So I made that other topic about communication and this could go in there, but I think this is specific enough to warrant talking about it separately. I wanted to propose to you guys using twitter as a new method of communicating. In the
other thread I listed ways in which we communicate and while I think they are great we can always use more activity. This method could engage people in ways that keeps them interested. It could also keep them in contact far after they're done reading the forum every day etc.
The following is an explanation of twitter for people who aren't aware of all of its features. It is not exhaustive but it is background that you may want to read. If you use it you probably know all of this already. Bold text marks the end.
Twitter is a sort of mini-blog that lets you update people with what it is you're doing. You have a list of followers and people you follow. There are several components to the service that I will explain so as to not send you looking through their website.
1) On the website you have a homepage with a box to update your status. It shows your most recent status. Underneath it compiles the updates of all of the people you are following and your own and puts it in one long list.
Everyone also has a profile. The profile shows all the updates that person has made.
2) Twitter is also very much geared towards cell phone texting usage. Twitter encourages members to enable it (keeping the phone number private) and will send you text message updates based on certain settings you choose. You can also send updates from your cellphone or send a variety of commands. One very useful command is sending people you are following direct messages. By entering a command you bypass twitter and send them direct messages. They get a text message from twitter that tells them who it was. No phone fagging involved.
3) Being part of the whole web 2.0 craze it, of course, has an RSS feed. The feed contains the same information as the profile.
Twitter is basically a way to send your followers updates about what you're doing.
There are a few uses for this. First of all, as I pointed out this allows anon texting. No number swapping is required. Only two anon twitter accounts following eachother.
End tl;dr.For the purposes of anon what are you doing becomes more of a where, when, and how are you doing it. This would allow a simple clean list of raids. Confirmed raids and globals can be announced ahead of time allowing people who may not have seen the thread in the forum time to plan, and then once the day before to remind everybody. Specific info about raids, like global theme info, can be sent to people with relevant links. Raid cancellations and updates can be quickly dispatched to people... even if they've left for the raid already. Important bulletins can be shared with the cell at large.
All of this would be done this way to avoid wading through tons of forum threads and posts. Certain people would be able to update it with important information.
The idea is that this mode of communication would provide sufficient information for anyone to raid by itself but would also be a gateway so that people can be alerted of major news and head to the forum.
The example site I created is at
http://twitter.com/sandiegoanonThere are a few different types of notices that could be posted. The links are all fake for showing you where we'd put them. Tinyurl is used to keep the character count low.
So what do you think?