Something you might find on InternetRelayChat (IRC) or on MultiUserSharedHallucination games (MUSHes -- multi user text-oriented roleplaying games) are lectures.
Somebody will announce a lecture on some topic, and then people can join the channel or enter the room where the lecture is held. One person talks, the others ask questions and comment.
Benefits:
- Interactive
- Direct talk, less lag than via MailingLists, UseNet or wiki page editing
- Demand-driven: people ask questions and direct the talk
- Automatically generates short messages and pragmatic explanations
- Easy to include examples from all over the web
- International, not limited by physical distance
Drawbacks:
- Little theoretic background
- Logs are hard to read; transforming the logs into a reference text is hard work
- With lots of active people, lots of noise and sidetracking (but many online communites have strong traditions in this respect)
Examples:
- http://www.linuks.mine.nu/irc/ by Gürkan Sengün
The idea of lectures also develops in BBS systems. Lecture topics are gathered and get priorities. Referents are assigned. The lecture is posted and discussed. In one case I know the lectures are refined and published in an associated wiki. -- HelmutLeitner