Member Directory, Profiles

Let me Line up with Steve here: Steve wrote:
>> My goal is to encourage peer-to-peer exchange and
>> greater member trust through "who is this" disclosure.

One of the keys to Internet literacy is the behaviour of "joining online
groups." I know from my door to door research that most people do not
join ANY online groups.  In my view the key reason for the failure of
the Internet to produce significant change in our community in the last
10 years is the lack of peer to peer exchange that joining online groups
would make possible.  People don't join lists, and people dont' join
social networks.  There are the keys to developing you personal Internet
Literacy.

Once you become a member of peer to peer networks anything you need to
learn becomes something other people can teach you.  Besides other
members by their interest and communication make you aware of things you
are not familiar with and so they extend your range of interests and
learning. I can't stress strongly enough the importance of online
groups, peer to peer networks of all kinds.

In the area of both social networks and knowledge management there is a
common lesson. When people I know and respect have a personal point of
view, even if I'm not comfortable about it, I will give it
consideration. If I think my friend is wrong or mistaken, I will find a
way to communicate that message, probably privately, to protect my
friends interest. Trust is developed on line primarily by the mutual
experience of people being trustworthy.

Steve makes the point about "who is" disclosure.  In the places I like
to work people normally use their real names. That creates a level of
trust, although it's sometimes abused by people who create false
identities. Social networks all have a "homepage" where the "who is"
information is disclosed. If that detail is missing other users are
often unwilling to engage with that person.

  http://www.ate.co.nz/internet/informationliteracy.html

>> Member Directory

It's my experience that people on lists can always get a full list of
all members, names and email addresses. This information is only
available to "members" and in my own case I often use the full list of
members to see who else is "present" but not participating. For instance
I'm on the Community Informatics List out of the University of
Vancouver.  I last accessed the membership of that list to find our the
addresses of all New Zealand members so that I could write to each of
them on a related but off list topic.

I can appreciate why people might not want this information to be
available. It's a potential source of spam, but unlikely I think.

>>  Profiles

I think I've already dealt with profiles regarding "who is".  On the
internet each of needs to develop a way of communicating who we are to
other people, of talking about ourselves in an open way that is
meaningful and useful to others. This seems to be an easy thing to do,
but it's no so easy to do it well. After two or three years of practice
most people seem to discover a way to do this that works for them. Look
at any social network and see how many almost blank Homepages there are.
When faced with the question "Who are you?" most people in the beginning
have not idea what to say.  That's something we all need to learn. Part
of becoming Internet Literate.

http://www.ryze.com/go/johnsveitch

>> ...how can we encourage cross-community knowledge exchange?

I think the key to encouraging cross-community knowledge exchange is to
demonstrate to businesses, non-profit organisations and governments,
that global engagement is critical to our future. Critical to each of us
as individuals, to each of us as community members, and critical to the
nation as a whole. Social engagement precedes meaningful dialogue. You
can go to the web and get documentation,  usually dry meaningless stuff.
When you get detail on the same topic from someone you know, something
selected for you, and perhaps written for you, there is a much deeper
level of communication.

http://www.ate.co.nz/global/