Collaboration

How volunteer networks organise projects, agree on values, talk in real time and keep a record of what they decide.

• Archiving a community's conversations

  How volunteer networks can preserve their mailing lists, chat logs and wikis: formats that last, the role of web archives, consent and the right to be forgotten, and a simple archiving plan.

• Chat rooms for volunteer networks: when real-time talk helps

  What live chat adds to a volunteer network, from IRC to modern platforms, and how to run a chat room that welcomes newcomers, respects time zones and keeps a usable record.

• Endeavors: how volunteer networks turn ideas into projects

  A practical look at how loose online networks launch and sustain small projects: defining an endeavor, forming a working group, sharing roles, documenting, funding and knowing when to stop.

• Putting shared values into words

  Why volunteer networks benefit from asking members what they value, how to run such an exercise, what psychology says about values, and how to turn answers into working agreements.

• Turning chat into a knowledge base

  Live chat produces answers that vanish as fast as they appear. Methods for harvesting chat into a lasting base of answers, decisions and how-tos, and the wiki habits that keep it useful.