Engagement

The voice/vote-map we presented in chapter two can also be drawn up for online engagement methods, as shown below:

Various e-models for policy engagement in the voice-vote map

The specific methods on this map are often very new and immature. The software tools tend to be beta-level, but are, however, getting better all the time.

Channels of engagement

A wide range of technologies for online engagement exists - from e-mail (easy-to-use and ubiquitous) to the nuances of avatars. Online interactive spaces allow users to connect and communicate with each other through one or more of the following technological channels:

E-mail (one-to-one)
Instant messaging (one-to-one, few-to-few)
Mailing lists and newsgroups (many-to-many)
Forms (one-to-one and one-to-many) (from guest books to weblogs)
Chat rooms (one-to-one, one-to-many and many-to-many)
Linear/threaded asynchronous bulletin boards (many-to-many)

These 'technologies of connection' (White, 2001) allow people to communicate, give feedback, ask questions, complain, exchange information, and build relationships.

E-mail

It is argued that e-mail is fundamental, the 'king' of applications. However, a number of interesting new communication tools are developing as contenders to this throne. Today's users demand 'presence management' (active buddy list; 'back in 20 minutes' facility), 'transparent interoperability' (gadgets that inter-communicate), convergence (e-mail via mobile phone), and real-time routing of information (receipt of important items, filtering of other data for later or to someone else).

Instant messaging

Instant messaging (IM) has outgrown its roots as a cute toy and teenage phenomenon. It is becoming a serious productivity aid for dispersed work groups, customer services, and real-time interaction within and between companies.

The Jabber Foundation (www.jabber.org) has developed an IM system focused on privacy, security, ease of use, access from anywhere from any device, and interoperability with IM, phone, and web-based services.

The developments are at the intersection of XML, presence, and real-time messaging. Its open source technology framework facilitates freedom of communication among people, applications, and systems across all platforms. A support web site offers commercial support, custom application development, hosting services, and industrial-strength Jabber servers.

Mailing lists and newsgroups

Internet mailing lists and newsgroups are some of the most stable technologies on the internet. Basically, these technologies have not changed for the past 10 years. Standards were high then and have been maintained.

The e-mail list management software called ListServ developed by Thomas in 1986 is the leading brand in the mailing list world. ListServ is a commercial product, but is free for small sites. There are a number of alternatives, among them Majordomo, a community-supported free software, Mailman, a GNU mailing list manager, and Lyris, another commercial system. These tools deliver millions of messages to millions of internet users every day. One of the biggest problems with mailing lists is the weak web-integration and the lack of open metadata standards.

UseNet, which originated in 1979, was the first world-wide distributed discussion system. It consists of a set of 'newsgroups' with names that are classified hierarchically by subject. There are many politically oriented groups, and a lot of heated discussions but, it is only used by a fairly small minority of internet users. One of the major problems with UseNet is that it functions best with a dedicated newsreader application. This application is in fact built into most modern e-mail/web-tools, but only a few users actually use it. Google, the search engine, has recently started offering a web-based way to read and post messages on UseNet through its Google Groups. Google has indexed more than 650 million messages posted on UseNet since 1995. It is impossible to say how many messages were posted before 1995.

Forms

On the web, forms of various kinds are a key technology. The usage ranges from petitions to structured surveys to web-based e-mail and publishing systems. The technology used to create forms on web pages is extremely simple and can be learned by any hobby web programmer. What to do with the stuff people fill in on these forms is another matter. Often, the form just sends away an e-mail, or saves the form entries in a database to be dealt with later, or saves the entries directly on the web as in a guest book-type of web page, or even as a contribution to a web-based discussion (see below).

One of the key problems with forms is the 'usability' or rather, the lack of. Although much can be said in favour of desktop applications like Microsoft Word, a standard web-based form has not yet even reached the WYSIWYG ('what you see is what you get') stage. The web technology does exist, but only in proprietary systems, which limits its use.

Chat rooms

Often dismissed as a trivial interaction designed for teens chatting with each other or with celebrities, chat rooms offer some unique online interaction features. They can be a useful tool, especially if used in combination with asynchronous conferencing. The advantage is that it is possible to gather and interact with a group for a very low cost. The disadvantages are many, however. Chat rooms are slow and often chaotic.

Bulletin boards

The web-based conversation spaces known as bulletin boards, online forums or conferences rely on a variety of software applications that provide linear or threaded asynchronous communications capabilities. Linear software presents posts in chronological order one after the other and is best for more conversational and relationship building interactions. Threaded applications allow specific responses to specific posts, splitting off sub threads as needed and are often used for distance learning and Q&A applications.

The most comprehensive guide to software for conferencing on the web is Woolley's thinkofit.com. There are many good tools on the market, but there are some problems to overcome. For example, users often demand features that they have seen on another site, but, if too many features are offered, less experienced users get lost.

IT for all - beyond access

Beyond traditional concerns about the digital divide and the democratic importance of universal access to the internet, there are several key issues to consider about making digital technologies people-friendly.

Accessibility

When designing online engagement exercises, it is important for designers to give full attention to accessibility issues. Since such problems come in various shapes - ranging from 'the digital divide' to 'design for all' - the practical problem is basically one of setting levels for 'acceptable losses', i.e. accepting that one cannot include everyone, but also that one will run into problems if there is any deliberate exclusion of certain groups - say, the visually impaired.

There are good, general accessibility guidelines for web sites at W3.org/WAI, World Wide Web Consortiums Web Accessibility Initiative. Some countries have formal guidelines or rules (and sometimes even legislation, such as '508' in US) on accessibility of governmental web sites.

Usability

Usability gurus like Nielsen of useit.com have long argued that a usable web is the key to success. Their concern has mainly been e-commerce, but their knowledge goes further. Story at webreview.com asks a number of central usability questions one should consider when designing any kind of web site:

Is it efficient?

Can tasks be performed with keyboard strokes? (Important for power users.)

Does the site reflect a clear understanding of how users do their work?

Are response times fast enough to keep users in a flow state?

Is it intuitive?

Does it take advantage of users' mental models?

Does it behave consistently throughout?

Is it visually consistent?

Is it supportive?

Does it allow mistakes to be easily undone?

Does it provide advice/ tools/reference materials?

Is it engaging?

Do users feel in control?

Do users enjoy their experience?

Engagement designers must consider to what extent the deliberative element should be applied in online exercises. Powazek (2001) talks about 'burying the post button', i.e. designing the community space so that people must first read stuff they want to comment on before they can post the comment.

Practically all successful online engagement exercises have been concerned with usability issues - very early in the engagement design process some kind of user involvement has been initiated and online environments have been tested and re-engineered through focus groups and user tests.

Reliability

The main reliability challenge in online engagement exercises is political rather than technical. The participants want to know what the result of the exercise will be - how their voices will be heard. The facilitator must be seen as a reliable, non-partisan source of legitimacy to the whole process. In most cases there will be no need to use more advanced technical measures such as digital signatures and certificates. But there can be situations where safeguarding the integrity of participants requires stronger measures.

Security

As with any kind of online activity these days, security is an issue. There is a constant flow of new threats, such as vira, worms and hackers. The risk of getting hit by whatever kind of attack varies to some extent, but is actually quite high for everyone, as there is a growing number of vira, worms and hackers and they tend not to discriminate between their 'victims'. However, almost all the recent vira and worms attack only Microsoft-based systems.

The risk of more deliberate attacks - from terrorism to simple criminality - is also always present. Some policy deliberations will probably be prone to more than the average attack, i.e., be the subject of political activism of various kinds, so such activities should contain a solid security-oriented quality control. This control should ask questions such as:

Does the technology platform used have a documented security statement, or 'guarantee'?
If using standard software packages, does the platform use the latest, stable version?
If the platform allows users to upload documents, are there virus control mechanisms in action?
If the platform allows users to enter formatted entries (e.g. using HTML-codes), are potentially malicious codes (e.g. <script>-tags etc.) filtered out?

Readability

Readability - plain language - is an important factor. Plain language is a requirement for democratisation, better legal rights and efficiency. Democratisation, because clear texts will make it possible for everyone to understand the content of official documents and to form an opinion. Better legal rights, because it makes it easier to interpret the law. And efficiency, because people, not least all the civil servants, will spend much less time in reading unintelligible documents.

In more interactive engagement exercises, most, if not all, user content will be created online. In web-based exercises, users are asked to make their entries in more or less usable forms. Here, online tools like spell checkers can be offered. In addition, offering layout tools, such as online HTML editors, can contribute to making the debates more readable. The degree to which users should be allowed to lay out their contributions must be considered carefully. Too much variation will clearly be distracting, whereas tools for marking text bold, making lists, etc. can have a positive effect on the readability of contributions.

Current and comprehensive

All engagement exercises have a time line, infinite or finite. It is important to keep the information provided up-to-date all the time. A 'What's New?' page is in general a useful service to that effect.

Ongoing deliberations often bring forth a wealth of new resources, links, publications, stories, etc. All such material should be extracted and provided in a 'resource centre', which can become a valuable knowledge base.

Levels of entry

'One size fits all' is an outdated principle on today's web. Personalisation and customisation are more or less standard components in modern community portals and content management systems. Such features can contribute greatly to the sense of engagement and connectedness.

There can be situations which call for various levels of 'membership'. There can, for example, be reasons for having closed/private conversation areas within or outside public areas.

Push/pull

Related to the above, the users would expect to be able to have good subscription options, so they can get notifications when particular events occur (reply to message; new themes; etc).

The organisers of the exercise will also have an interest in being able to push information out to the users. Having an announcement newsletter, which goes out to all registered users, is often a good idea.

Channels and interoperability

The various channels of engagement are starting to speak to each other, in a technical sense. XML-RPC is a technology used to share resources among web servers, and to let applications access shared resources. XML-RPC supports XML-based remote procedure calls (RPCs), as defined by www.xmlrpc.com. A remote procedure call is a way for one computer to call another computer and have it run commands and return the result to the first computer. XML-RPC uses HTTP as the transport and XML as the encoding. Relatively simple JavaScript functions can process these calls. A number of software vendors have started offering XML-RPC services in their packages. One example is WebCrossing.

An example of how XML-RPC and the like could be used to enable more qualified and informed debates would be to offer news feeds into ongoing debates.

Authentication

'On the internet, nobody knows you're a dog' is a famous saying about the internet. In policy deliberations, there can be situations where participants will prefer to be anonymous. This should not be disallowed but, in general, people should be urged to stand forward. For security reasons, it is often wise to ask people to register. For those who need to be completely anonymous, one might consider having a dedicated area where postings can be made without registration. It is advisable to set up clear rules in advance as to what will be accepted.

Role of intermediaries

We have already discussed the importance of facilitation. Facilitators, moderators and administrators need good tools. Too often, the off-the-shelf packages have limited functionality in that area.

There are a number of basic troubleshooting techniques (inspired by White, 2001):

Working behind the scenes
If a member is violating the guidelines or rules, or other members have expressed concern, you can start by trying to clarify the situation by e-mail. This can save face for the member in question as well as for the host/facilitator.
Working 'live' in front of the community
Some communities value knowing what is going on and may be less trusting of 'behind the scenes' interventions. When working on a problem in front of the community, it may feel as if you are working 'without a net'. The stakes increase as people's reputations are put on the line. If problems are resolved in public, there should be a clear procedure.
Hiding or deleting/erasing posts
When members post something that is against the guidelines (spam, obscenities, personal attacks), the host can either hide or erase posts. Posts with questionable content may be hidden, and linked to with an accompanying warning message. Erasing posts should only be done in extreme circumstances and for clearly stated purposes - to avoid issues of censorship.
Banning
Banning is when a person is denied access to a service, such as a deliberation exercise. People should only be banned according to the stated processes of a deliberation exercise. In private deliberations, this is fairly easy to do. In public communities where members can register with free e-mail addresses, banning an e-mail address is not an effective solution. There are people who have the sole intent of disrupting the process - in online community lingo known as 'shunning'. Often the most effective 'cure' is simply to get everyone else to ignore them.

While tools for solving problematic situations are crucial, tools that improve deliberative processes are also important. There are surprisingly few such tools around, but there is reason to believe that some will come out as spin-offs to tools like Jabber.

Filtering

The amount of information created or provided in an engagement exercise can be overwhelming. The participants - and especially the facilitators - will need tools for managing this information flow. One example is the filtering technologies. There are four kinds of personal tools:

Profile filtering is the most straightforward approach. You describe your interests (by picking from a list or entering keywords) and the software rejects anything that doesn't match. Many news sites have such features.
Collaborative filtering (also called 'social filtering') compares your likes and dislikes to those of other people to predict your preferences.
Psychographic filtering is similar to collaborative filtering, except that it predicts your likes and dislikes based on a 'psychographic profile' derived from a questionnaire.
Adaptive filtering learns as it goes along, by asking you to 'rate' things or by monitoring your clickstream to watch what you do. For instance, Amazon has a service that asks you to check the books you liked and then hit a 'learn' button to fine tune your preferences.

Intelligence filters are still crude. The relevance ranking is immature, leaving out or - more often - leaving in too much. The learning process is cumbersome and slow.

User ratings and polls

One related kind of deliberative information management is to allow users to rate other users' messages. This can be combined with a personal threshold manager, i.e. a system for not showing messages rated as being of little interest by other users. This system has been used at popular community portals such as Slashdot.org.

User engagement can also be created by using standard polls. These can be connected to discussion fora.

Buy or build? Off-the-shelf or Custom-built?

Off-the-shelf packages

There are a variety of 'community-in-a-box' style packages that provide a template community site, for example CommunityZero. Such packages often lack flexibility.

Powazek (2001) defines four kinds of community tools that are available to buy:

Web-based

'There are some really powerful web-based tools to jumpstart a community... These sites enable you to sign up and have some powerful community features at your fingertips in minutes.' (Powazek, 2001) These are usually cost-free.

Open Source

'Another genre of community tools is the open source, shareware, or freeware... These programs are hacked on and perfected by programmers all over the world, using the net to work in concert. Some are aborted first-attempts or worse. The software itself is free - you can download it, tweak it, put it on your server, and use it for absolutely free (some open source projects have conditions, though). What is not included, however, is installation, customisation, support, or maintenance.' (Powazek, 2001) The freeware option does therefore entail hidden costs.

Low-cost tools

Some companies invest time in providing easy-to-install, low-cost programmes with reasonable functionality. 'The leader in this space is Infopop, the creators of one of the bellwethers of community tools, the Ultimate Bulletin Board (UBB). UBB-driven sites are everywhere, from personal homepages to professional sites.' (Powazek, 2001)

Professional softwares

'Prospero Technologies and Web Crossing power some of the biggest community sites online.' (Powazek, 2001) Prospero Technologies run by community software makers Delphi Forums and Well Engaged, runs many newspaper sites, record companies, and CBS and FOX broadcasters. Web Crossing provides software for Salon, CNN, and the New York Times discussion areas.

'Every tool comes with its own set of design constraints.' Powazek (2001) It is advisable to design what you require first, then decide on a tool. If none of the off-the-shelf packages are suitable, it is advisable to build your own software.

Custom-built options

There are many self-build options - for example SourceForge.net, an Open Source collection containing 223 projects in Message Boards, 175 projects in Conferencing, and 436 projects in Chat. All of these projects are Open Source, offering good quality downloadable source code for innovative systems like w-agora, phpBB, and OpenBB.

SourceForge.net offers a free hosting service for software developers wishing to develop using Open Source. This service offers a complete development platform with mailing lists, message forums, task management software, bug tracking, web site hosting, permanent file archival, backups, CVS repository, and web-based administration.

Next generation threads

E-mail messages frequently represent an entire history of a conversation; a single message generates a series of replies, or may be forwarded to new people who might enter the conversation. As conversations progress, it becomes difficult to determine who wrote what and in what message a run of text first appeared.

Hitherto, in plain-text mail messages, prefacing each 'quoted' line of a previous message with the character '>' typically conveyed this information. Each time a message is quoted, another character is added. This solution is imperfect for several reasons:

It conveys only hierarchical information. For example, a line that begins with '>>>' only indicates that the text that follows is a third level reply. While this often implies the message from which the line came, it is not unambiguous.
It proves difficult for users to determine the author of a particular line of text. Typically, the only indication of author is an attribution line above the quoted text, but no standard mechanism for this exists.
Editing to the quoted text should be highlighted - for example by placing asterisks around it. This can adversely impact the line wrapping.
Adding the character (") would require 'hard wrapping' the text to ensure that the character appeared at the beginning of every line. Doing this cleanly creates issues for any message that uses proportional fonts or that does not have fixed line-breaks. For example, centered text would become left aligned. Wrapping positions may seem awkward when proportional fonts are used for display. And when the text is quoted multiple times (as a result of a sequence of replies, for example), lines which are hard-wrapped can overflow onto the next line, resulting in difficult to read messages.

A solution is needed to make following threads simpler. To this end, Microsoft, Qualcomm and Lotus proposed a new e-mail threading standard in 1998.

The proposal, 'HTML Threading' enables user agents (e.g. e-mail programmes) to identify the source message and author for arbitrary runs of text. It also defines conventions that apply distinct visual styles to texts written by different authors.

The overall goals for HTML Threading were:

1. To enable Sending User Agents (SUA) to provide, and Receiving User Agents (RUA) to retrieve, properties of the message from which an arbitrary range of text originated.

2. To enable SUAs to provide, and RUAs to retrieve properties of the author of an arbitrary range of text.

3. To preserve the flow and hierarchy of the conversation thread as message responses build up (including which messages were responses to which messages).

4. To enable SUAs to offer a default presentation for text based on author and/or hierarchy.

5. To enable RUAs to offer special presentation for text based on the hierarchy of the conversation, the author of a run of text, and/or the original message from which text came (e.g. quoted vs. new in the message).

6. To degrade smoothly so that down-level and text-only clients can still distinguish the flow of responses and (implicitly) the author of each range of text.

While HTML in e-mail has spread epidemically, HTML Threading has not broken through.

It's clear what's needed: a standard way (in XML, naturally) of representing threads. After all, threads are of unique importance to the web. They give conversations their persistence. They are the fundamental way those conversations are organised. And they are unique to the new networked world; there's nothing in the real world that matches them precisely. Webzine JOHO (2001)

Message threads - conversations on e-mail lists or in web forums - are one of the most valuable uses of the internet. Yet, the lack of a message thread exchange standard has divided the internet's conversational currents. New technological innovations in this area are a necessity. Innovations have been made, but are not yet implemented - for example the next-generation web technologies such as XML.

An XML-based thread standard would preserve discussion boards and move discussions from one host to another. It would enable the pursuit of conversations across conversational types. Implementing a standard would make it easy to upgrade any instant messaging session or e-mail interchange into any threaded discussion forum. P2P Web Services, (distributed web services among peers) could be used to establish universal, flexible, portable conversations.

The web site www.quicktopic.com offers a solution for when particular threads threaten to overwhelm an e-mail mailing list. Its creator, Yost, aims to simplify movements up and down the conversational chain - for example, providing the facility to expand instant messaging into a full message board. A standard for the interchange of threads would make this possible. Yost has been developing a standard for message thread exchange, tentatively called 'ThreadsML'.

The ThreadsML standard will have the power to save, move or share conversations; aggregate them with other message flows; attach them to any web object, or intelligently archive them for reference ('grassroots knowledge management'). Service providers known to have expressed interest include Jabber, Topica.com, EZBoard.com and Gazm.org.

Current thinking is based on RSS 1.0. Yost has produced dynamic RSS 1.0-feeds from all QuickTopic-threads (by adding '.rss' to any thread, one can get the thread represented in pure RSS 1.0. Example: http://www.quicktopic.com/7/H/rhSrjkWgjnvRq.rss).

For more information about this, go here, here, and here.

Open Groups is a noteworthy project in this field. Its purpose is to aid the search, location, evaluation, and joining of ongoing interactive public groups across the internet through the development of open standards for online groups.

Eventually, a basic standard should be adopted to describe ongoing public online groups, including e-mail lists, web conferences, news groups, chat rooms and other online places where ongoing group interaction and information sharing of a many-to-many nature occurs. (This would not include instant message chats, live online events, specific threads on web conference systems, or non-public groups.) The working group is drafting an XML/RDF-based schema.

Building Communities

Online deliberation involves both citizen-to-government and citizen-to-citizen relationships. Building such relationships and nurturing a congenial communication environment involves the formation of virtual communities. People do not simply go online to deliberate about policy; they go online because they are social animals who like relating to other people.

Axelrod (1984) defines certain requirements for online cooperation. Individuals must be able to meet each other repeatedly, they must be able to recognise each other online, and they must have information about each other's previous behaviour.

Ostrom (1990) outlines design principles for successful communities. The group boundaries must be clearly defined and the rules governing the use of collective goods must match local needs and conditions. Individuals affected by the rules should be able to participate in modifying them and have the right to devise their own rules. There should be a system for monitoring members' behaviour - community members should undertake the monitoring themselves and there should be a graduated system of sanctions. Community members must have access to low-cost conflict resolution mechanisms.

Kim (1998) defines some design principles for community-building:

Define the community's purpose (using a mission statement, a strong site personality and a compelling backstory)
Create extensive gathering places (using an overview or map, including rich communications features and allowing members to extend the environment)
Create evolving member profiles (by communicating the benefits of membership, making profile creation as easy and fun as possible and by keeping profiles up-to-date)
Promote effective leadership & hosting (by building a flexible system and providing online support)
Define a clear-yet-flexible code of conduct
Organise and promote cyclic events (by holding regular, hosted, themed events, and conducting community services)
Provide a range of roles (by offering newcomers a controlled experience, increased privileges to regulars and recruiting leaders from within)
Facilitate member-created subgroups (using features that facilitate small groups)
Integrate with the real world (by celebrating events that reinforce social identity, acknowledging important personal events and encouraging real-life meetings, when appropriate)

To summarise: engagement is a social process involving relationship building, the development of a sense of place and belonging. Micro-content development of community suites can help foster connections and interactivity, and story telling can play a vital role in community interconnection.

The role of technology in online engagement

Successful online engagement is primarily related to social, cultural, and organisational issues; technology is only of secondary importance. It is tempting, therefore, to sideline technological issues. However, technological issues are of fundamental importance to the success of online public engagement.

Building a toolkit for online engagement requires an understanding of how technology can help and hinder engagement and community building. This is essential for managing expectations of the technology and evaluating results. What is it we want to achieve, and how do we use technology to achieve these goals?

Wenger (2001) defines online engagement in terms of communities of practice as opposed to online communities (see ewenger.com). He outlines a number of critical technological issues which are relevant to this discussion.

Rhythm: presence and visibility

Organising time and space is challenging in online environments. A regular rhythm of events and rituals can be used to define the community. Rhythm is especially important for time-limited events, such as a 12-week consultation process. Rhythmic events could include:

Regular 'board meetings' create a sense of routine
Unusual events (such as a chat with a minister) break the routine and create excitement
Milestones with scheduled activities enable participants to plan their engagement
Waves of hot topics create a sense of change, development, and renewal.

The web site can create a sense of communal time by using a communal calendar; reminders about upcoming events; invitations to join in; the use of occasional synchronous events, such as teleconferences, virtual chats and online meetings; and publications of minutes of recent events soon after they happen.

Identities and roles

Every member brings their own personal identity to the community. Participation in the community develops people's personal identity, and commonalities and differences develop between people. Personal portals personalise the experience for each participant. Even simpler systems allow users to customise the way information is presented. Most community systems can recognise a participant from one session to the next and place 'new' flags to guide navigation. A 'front porch' facility (personal publishing space) can strengthen both personal and communal identities.

Community development, maturation and integration

A community evolves over time in terms of how community members unite, how they interact, and how communal knowledge develops. It is crucial to design multiple levels and types of participation - allowing people to have different relationships with the community. Peripheral participation (such as lurking) should be accepted, but is bound to affect community building.

Two-way webbing

'For too long software tools on the web have been about letting the few publish and the many read,' (Dumbill, 2001).

The readable and 'writeable' web - the two-way web - facilitates production as well as consumption of web content. Production of web content has long been a bottle-neck. Key writeable-web technologies, such as WebDAV and online WYSIWYG HTML editors, have emerged but have yet to develop fully.

The rapidly growing area of web publishing known as weblogs, or 'blogs', has existed for around five years, but has recently gained momentum, due to the development of a number of interesting new technologies. Weblogging technologies are used mainly to create rolling pages of frequently updated, chronologically listed links and commentary. Blogging is seen by some as a form of mainstream web entertainment, with its star performers and its popularity ratings. (Events such as the Bloggies strengthen this image.) There is, however, more than entertainment to blogging. Curling describes three types of 'blog' in addition to the standard personal diary format: The Researchers' List of Annotated Resources (e.g., Knickknack Drawer); The Extremely Succinct Pointer Sites (e.g., Doc Searls, ); and the Annotated Journals (e.g., New Media Musings, ).

A weblog can be a personal diary, and can also be used for 'collaborative writing'. Groups of people working on a joint, distributed project can share material and ideas via a weblogged hub site.

A blog is a powerful way of telling stories that refer to, and make sense of, the documents and messages that we create and exchange in our professional and private lives. It is a simply designed and usable storytelling technology that could represent the next wave of grassroots knowledge management implementations. Storytelling and blogs share one common ground: grassroots interaction, a concept promoted by Seely Brown, Dennings, Snowden, and other prominent knowledge management specialists.

Blogging and storytelling are related in the following ways: (Nichani & Rajamanickam, 2001)

Stories are concrete - dealing with specific people, things, events, rather than abstract concepts. Blogs are highly specific. Blog directories include bloghop.com, blogstart.com and http://eatonweb.com.
Stories are temporal - consisting of events unfolding in time. Blogs are continuous and chronological updates of events. Most are updated on a daily basis, or more frequently.
Stories are purposeful - dealing with agents who have goals, obstacles or conflicts and solutions or resolutions. This is true of a typical entry in a blog. www.notsosoft.com
Stories convey understanding because they are told in context. Context conveys emotions, triggers individual and group memories, provides intuition and insights to events. Bloggers establish context over an extended period of time and since their audience is made of regular visitors, context can be implied or can be explicitly hyperlinked to a previous entry.
Stories with the highest appeal are the ones that have a degree of strangeness, yet are plausible, have the perspective of a single protagonist, are told as simply as possible, and are recent and at least partly true. The most widely read blogs have precisely the same qualities. 'Be original be unique. Always comment on links you provide. Tell the readers what to expect and what you think about it. Be observant, that is one of the best ways to find great contents. You are unique just like everyone else. You might see a different perspective altogether. Regular updates are mandatory; daily updates are not'. Shanmugasundraram (2001)
Stories are direct and unfiltered communication of one-to-one and one-to-many. Blogs are also direct. Bloggers are distrustful of established information gatekeepers and are free to communicate directly with their audience.
People use stories to enhance face. Related to face enhancement is Schank's notion of ME-GOALS. People often tell stories to demonstrate something they want to say about themselves (e.g., 'I'm smart', or 'I'm funny', etc.). Not applicable to Blogs.
People tend to hear in a receptive mode rather than in the reactive mode that other forms of communications create. When listening to stories, people absorb what they're hearing instead of concentrating on preparing responses and questions. Blogs by nature are a free flow of personal ideas with no tolerance for hostility. 'The site creator limits and approves membership, they don't need to be defended as intensely as bigger sites, nor do they attract - or permit - posters who abuse others. One obvious payoff is that the flow of ideas is strong, uninterrupted and impressive'. (John Katz, 2001)
Good stories resonate well between the teller and the listener. Their message is universal. Good blogs speak in an original and unique voice, apprehended and comprehended by a wide constituency.
Stories are a good framework for sharing information, meaning and knowledge. Original blogs were similar frameworks for sharing links, commentary and personal thoughts.

Since weblogs are digital and use the web for publishing and distribution, they have a number of advantages over traditional means of storytelling:

More accessible than face-to-face mode
Scale very easily across a large network, thus reaching wider audience
Easily archived and retrieved any number of times
Providing context is much easier with hyperlinks and cross references

Blogger is a leading tool for webloggers, providing a method of automating (and accelerating) the blog publishing process with its free, automated publishing tool. Blogger can be used to send blog postings to an existing web site, or to create a hosted blog. Other weblogging systems exist, such as Greymatter and Movable Type.

Weblogging technology is becoming more and more advanced, offering bookmarklets for one-click publishing; posting via e-mail; display by calendar; multiple categories; built-in comment systems; 'e-mail this entry' features; e-mail notification systems; recently updated lists; FTP files to remote hosts; XML-RPC and/or SOAP interfaces.

Conclusions

- There is not one single online channel called 'the internet' - there are many ways of conducting online discussion and deliberation.

- Beyond access, there are major issues of accessibility, usability and security that online democracy must tackle.

- Encouraging citizens to feel at home online calls for community-building and new ways of developing virtual sociability.

- Many new technological features are now available which could provide new settings for policy deliberations.

Bowling Together: Online Public Engagement in Policy Deliberation by Stephen Coleman & John Gøtze
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... or visit the authors' weblog and join the discussions. You can also email the authors.