After a long deliberation we have decided that the Emerge Elgg site should not continue to operate in its current form.

From midnight 31 March/1 April 2009 we will discontinue log-in to the Emerge Elgg site and suspend all feeds into this site.

I would like to thank you all who have been instrumental in creating a vision a community of practice, supported by Web 2.0 technologies.

The site will be suspended, archived, read-only and searchable. Only posts made to the site that were designated \”public\” will be visible. Participants\’ \”Pages\” and \”Profiles\” will continue to be visible. All url persistence will be maintained. All Data will be retained and protected under existing data protection and freedom of information policies.

For a thorough discussion of the Emerge Project, please read the Emerge Reports site.

One key message from our analysis is that a community has many modes of participation. It would be a mistake to assume that the presence of a website indicates either the presence or absence of a community. There is a network of people who have been very active in creating the Users and Innovation Programme and the Emerge community. This network of people persists. Discussions are ongoing concerning how this network might make its presence visible on the Internet or if a site similar to this one might be required.

If you have any queries or comments contact [...]

In the event that the originally linked webpage is no longer publicly available via the URL stated for redirection, you may request access to a cached copy under the UK Freedom of Information Act from the relevant public body

Additionally, you may direct your request to ” a [dot] pidgeon [at] aporia-works [dot] org ” (for the time being at least)

For the record, the cached copy has been given an archival reference number identical to its original FURL item number which can be quoted in any related communication to help identify its source [...]

further to my last message, please find attached Appendix F and Appendix “Green” which describe issues that have come to light over the last two days which may have an immediate bearing on our specific persons, our profession(s), our employer(s)/contractual obligation(s), and our respective community membership(s)

in particular, want to share my concerns for our personal safety in light of the incident reported and documented by Appendix F, and documented as having thus been escalated through formal [...] channels by Appendix “Green”.

hopefully, placing both Appendix F and Appendix Green on the record will serve as a deterrent to any further abuses. but if you should find that any of your person(s), your profession(s), your employer(s)/contractual obligation(s), and/or your community membership(s) being compromised in any way shape or form, please keep a written note of the issue in strictest confidence and, without necessarily having to share the details amongst any member of this group, please do take the precaution of sharing it in that same confidence with *some body* other than your kind self for peace of mind if nothing else.

having said this, we may all yet be simply experiencing a cross-cultural storm in a teacup, and it is in this sense that experiencing this process together may turn out to be useful in resolving such matters sooner than we think.

my sense is that we are currently in the eye of that storm, and eyes of storms tend to look the same size irrespective of the size of any actual storm – namely, a size that is as yet undeterminable [...] so here’s wishing us all luck, and looking forward to moving on from this creatively at the earliest possibly opportunity.

for example, we may wish to consider setting up [...] on the topic of “practices-in-transition” (or the PiT) in order to help ourselves transition from here to whatever comes next [...]

but again, this [...] is only an invitation [...] by way of considering how we as a self-helping group of peers may be able to move forward from here for both public good and personal safety whilst prevailing practices remain in transition [...]

sincerely [...]

there is as yet no urgency with respect to your part and your being on leave is perfectly reasonable in this sense. the peer group is being offered as a possible means to expediting matters, but it is up to [...] / person-declaring-responsibility-in-[...]’s-absence, to conduct their investigations as they see fit – this may or may not involve contacting members of the peer group as an initial point of reference.

thankfully, members of the same peer group have taken the opportunity – as hoped – to begin to consult with me and each other off the main official thread in order to stand ready to help [...] and ourselves resolve matters if called to do so.

in particular, this means that the option of coming to a creative and community enhancing set of resolutions remains a real possibility, in which case, does indeed my/[...]’s real option of being able to safely and officially withdraw this complaint as soon as practicably possible.

in this sense, with respect to [...]’s role, it would be helpful to outline the sort of licensing agreement that may be put in place prior to agreeing any further steps. certainly, from my/[...]’s point of view, I have at least two base routes afaics available to me once standard preservation of evidence orders have been complied with:

1. to walk away from the [...] community taking all my IP and its derivatives away with me (which would effectively render the database [...] including any possibility of being able to evaluate my/[...]’s participation at either project or programme or [...] capital programme level calling into question a host of public interest inquiries)
2. to find some way of licensing my/[...]’s IP to [...] so as to permit at least activity to date to be retained on the database, and available for evaluation. this license would necessarily be offered at a fee that reflects [...] the cost of labour associated with have researched, developed, produced and made publicly available said IP over the past twelve months. thus the demonstrable financial cost (as distinct from other possibly related costs) of settling matters most efficiently would be demonstrably the figure of the license fee, in this early scenario being costed in at [...] for 12 months subject to quarterly reviews in view of [...]’s progress with a progamme of remedial actions in light of the inherent risks of such attempts at licensing. For example, charging a possible Practices-in-Transition (PiT) working group with the express delivery of such remedial actions over an ensuing 12 month period, and coupling the deliverables to the fulfillment of requirements articulated by the license itself, would help turn invention into innovation in one fell swoop. if such an option could at all be effected, the implications for both community development and [...] sustainability could be enshrined in best practice for innovation [...]. the route to doing that would be via me/[...] being thus able to credibly advise on existing [...] Office of Government tennets on managing successful “transformational flow” in a way that [...] ultimately showcases open development, and open source software development, as [...] procurement model [...]. but first, to show how [...] may yet procure my/[...]’s services (which incidentally would continue to remain pro bono unless otherwise negotiated on a case by case consultancy basis) [...]