Lynn, surprise, surprise – I expected getting flamed, but I thought it would at least kick things off again. My only other idea is *APATHY* (see below).“Few And Far BetweenMany local authorities and other public bodies shy away from placing open public discussion forums on their web sites for fear that they receive inappropriate, obscene or biased messages. However, new research due to be published next month will show that such fears appear to be misguided, and the main problem with such forums is APATHY: a failure to keep them up-to-date and stimulate activity on the part of the council, and a failure to post on the part of the public. For the first time this year, the local government Society of IT Management (Socitm) 'Better Connected' review of every single UK council web site - to be published in March - looked to see whether sites featured an open public discussion forum. To qualify, the forum had to be part of the council's main public-facing web site, or part of a well signposted sub-site which was clearly maintained or supported by the council. Forums had to be open to anyone to post, not simply to staff or to a certain group such as an e-panel of citizens, and the results needed to be on view for anyone to see. Simple online consultation forms or consultation documents did not count. Before the exercise began, the reviewers estimated that around a quarter of web sites would feature some kind of bulletin board or forum for discussing local issues, but in fact far fewer have ventured into this territory to date. In fact, just 11 per cent of council web sites - 50 councils - featured some kind of online discussion forum. Of these, most (70 per cent, or 35 sites) were general forums, where any topic could be discussed. The remaining 30 per cent (15 sites) were specialised forums including ones covering youth issues, environmental issues and arts and libraries. Most forums required some kind of registration to post, and in 62 per cent of cases it was easy to understand how to do this. This is not bad, although it does show that in more than a third of cases it was not immediately clear how to register and post, a poor usability rating overall. Even more alarming however was that most discussion forums are dead or relatively inactive: just 12 forums found had two or more messages posted within the two weeks preceding the review date, which was mid-January 2006. Many had received no postings for a year or more. On the positive side, not a single obscene or undesirable posting was found on any of the council forums, despite this reviewer's best endeavours to turn one up. This was despite the fact that only six of the 50 forums found were pre-moderated, in other words all messages posted to them were vetted before they were approved for publication. Most of the other forums carried a moderation policy stating they would be monitored regularly for inappropriate content, which would be removed if it appeared. Overall, one of the most impressive examples of best practice with online forums singled out for praise in the new research is Highland Council in Scotland's sub-site entitled 'thinknet'. This really is a superb site, with topics presented from renewable energy to demographic decline with background information papers and photos all leading into an online forum. The site shows what is possible in this area: that as well as online discussion and debate, the web can be used to educate people about the background of a discussion, draw them into it and encourage them to contribute their own views and ideas in a way that can enhance local policy consultation, gain general service feedback and improve local democracy, all at once. It will be interesting to see whether next year, a greater number of councils will be taking advantage of this kind of technology.”
David Johnson ● 7030d