fiadnata

I have been asked to take on two tasks for Pennsic University at Pennsic 39. One is to start setting up an Artisan's Row within some of the tents usually used for classes. I have already started asking questions about what artisans would like to see in such an arrangement, and I plan to be expanding my inquiries to more venues soon.

The harder task, believe it or not, was a request that I start an e-mail list for the people who teach classes at Pennsic. (This was based on my work with ProtoNet.) I consider this to be the harder task, since this was the entirety of the request -- there wasn't any particular purpose or need attached to the request.

I have been watching the participation levels in e-mail lists steadily drop over the past few years. ProtoNet has dropped to very low message levels, as has ServiceNet. While I can see reasons to create -- or maybe "specify" is a better word -- a community for Pennsic teachers by creating a virtual place for them to interact (either through a mailing list or through a social networking site), I'm not sure what form would be most useful for the community I hope to find/create.

The basic question I think I want to start out with is:

Where do you go to get the most social interaction among a group of people interested in the same goals (e.g. teaching well at Pennsic) and interests (e.g. learning more about teaching at Pennsic) as yourself?

I will confess that I am something of a Luddite when it comes to the many social networking sites scattered around the virtual world. I cling to many e-mail lists that seem to be getting less and less traffic. The only blogging site I have signed up on is LiveJournal, mainly because I enjoy following what other people have to say. I have yet to discover a need to sign up on MySpace, Facebook, or any of the hundreds of other specialty communities that are out there (though, if someone wants to make a case for any of them, I'd like to hear it).

Where am I likely to find the most interest? And where am I likely to be able to create and sustain an interest level among a large virtual group of people?

I'm tossing these questions out, with the hope that some of you can give me a bit of guidance. (And if I find a *really* good location, I may try to find a way to migrate ProtoNet to it, since we obviously need to do something to revive the community.)

Comments? Ideas?