Mary- I agree with you 100%!
Pelle- in my head there are 2 priorities which Mary has spelt out- and I would ask that Nabuur gives us an indication that these things can occur in the short-term:
1- lets clearly mark those villages which are active, inactive, or just started (this shold be reviewed at least monthly)
2- set up one task in each NEW village where people can drop in their ideas and give the LR some time to figure out what the best options are for his/her project OR if in fact Nabuur is the right platform for his village. This will also give them a taste of the level of committment which is required of them.

To gain committment from new nighbours we need to make it very simple for them to find a task and get working.

Hi all,

Thanks for thinking along!

Carolyn, Mary - I mostly agree... I'm not in favour of featuring inactive villages though. I do agree that it should be made clear when a village is inactive, I see no need for advertising that across the site.

Mary wrote:
For each of these villages, set up a project called something like "Welcome to [village name]"....
That's exactly what I had in mind. Romina and I have written up a standard project that we'll add to those Villages without one. And I've asked Frans to make sure that new Villages that start have this project added as well.

There should be an automatic process for tracking activity and highlighting issues, so that they can be followed up.
I'm not sure what you mean with an automatic process for highlighting issues?

A village where the LR is never online and is no longer interested in Nabuur should be clearly marked as inactive (I think it should be made invisible but I know you disagree).
At least we agree on clearly marking them :-) Over the last few years I've noticed that quite a few Local Reps who seem 'inactive' benefit from having their Village on NABUUR; as a means to connect to volunteers, have an online presence etc. It's quite hard to find out if a Local Rep is no longer interested in NABUUR or just enjoying the benefits from having his village online. I see no harm in that, as long as it doesn't distract from the active villages (as is the case now).

A village that is currently inactive but which still has a LR who wants to continue should receive assistance in getting up and running again just as a new village would. This could be done by staff or by volunteers. It may be that the LR needs advice on using the site, the village needs a new facilitator, help with project definition, highlighting in a news item etc.

For this purpose the facilitator group has been put up again, the Local Rep group is back, there's a meeting place for new Local Reps and over the last months Romina has been working together with a number of facs/neighbours to define projects for Villages. Not all successfully right away, though. I know Ron Stafford has offered to lead a project management team on NABUUR.

I will be traveling to Uganda next month. One of the purposes of this visit is to set up a network of Ugandan Local Reps, so that they can help each other, learn from each others projects etc. More about that later. Romina is finding out if the Leading LRs that were around two years ago, are interested in taking up a role again.

My main frustration is that I don't know whether there are plans to do any of this, or whether Nabuur staff does not see this as an important issue. I think it is one of the things that is leading to lack of motivation among more experienced neighbours, and is making it difficult for new neighbours to get involved. Please can you tell us what Nabuur thinks about the issue and what will be done?

I've addressed a number of issues above. Concerning new neighbours: Rolf and Romina are working on getting an expert in 'online engagement' on board, in order to further develop our engagement strategy (what does NABUUR have to offer for which kind of neighbours, how are neighbours attracted to get more and more involved)

Villages Overview see beginning of post

Links - please can you explain how a link ends up on the Resources page - some links posted in discussion do, others don't. It's my understanding that ALL links should show there. I'll check that, but would also like to hear any alternatives you have in mind.

I saw your task about the guidance for new neighbours too - think its a good idea and will add any thoughts I have when I get a chance. - Thanks

Pelle

Hi Raul,

I consider changing the homepage quite a big job, which I'd like to take up in a more structured manner.

Over the last few months we've been working together with Communicopia, a Canadian firm, on the site structure and a number of wireframes. I'm now looking for a designer to help us develop and implement a new design, that includes a clear distinction between Villages and projects (Connect & Collaborate).
The engagement strategy that I mentioned in my other post is important input for this design process.
More info on this soon...

Re - rounded corners: that's a matter of personal preference.

In the meantime there are of course a lot of improvements that can be made - you mentioned Views tabs, utilizing views better, FAQ module, improving the My NABUUR page...

I'll ask Frans to set up a dev domain for you.

Pelle

Hi Pelle

Thanks for the information, I guess I have raised all the concerns I have, said what I think about the current situation, and will wait and see if the new ideas and site changes solve the main issues or not....

On the subject of Links - I am not convinced they do all get added. It would be good if there was a simple way for a village facliltator or LR to remove them from Resources if they are not relevant.

Mary

Hi Pelle,

I'm not suggesting I'd be designing a homepage, just an example of some views that you can use to give a better overview of the activity for anyone logging in. What I could do without taking too much time (which unfortunately do not have a lot for now) is show you this in a mock homepage.

Let me know if that would work for you.

Raul

Sure, it will be good to see what you come up with... after all some of the ideas are hard to explain via text only & work out different than expected sometimes. :-)

Will ask Frans to put up a development site for you. This may take a few days as you'll be one of the first to use the new development database that Kester is working on.

Pelle

Hi Pelle,

That sounds good.

I will await further instructions.

Raul

Hi Pelle- everytime I hit the MORE button in the box NEW VILLAGES AND GROUPS (on My NabuurO I get a Page Not Found error message.
Not sure if anyone else has reported this...

Hi Carolyn,

That's definitely a bug... and I think it's been reported before.
I'm not sure if it can be fixed easily, I'll remove the link until it's fixed.

Pelle

Hmm... I would have thought that was easier.
Will have a closer look tomorrow.

Pelle

Hi Pelle,

Thanks a lot for the explanations.

Nice to see that you set up a new task to discuss how to get involved new neighbours. I will join as soon as I get a chance.

Villages - I am happy to see that we all agree that villages should be divided or marked somehow. If you wouldn't like to mark inactive villages as "inactive" or "stalled", how about to group them as "villages" and then to group active villages in "most active villages" group or something like that? And then to group new villages that still don't have a project described or any activity as "new villages"?

I think that Mary actually meant that villages that were inactive but now want to start again (LR and the community are ready to continue or to start a new project) should be featured to help them move?

I am glad that new LRs are very skilled and available to run their projects. I must admit I am rather curious to see how they will go without enough facilitators.

Resources - I would be ok with this system if it would allow me to add or remove resources without tagging and untagging. This system also makes it messy and I can't reorganize resources - to put together those that should go together. Rating system makes the things worse, since I have no control who, when and how will rate a posting with a resource.
Another problem is with links - I don't know about a way to add or remove them even with tagging - how do I remove a link from Resource section?
Also, when I go to Search tab to look for general nabuur resources I just find tens of postings tagged as resource that contain nothing but for me irrelevant discussion from some of other villages. Which means I will have a look at several of them, find almost nothing useful and give up.

Results - I would like the others to give thier opinion too. I really believe that results are inspiring and they should be all together at one (visible) place. It can be another tab, or maybe just to put them somewhere in a box on home page, where most recent result(s) can be listed (or better described with a photo or so), with a link for reading more? I think that these stories don't have to be separated from developement stories if it is easier, but just to be collected at one place as results achieved on Nabuur, and still can be included in developement stories too if you prefer it that way?

Sonja

Hi Sonja

"I think that Mary actually meant that villages that were inactive but now want to start again (LR and the community are ready to continue or to start a new project) should be featured to help them move?"

Yes that is exactly what I meant! I was certainly not suggesting that we should ever try and force an incactive village to get going again. But that if a LR wants to get his village active again, he should be given assistance and encouragement to do so. And that Nabuur should make this clear to LRs.

Mary

Hi Pelle

I know that village facilitators get email notifications of new neighbours who join their village. Do Local Reps get these notifications too?

Mary

Yes, the Local Rep and fac(s) of the village get the same email.

Pelle

Hi Sonja,

Re: Villages - I agree with marking inactive villages, but wouldn't want to promote them. Frans and myself are looking into an improved Villages page right now, showing the active villages... and also a list of new ones. (Based on the feedback here)
Next to that we want to bring back the 'geographical browsing' (clicking a country directly)

"I think that Mary actually meant that villages that were inactive but now want to start again (LR and the community are ready to continue or to start a new project) should be featured to help them move?"
At the moment these Local Reps contact Romina and ask for a new facilitator (if none is there), but of course you're never sure if everybody knows to find that way.
What about using the status 'needs urgent help' to highlight them? (would probably also involve fac or staff help)
The project definition needs to get shape, so that there's a more structured approach to get the villages on their feet again. I think this would also help the facs of those villages.

Resources - noted. I'm looking into the links. Sorry to see that the way resources were thought to work doesn't seem to work out as expected. I haven't been able to come up with an easy alternative... What ideas do you have?

Results - looking forward to the thoughts of others too :-)

Pelle