Hi to all Gem emailers,
Another plea to keep, as Martin has said so well, the best of both worlds 
(GEM email list and discussion forum).
Rae Sheridan
Brisbane
Australia
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Martin Bazley" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, April 19, 2006 5:30 PM
Subject: Re: Discussion Forum -GEM list vs web-based forum


Hello Pam/all
We already have the best of both worlds (email
list and discussion forum) with the GEM
list.  You can do all the things Pam mentions
below by going to the list's web page:

http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/gem.html
(There used to be a link to this from the GEM
website - it might be useful to put it back
on.  Or incorporate it into the GEM site)

Messages can be sorted by
Author,
Date (from 1998 to the present) and of course
Topic.

You can also set various options, including how you receive messages:
-  no mail at all for a while (useful when you
are going on holiday - see below)
-  a digest once a day or once a week, or
-  an index, which lists the headers and lets you
download the messages you want (designed for those on slow connections)

There are lots of choices available but apart
from suspending mail, joining or leaving the
list, almost no one on the GEM list ever bothers
changing any settings at all .  Most people
prefer to have the messages simply ping into
their inbox in 'real time', to read immediately, save or delete.

Web-based forums work best for much larger, more
transient 'communities' (BBC programme-related
forums for example) or for niche topics like
holiday review forums, on which (almost) nobody
would want to be continually informed, but which
yield extremely useful information via Google
queries - such as which part of a hotel to stay
in to avoid excessive traffic noise, for
example:  I have just returned from a (very peaceful) holiday in Morocco.

I think this is one reason for the small take up
for the job ads on the GEM website.  Why pay £100
to get an ad for a museum education job on a
website that only a few people look at each day,
when you could simply send the whole ad to 1000
museum educators instantly for free, some of whom
will forward the message on immediately to other lists or contacts?

Incidentally, having just looked at the GEM
website,  I also question the thinking behind the
proposal to restrict GEM News, notes from
training days etc to a Members only area.  Having
to enter a username and password would put me off
flicking back through past copies of GEM News,
JEM etc online, rather than encourage me to do
so. In any case, why restrict access? Shouldn't
GEM be aiming wider than its own membership
anyway, in spreading best practice notes,
etc?  Currently, Google searches probably
constitute the largest source of new visitors to
the GEM site.  This would cease if this policy
were implemented.  I would be interested to hear others' views on this 
point.

Re the GEM list again:
The earliest message on the GEM list archives is
from Roland Jackson in Sep 1998,  on "Museum
Education Service Performance Indicators".  11
messages were posted on this topic within the
next day or so.  This simply would not happen if
the list was a 'forum' as envisaged in the
review.  You need a large no of people to receive
messages (a 'critical mass') and the connection
must be immediate, to sustain such
exchanges.  There are just over 1000 people
subscribed to the GEM list at the moment.  This
number has risen steadily over the last few
years.  Imagine how long it would take to get
1000 people to subscribe to a new web-based forum!

There were some fascinating ideas and projects
flying around at the recent Museums and the Web
conference in New Mexico, including social
software/Web 2.0 stuff, and as Bridget suggests,
it would be interesting if those who have the
time to do so were to consider how recent
developments might be invoked to enhance GEM's
web offer.  Certainly a wiki could be really
effective, though time consuming to set up and
moderate - but this would in any case perform a
different function: in my view there is still
nothing around that works better as a discussion list, than a discussion 
list!

Thanks, Nicola, for initiating this enquiry.  I
too noticed the reference in the review summary
to discontinuing the GEM list, but assumed that
this poorly reasoned idea would die a natural
death.  Hopefully, it has now been harpooned instead.

The GEM list has provided an extremely useful
forum for our museum education community for nearly 10 years.  Why change 
it?

Martin

---
Martin Bazley
GEM list owner


PS When going on holiday, just send an email to
[log in to unmask] with this in the body
(the message bit not the subject):


SET GEM NOMAIL


When you get back, all tanned and exhausted, just
send this message to set messages flowing again:

SET GEM MAIL

To review messages you may have missed out on, use the list homepage:

http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/gem.html

If you ever want to know who is subscribed to the GEM list just use:

REVIEW GEM


Lots more information on other commands etc, via the main JISCMAIL page.




At 19:12 18/04/2006, Pam Walker wrote:

>I'm a bit wary of going against the consensus so far but do people use any 
>other discussion forums?
>
>I regularly view and contribute to discussion forums from other groups and 
>organisations. (I store them on favourites so it is only one click to get 
>to the home page with current topics on).
>
>The advantages of a discussion forum over the present e-mail list include 
>being able to separate dicussions into different threads or topics which 
>makes it easier to access those that are of most interest and ignore those 
>which are not relevant, instead of having to open tens and tens of e-mails 
>to read what they are about and then deleting them.
>
>Another advantage is that they are as immediate as e-mails as you can 
>respond to a topic or question straightaway, but I think the real advantage 
>is that a forum is like a conversation and everyone can take part and 
>everyone can read the answers/comments and then continue the discussion. 
>There is much more of a progression of topics and the information is 
>available to everyone.
>
>With the e-mail list we can read a question but then it is up to the person 
>who sent the original e-mail to decide if they will share the answers.
>
>A discussion forum will have members and private e-mails can still be sent 
>if there are personal details that need to be shared.
>
>Discussion forums are the way forward in my opinion and are much the best 
>way of disseminating information to a wider audience.
>
>Pam Walker
>
>Who?What?When?


---
Martin Bazley
ICT4Learning
15 Margin Drive
Wimbledon
SW19 5HA
07803 580 727

www.ICT4Learning.com