People: Dave Toole, Constance Penley, Ahrash Bissell, Carey Teemer, Cathy Boggs

Don't think DO should be considered a "membership" organization--talk about participants, communities, not members

Motives for individuals to participate in DO:

- have opinions about ocean issues
- want those opinions to be heard
- want those opinions to be heard outside their local communities

or

- learn
- create
- share content

Expected participation levels: 1-9-90 rule of online communities: of all participants, can expect 1% to actively engage in managing the DO community, 9% to contribute content, and 90% to consume but not contribute

Possible motivators to attract DO participants:

- content organized with metadata that standardizes it and makes it easily accessible to users, but not too rigid a standardization that limits provider incentives to contribute
- open to all voices and opinions (freedom of speech)
- norms and etiquette promoting respectful treatment of participants
- allow preconstituted communities that join to utilize existing communication norms and practices
- simple licensing practices that allow widespread use of content
- commercial providers allowed
- community policing based on community norms that evolve, not laws
- visual it (stories and video content so people can see issues in action--people retain 23% of what they read, 77% of what they see)
- create intial DO content around "hot" topics (global warming, etc.)
- include content that shows successes (MPAs)

Mechanisms for increasing participant commitment:

- login structure to enter DO with capability to create a personal entry page
- provide feeds to which participants can subscribe
- get participants acting (answer question of the day, etc.--simple, easy things to do)
- provide a human interest angle to the content

- for initial providers, find people who already have content and are passionate about oceans, provide them with explicit benefits, including standardized content