Online Community Love Story Part 2: Onfac Enters..

About this time I ran across the Online Facilitation group. Now, they were not talking message boards and when they were they weren't talking run of the mill parenting message boards. I think I first found one of Nancy White's Facilitips pages. I don't really recall (and definitely don't ask me) how I found it pre-Google, while using AOL. I looked at it and it didn't look like anything that even vaguely resembled what I was dealing with. I, somehow eventually got up the courage to get placed on the listserv. There were a lot of rules as to who could belong and I wasn’t sure I qualified. I joined and was quiet, really quiet, professional lurker. I think I maybe said something once or twice but was seriously intimidated by these professional community facilitators, with signature lines, education and businesses.

I would be able to use something I read on the list to help me find words for something I had figured out or wanted to share. This would be turned into a very TW like story and shared with others trying to build community (who had a tolerance for me…lol.) I from time to time would send someone promising to Nancy White’s site but most didn’t get how that had to do with us.

I have never been sure if it was just because I tend to find relevance wherever I look or whether they just weren’t getting it yet. Or if they were just smart and didn’t want to be the one fighting for everyone else to get it.


AOL, boards, community, yahoogroups, online_facilitation, onfac