WiserEarth Area of Focus Stewards
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The 379 Areas of Focus on WiserEarth have been created to provide a comprehensive categorization or taxonomy of all the different areas of activity relating to the environmental and social justice fields. All entities entered into the WiserEarth database (organizations, groups, people, resources, solutions, events, jobs) can be tagged with multiple areas of ...learn more
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Created: Feb 22, 2008
Updated: Oct 19, 2009
Membership: Open
Semi-Private
Topic: Is it OK to create sub-groups to steward the AoF portals?
Posts (1 - 4 of 4)
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Good question. I think there will be a distinction, though there will be overlap. First of all, subgroups for the portals should only be created if there's a demand for them...so I don't expect too many subgroups to be created.
Today I created an "anti-war" group that actually covers a few areas of focus. I imagine many of the aof groups will also cover a few aofs. For example, one might be interested in Water issues in general, not a specific aof above others. When the portals are developed, they will probably look much more differently than its currently presented in the sample template linked below. Adam's design of the portals actually was used for the design of the groups, hence the similarity. Sorry for not explaining that. So the design of an "aof portal" is probably still a ways to go. We'll have to re-analyze what these "portals" will need, now that there are groups. This is a discussion we can have in this aof stewards group. |
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Got that.
I'm also in support of allowing a sub-group to steward several related area of focus portals. However, adding to the need for a good AoF portal template, I think we also need to devise a standardized updating policy and procedure for the portals. This way, although there will be a multitude of groups stewarding the AoF portals, there will be a common procedure to steward the portals. This should reduce confusion and reduce "cluttering" edits to the portals. Another idea I just come up with is to allow for existing groups (beyond this group and the sub-groups) to "adopt" and steward the AoF portals. For example, we have the popular "Permaculture Alliance of California" group and the "Sustanable Gardeners and Farmers" group which could be offered to steward several AoF portals relating to agriculture, land stewardship, etc. This initiative will be well supported by the AoF portal template and the standardized updating policy and procedure. And once we have the ability to "Add" existing groups to the "Related Groups" section, we can link all of the groups that decides to "Adopt" and steward AoF portals within our AoF Stewards group. Consequently, the possibility of overlapping in the stewarding process for an AoF portal between several groups is very likely. This, again, can also be resolved by crafting a good portal template (which would list all stewarding groups) and a standardized updating policy and procedure, plus, by putting the "watchlist" feature to good use (which can be included in the standard procedure). Summarizing, we need three things: 1. A good AoF portal template applied to all 379 AoF portals 2. An editorial policy for the AoF portals (which we will also include in the site-wide editorial policy at http://www.wiserearth.org/article/2f53411279c010564f45c155176f5520/group/aof currently in "draft" status) 3. A standardized procedure to update the AoF portals. Is this too much? Thoughts? |
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I really like the idea of starting to invite some of the groups on WiserEarth to steward specific portals. I think this will be a great way for some of the knowledge out there to start spreading across the community. Initially, it would be great to have some 'anchor stewards' who could help to develop what the Areas of Focus portals could look like. I think this would be a good starting place before starting to apply a new template to all 379 portals.
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As there seems to be a plan to upgrade the AoF portals and accommodate pretty much everything related to stewarding it (http://www.wiserearth.org/article/74e8b37279c057c969dc47f0ee40ac1e), is it OK if we create sub-groups to steward the AoF portals now?... to then have these sub-groups be rendered obsolete when the upgrade is executed. Won't this create unnecessary complexity regarding Areas of Focus?
Some mechanism to transfer the contents, discussions, etc. of these sub-groups to the upgraded AoF portals is thinkable, and then the sub-groups can be deleted to remove clutter. But this seems to be too far ahead for us to discuss now.
So, just to be sure, (policy-wise) is it OK to create sub-groups to steward the AoF portals?