Hi everyone. Thanks for attending my impromptu discussion about integrating social networking and community building tools into the City of Denver's Greenprint Denver Web site.

For anyone who missed the discussion, I'm conceptualizing a community-oriented portal to support the Greenprint Denver initiative. This would be an offshoot of the main Web site at www.greenprintdenver.org. I'm hoping to provide social spaces such as blogs, forums, and public content publishing capabilities.

The discussion centered around two basic questions:

• What do you think about this concept?
• Would you feel comfortable engaging in discussions on a government Web site?

Many of you offered excellent points, and much of the conversation revolved around a key issue of incentives, brought up by Evelyn. Here is some of the feedback from the group:

• Offer contests.
• Showcase city staff bloggers, for example, the city forester could blog about drought-resistant trees.
• Recognize citizen/business efforts via profiles in the paper or elsewhere.
• Consider a portal that is not branded as a city Web site.
• Include a measurement of progress for group actions.
• Moderation of discussions would be intimidating and raise retaliation concerns.

If I missed anything, or if anyone wants to add additonal comments, please feel free to edit this page. Or, feel free to e-mail me. I just want to extend a heartfelt thanks to everyone who shared their thoughts! Also, we might be needing additional talent on this project, so drop me a line if you're interested.

Betsy