Canadian Community Networks Conference Growing Pains By Shady Kanfi Realtime Online Ottawa 7:00 p.m. August 15, 1994. The Workshop took several directions. New Users and Accessibility: The discussion quickly turned to issues of literacy and current levels of public interest in using freenets. Library users were suggested by the Edmonton delegate as a natural audience for freenet services. As one avenue to accessibility, public terminals were suggested. However it was soon agreed that training is just as necessary in bringing the off-line community, especially the disenfranchised, through the doors. User or membership fees? The Montreal delegate saw it only as a last resort, while Edmonton and BC have already adopted it as policy. Community Development/Community Involvement: The need to reach out to disenfranchised groups was widely expressed. In Edmonton, the freenet committees have developed a mentoring program with local community groups. In this program volunteers are assigned to help meet a particular group's on-line needs. Another issue is the need to involve community groups in the decisions that define the initial face of the freenet. Yet many expressed the frustration of providing the opportunity to have a say, with few groups actually getting involved. Finding a freenet literate member of the group was suggested as the easiest way to pull them in. Marketing/PR Issues: A proposal by Edmonton is for freenets across the country to run PR campaigns during the upcoming Science and Technology Week. Anything from a flyer sent to the media announcing the freenet, to full fledged news conferences. Another idea that gained support was for freenets to develop a simple (10 to 20 page) user guide booklet. The idea is that for people uncertain about the online environment, something in hard copy will go a long way towards easing the transfer. Informational Provision vs. Communicationa Provision: Another issue that evolved from the discussions is the main role of freenets. The debate focused on the role of providing information versus facilitating communications. Some felt the draw of accessing valuable information is the main draw for the public, while others insisted on the primary value of interactive communications. It was said that only the development of relationships on-line will be able to attract people and community groups to the benefits of community networking. In other words, building the human networks are as important as building the computer networks. Moderation of Internet and Other Communication: Recent Dutch discussions on the controls of racist propaganda prompted a debate over the issues related to moderated environments. While Edmonton expressed the preference for a hands off policy, the delegate from Hamilton suggested that there would be an inevitable influence of users to discard most early attempt at restrictions. The delegate from Montreal brought up the point that electronic service providers are currently categorized as 'Common Carriers', a classification that could imply a lack of accountability for content. However, he pointed out that this had not yet been tested in front of the courts. -- Realtime Online - Professional Conference Reporting Team Rosaleen Dickson, Ottawa ac174@freenet.carleton.ca. Pierre Bourque, Michel Careau, Shady Kanfi, Charles King, Andrea Kujala, Jules Lafrance, Bruce MacDonald, Robt Rattey, Natalie Roth, Michael Silvestrini, Stephen Toy.