Neighborhood forums guide
From E-Democracy.Org
Minneapolis neighborhood forums
This is the place to draft "how to" text on the development and hosting of neighborhood online discussion and information exchange forums. This shorter document will complement the 60 page Issues Forum guide which contains extensive relevant advice.
Outline:
This guide assumes that you want to start a forum in your neighborhood and you have the time to coordinate and develop volunteer capacity required for a successful forum launch. While it also assumes that your forums will be hosted using GroupServer by a local chapter/steering committee of E-Democracy.Org, these tips will be useful for independent efforts.
[edit] Identify Geographic Bounds
A neighborhood forum can use the official neighborhood boundaries created by a city or be centered based on a place that might cover multiple neighborhoods. Independent forums might get down to a few blocks or connect "neighbors" within spitting distance.
