Request for Comments The_Network A New Action / Research Network on Community Communication Technology Doug Schuler douglas@scn.org the_network@scn.org draft 0.2; July 28, 1998 This is the first public announcement of an action+research network on the development, study, and advocacy of communication technology that will benefit individuals, communities, and society. Its focus is on free, public technology. The Purpose: The idea is to develop and sustain a to-be-defined research / action network on the idea of community and technology with an emphasis on engaging with the world in addition to studying the world. We envision that this network will help us share ideas, resources, and information; help legitimatize the topics; and develop multiple perspectives. Themes: I suggest that our key themes should be (1) technology (particularly digital communications technology); (2) research + activism. These areas could include policy work, education, participatory design, Internet campaigns, and, even, development of applications, services, systems, or applications; (3) global reach (we potentially have people from several countries in Western Europe and the states; ultimately we would have people from Eastern Europe, Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Oceania, Latin and South America, Canada, etc.); and (4) defining and exploring what it means to work together as a *network*. One question that we'd want to address is what makes our effort a *network* rather than something else and why do we think that the results will be different because of its particular organization? The work of the_network is related to CSCW, netgames, virtual communities, and other "cyber" areas but has distinct differences. The focus of the_network will be public use, design, policy, cultural perspectives, international, and multicultural use of networks. We hope to build synergy between our efforts, combine research and advocacy, concentrate more on the the social than on the technological. Why a Network? We believe that we need to start a network because (1) the institutions that we are associated as they exist do not adequately meet some of our needs for useful research and development; (2) we recognize that individually we can't accomplish everything we want to and that we may be able to accomplish quite a bit more if we form this network. The Principals (all pending): Paolo Barbesino (University of Sussex), Peter van den Besselaar (University of Amsterdam), Fiorella de Cindio (University of Milano), Peter Mambrey (GMD - German National Research Center for Information Technology), Douglas Schuler (The Evergreen State College), Artur Serra (Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya), and Erik Stolterman (University of Umea). We definitely plan to add more people to the network. Part of the role of people in the network will be to assist other people in the network. One of these roles will be in helping to review and co-author papers. A Name: There doesn't appear to be one word or phrase (yet?) that adequately describes what we'd like to accomplish. Some of the concepts we're currently looking at include "society as the client", "community networking in the broad sense", or "computer supported community work." In the meantime we're just calling it "The Network." Current Plans: Discuss ideas over e-mail, discuss in person in Barcelona in July, meet again in Seattle at PDC '98 and CSCW '98 in November. Several of the principals in this effort will be facilitating a PDC/CSCW workshop entitled Computer Support for Community Work: Designing and Building Systems for the "Real World" (http://www.scn.org/ip/commnet/cscw-pdc-workshop.html). I will be giving a tutorial on similar themes at CSCW '98 in seattle (http://www.scn.org/ip/commnet/cscw-tutorial-1998.html). See the ACM and/or CPSR web sites (www.acm.org, www.cpsr.org) for registration and other information. Next Steps: Explore resources that the US National Science Foundation and other organizations have to offer for international work. We also want to begin thinking about a wide range of activities that we may want to promote such as identifying research themes, hosting workshops or conferences, putting up material on the web, putting out a book, etc. We may want to produce to help produce an inventory of community systems and other relevant resources and efforts. We could also explore the idea of preparing a bound "proceedings" of the papers from the PDC / CSCW meeting (is this something that the conference will do?). We could also complete a "network manifesto" for this "virtual institute" at the conference in Seattle. Erik suggested that we send URLs or actual articles that we've written to others on the list so that we can get a sense for what the others are doing. Sending our bios and other personal statements to the list is also a good idea. Organizational Issues: Here are just a few of the many questions that we'd need to address. How do people get involved? How formal or informal should "membership" be? How will we work together as a group? How do we get students involved? How do we fund our work? When and how do we meet? What resources (electronic and otherwise) should we develop? How do we create the network so that people find it useful and not just another chore? (Peter Van den Besselaar suggested that people can sign on to the_network mailing list as "friends" of the network and that they'd become "official" members after they had worked as a volunteer on some number [probably two] of projects. This sounds like a very reasonable way to proceed.) Notes on this draft: This draft was developed by Doug Schuler (douglas@scn.org) based to some degree on discussions with Peter Van den Besselaar and Erik Stolterman (errors, omissions, and ambiguities are my fault -- not theirs!). Please write to me or to the list at the_network@scn.org if you have comments on this request for comments. Thank you!