Frambors Finds a New Home At E-Democracy.org

After founder Steve Orr’s unexpected death on Monday, we wanted to find a way to carry on the legacy of his community email list Frambors. When the frambors server crashed this week then came back with limited functionality, it was clear that we needed to figure out a plan quickly.

After considering a variety of options, we have decided to move the list to a non-profit host called E-democracy.org.

Steven Clift, Executive Director and Founder of E-Democracy.org, met with Steve Orr and I several years ago to consult about Frambors and discussed ways of improving it, and Steven and Steve were in touch over the years and Steven has been a huge support as we make the transition, and has been helping us to make be as smooth and as painless as possible.

According to its web site, E-Democracy.org “builds online public space in the heart of real democracy and community. Our mission is to harness the power of online tools to support participation in public life, strengthen communities, and build democracy.” It is an organization dedicated to promoting civic engagement. It seemed to be a perfect fit, and comes with software and support that is customized to the needs of local issues forums.

We have split the list into a Framingham Government list (FramGov) and a community life exchange called Framingham Neighbors (FramBors). However, many people who only
wanted to subscribe to one or the other, or wanted to be able to filter them differently so we decided to form two lists.

To register at the new site, interested parties should go to http://forums.e-democracy.org/.

In the middle of the home page on the left hand side, there is a place that you can register. Click on the REGISTER button, follow the directions and set up your password, verify your email, etc. Next, click on the "Forums" tab at the top of the page. Select MASSACHUSETTS, and select the lists you want to join.

Members have steadily begun to migrate to the new site and have begun to explore how it works with test messages.

The biggest challenge in getting registered is that the email registration email from E-Democracy.org sometimes goes into people’s spam folders, so they have to know to look to find it there.

The old list will remain open only for a few days, assuming that the server remains up, so we encourage people to sign up for the new list soon. We will send invitations to as many people as we can who were on the old list but have not yet moved. Unfortunately, we do not have the information to do this for every subscriber, and it is labor intensive.

Thanks to all in our community who have reached out with words of condolence, encouragement and appreciation, as well as offers of support, to Kathy (Vassar) and I during this very difficult week. They are greatly appreciated.

Linda Dunbrack

Moderator for Frambors and Framgov email lists