Assignment Zero: Community Roles

Alright, you're here because you read this post about newsvine's foray into collaborative journalism. It's time to get mobilized and figure out how to structure ourselves to meet this challenge. We're going to be working as a large group to investigate and explore "the spread of crowdsourcing and peer production methods across wired society."

So, the first thing we need to figure out is how to structure ourselves. This means picking administrators and creating an organic, functional organization to rise to the challenge. Once we've got that down, the community liason will get in touch with the Assignment Zero people and the fun can begin.

So, here are my thoughts regarding how such a structure would work. Let's figure out our positions first and then pick people to fill those roles. Please deconstruct my proposition here to your hearts' content:

• Community Liason - the "official" figure who serves as Newsvine's public face, speaking for the community and working closely with the Assignment Zero folks. The traits this person will need are: ability to assess and understand the specific challenges of this inter-community collaboration, a diplomatic personality capable of working with all sorts of people, an intuitive understanding of the newsvine community (what we're capable of, how the different groups work, what kind of content newsvine generates, etc).
• One or Two people to delegate responsibilities to various groups. This position(s) works with the community liason in unpacking the "box" of issues AssignmentZero is going to send newsvine, and then gets in touch with specific community members or group leaders who are best-suited to address the issues at hand. Necessary traits: organizational skills, people skills, a thorough knowledge of who does what in this community. You've got to hear a problem and have a name pop into your head of the person best equipped to address it. We're looking for people who spend a lot of time here.
• Task leaders - people willing to accpt responsibility for specific tasks. Once we figure out exactly what kind of things newsvine is going to be expected to provide, and the specific challenges are broken down, we'll need a group of leaders to take charge of the various issues. Traits: strong understanding of a specific subject, ability to nag people to turn stuff in on deadline, willingness to pick up any slack generated by people not coming through with their projects.
• Editor: Typical, run of the mill grammar-checker-and-phrase-polisher. All output from newsvine will pass through the capable hands of this editor on its way out the door. He or she is responsible for making sure that subjects and verbs agree, that there are no embarassing typos, etc. Trait: where are you grammar nazis?
• Fact-Checker: This is crucial and may in fact be the theoretical lynchpin of the entire process. We need someone willing to track down every claim, confirm every source - it's very important that no unsubstantiated claims leave newsvine. The only difference between a citizen journalist and a blogger is credibility - I believe we need a fact-checker to establish that. We can flesh out the details of this position in greater depth later. Traits: must have good research skills, must understand the sorts of things that can be challenged so as to undermine the challenge by providing citations. We're looking for someone who really knows how to argue and who really hates to be wrong.

Alright, what do we think?

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