Lowering the Hurdle for Participation

I,Reporter's Boulder Carbon Tax Tracker project is about to have its second major growth spurt since its start-up last summer. Today we launched a series of online forums, and with them hope to inaugurate a vibrant discussion of the city’s unique municipal carbon tax approach. But it'll be one that will be significantly easier for local residents to take part in. Check out the new discussion boards and read on to find out more about why we've gone this route. ...

Our aim when we launched this project -- with the help of  the Knight Foundation and it's News Challenge grant -- was to see if two long-time environmental reporters could partner with civilians to explore participatory journalism’s potential.

But our initial approach -– create a group weblog where various players could share their views and talk with one another -- hit a wall. It is tough to get community members to think of themselves as citizen journalists with information and ideas to share, especially as authors on a blog.

So, we've created a simpler method of participation – our new online discussion forums. We think these new forums can build on existing online conversations in carbon tax-related topics, and we'll synthesize, highlight and distribute the key points of these public conversations through the blog and other venues.

Without a doubt it is the people in the community who are the most important aspect of this project.  Because there’s an immense storehouse of energy and environmental expertise within the Boulder community, we feel strongly that experts and commentators will rise to the surface and become active participants in the discussion over how well or poorly the city’s carbon tax dollars are being spent.

We won't get a mass-media-sized audience, but we do hope to prompt community engagement. And if we’re successful, we’ll have found a model through which communities can set their own agendas more effectively by giving citizens the tools they need to cover themselves and talk to each other more easily.

What do you think of this approach, or of the balance between blogs and boards generally?