Add subsection on community pilot

D2.3-UF.md

@@ -28,35 +28,38 @@ This document is a deliverable of the Sci-GaIA project, which has received fundi
 
 <br>
 
-<!-- TOC depthFrom:1 depthTo:6 withLinks:1 updateOnSave:0 orderedList:1 -->
-
-1. [Executive Summary](#executive-summary)
-2. [Glossary / List of acronyms](#glossary-list-of-acronyms)
-3. [The need for a user forum](#the-need-for-a-user-forum)
-	1. [The need for a _new_ user forum](#the-need-for-a-new-user-forum)
-	2. [Design Criteria](#design-criteria)
-	3. [Sci-GaIA's choice of Discourse](#sci-gaias-choice-of-discourse)
-		1. [As a means to better interact with communities](#as-a-means-to-better-interact-with-communities)
-		2. [As a means to drive identity federations](#as-a-means-to-drive-identity-federations)
-4. [The user forum in numbers and figures](#the-user-forum-in-numbers-and-figures)
-	1. [Users](#users)
-	2. [Trust levels and community leaders](#trust-levels-and-community-leaders)
-5. [Communities supported on the forum](#communities-supported-on-the-forum)
-	1. [Research groups](#research-groups)
-	2. [Other communities](#other-communities)
-		1. [DARIAH](#dariah)
-		2. [Emergent communities](#emergent-communities)
-6. [Novel uses of the forum](#novel-uses-of-the-forum)
-	1. [Discussion site for online learning](#discussion-site-for-online-learning)
-	2. [As part of  the Open Science Platform](#as-part-of-the-open-science-platform)
-	3. [Comments engine for the website and blogs](#comments-engine-for-the-website-and-blogs)
-7. [Sustainability of the forum](#sustainability-of-the-forum)
-8. [Appendix](#appendix)
-9. [References](#references)
-
-<!-- /TOC -->
-
-<br>
+<!-- TOC depthFrom:1 depthTo:6 withLinks:1 updateOnSave:1 orderedList:0 -->
+
+- [Executive Summary](#executive-summary)
+- [Glossary / List of acronyms](#glossary-list-of-acronyms)
+- [The need for a user forum](#the-need-for-a-user-forum)
+	- [The need for a _new_ user forum](#the-need-for-a-new-user-forum)
+	- [Design Criteria](#design-criteria)
+	- [Sci-GaIA's choice of Discourse](#sci-gaias-choice-of-discourse)
+- [The forum as part of Sci-GaIA's engagement strategy](#the-forum-as-part-of-sci-gaias-engagement-strategy)
+	- [The forum as means to drive identity federations](#the-forum-as-means-to-drive-identity-federations)
+	- [Online Engagement at Offline Events](#online-engagement-at-offline-events)
+- [The user forum in numbers and figures](#the-user-forum-in-numbers-and-figures)
+	- [Users](#users)
+		- [User Acquisition](#user-acquisition)
+		- [User Provenance](#user-provenance)
+	- [Trust levels and community leaders](#trust-levels-and-community-leaders)
+- [Communities supported on the forum](#communities-supported-on-the-forum)
+	- [Research groups](#research-groups)
+	- [Other communities](#other-communities)
+		- [DARIAH](#dariah)
+		- [Emergent communities](#emergent-communities)
+- [Novel uses of the forum](#novel-uses-of-the-forum)
+	- [Discussion site for online learning](#discussion-site-for-online-learning)
+	- [Questions and Answers](#questions-and-answers)
+	- [As part of  the Open Science Platform](#as-part-of-the-open-science-platform)
+	- [Community pilot](#community-pilot)
+	- [Comments engine for the website and blogs](#comments-engine-for-the-website-and-blogs)
+- [Sustainability of the forum](#sustainability-of-the-forum)
+- [Appendix](#appendix)
+- [References](#references)
+
+<!-- /TOC --><br>
 
 # Executive Summary
 
@@ -209,7 +212,7 @@ This was typically  done with encouraging, but incomplete responses to those int
 Typically, this just required the correspondent to "cut and paste" their question from their email to a discussion topic.
 Of course, in order to ensure that such easy participation, the barrier to entry for using the forum should be exceedingly low - if possible as low as that of simply sending an email.
 This was part of the motivation behind using Identity Federations in an ideal world, where the user would simply need to log in using their institutional credentials, in order to gain access.
-In the real world, many users did not have access to local identity providers, but the availability of the [catch-all IdP](https://idpopen.garr.it)^[The Catch-All IdP "IdPOpen" is operated by the Italian National Research Network GARR.] mitigated this to a large extent. 
+In the real world, many users did not have access to local identity providers, but the availability of the [catch-all IdP](https://idpopen.garr.it)^[The Catch-All IdP "IdPOpen" is operated by the Italian National Research Network GARR.] mitigated this to a large extent.
 
 <!-- https://analytics.googleblog.com/2009/08/back-to-basics-direct-referral-or.html -->  
 
@@ -268,6 +271,8 @@ This was done for two reasons :
 
 ![User provenance over the course of the project (April 2015 - May 2017)](images/GA-Users-geo-cities.png){#fig:3 width=16cm}
 
+<!-- TODO -->
+
 We can surmise from the image that the main sources of our users are
 
 ## Trust levels and community leaders
@@ -369,16 +374,48 @@ This was indeed a matter of choice, made with the explicit goal of promoting lon
 
 ## Discussion site for online learning
 
+The Sci-GaIA winter school was run using the OpenEdX instance for the courseware.
+EdX itself, as well as a few other OpenEdX instances, use an internal wiki-like discussion component to allow students within the same course to discuss the course material and solutions with each other.
+This makes sense within an environment where everything is vertically integrated, however was undesirable in our case.
+Indeed, we wished as much discussion as possible to take place on the forum, irrespective of it's nature, as long as it addressed issues in the e-science and e-infrastructure domains.
+We thus chose to use the discussion forum for peer-learning and interaction with the course facilitators.
+A specific category was created to support the Science Gateways online course, and any questions related to the courseware or homework were discussed therein.
+This was a valuable way to expose the kinds of issues which students of the course were having, to any students which may have taken the course in the future, representing a means of  generating knowledge.
+This knowledge was sometimes incorporated into future versions of the respective courses.
+The integration of the online courseware and the discussion forum as services into identity federations made it easy for participants in the courses to maintain their identity as their roles changed, from participant in the winter school, to community member, to in some cases research software engineer in the hackfests.
 
 ## Questions and Answers
 
-
+One of the several discourse plugins which we used was chosen to enable community members to clearly answer questions, or mark posts as "solutions" to technical issues.
+This is of critical importance when attempting to generate knowledge, and is key to the success of the sites in StackExchange.
+Visitors to a topic can quickly determine if it relates to their issue or question, and as easily determine if that issue has been answered, rather than still in discussion.
+The ability to mark topics as questions is available to all Level 1 users, however only users of trust level 2 are able to mark posts as solutions, providing a level of quality to these solutions.
+This facility marks another difference between the African e-Infrastructure discussion forum and similar mailing lists.
 
 ## As part of  the Open Science Platform
 
+
+
+## Community pilot
+
+Much discussion and chatter takes place in private communication, ever more so given the rise of community chat rooms.
+The most pervasive of these is [Slack](http://www.slack.com) - a chat service based on IRC, made all the more powerful through an API allowing integration of almost arbitrary tools.
+The ease with which virtual control rooms can be created in Slack, integrating the suite of tools used by any particular community, makes it an irresistible tool.
+The downside of such tools, however, is that they tend to pull users' data and interactions into a closed environment, which is detrimental to the commons.
+A kind of "tiered" communication model would be desirable, where fast, immediate interaction is had in a slack channel, addressing specific, pressing topics, whilst _discussion_ is gently nudged off into the forum.
+Typically this kind of community policy takes shape slowly, and on a case-by-case basis, depending on the community.
+Sci-GaIA and AAROC have promoted the policy of gently guiding such discussion towards  the forum, and out of private communications.
+This usually takes the role of a "pilot" discussion,  guiding the discussion until it is felt that a public exchange is appropriate^[Almost always the particular issue - which felt very personal to those involved - had wider ramifications.] Whether it was researchers asking for help and support, or issues of policy, or technical matters, the community pilot's job was to attempt to re-frame the issue in a general way, and encourage posting it as a topic of discussion to the forum.
+We have recently implemented an automated version of this, whereby a bot monitors certain channels for lenghty discussions, and automatically opens a topic for discussion around that topic on the forum, asking those involved to move their discussion.
+The general principle is :
+> If something is worth discussing, it's worth discussion in the open
+
+
+
 ##  Comments engine for the website and blogs
 
-Finally, embedding functionality of Discourse was used to add the forum itself as a comments engine similar to [Disqus](http://www.disqus.com) to the project website as well as the [Africa-Arabia Regional Operations Centre](http://www.africa-grid.org) website
+Finally, embedding functionality of Discourse was used to add the forum itself as a comments engine similar to [Disqus](http://www.disqus.com) to the project website as well as the [Africa-Arabia Regional Operations Centre](http://www.africa-grid.org) website.
+The goal was in line with our strategy of engaging users immediately on the forum wherever we may reach them
 
 
 # Sustainability of the forum