Idea: Community Web Cooperative

[Jon Seattle]

[b:3eco7zt0]Idea: Community Web Cooperative[/b:3eco7zt0]

This is just a first sketch. The Community Web Cooperative would be an NGO similar to the New Guild but focused on developing open source web-based content and applications that integrate into Second Life. Some examples:

1. Voting systems. Both FR's voting booth and the continuous voting application we used for the sim contest are examples of this.

2. Content management sites to support democratic communities. In real life I run a software group that specializes in applying and extending content management systems to create web sites for university departments and teaching and learning applications. A number of people also have extensive experience developing web-based content, both from the perspective of information architecture and graphic arts.

3. Web-based discussion and decision making applications. Especially ones that avoid the "flame wars" that erupt using standard forum software, but tend, instead, to build effective consensus.

3. Citizen registration applications. The CDS could use, I think, an application that allows citizens to register and in particular to register land under group ownership.

Note that 1, 2, 3, and 4 might be integrated into a single content management application as add-on packages. I am not sure if the Chancellor would be interested in working with such a group, but if not, we could still find many useful projects to work on.

[Arria Perreault]

I have expressed my interest on that topic several times. I find your idea of the Community Web Cooperative very interesting and I am ready to collaborate.
I really think that interaction between SL and the WWW a present challenge (future is too far for me ). Your votation system for the sim contest was a good example of that.
May I add a new them in your list? Archives are becoming a important issue. It is probably implicit in the concept of content. But archives are a special kind of content. It is also very important for democratic communities to have archives. And finally communities like the CDS are making very valuable experiments. All pertinent information about these kinds of experiment have to be kept.

[Jon Seattle]

[quote="Arria Perreault":yrken2y2]Archives are becoming a important issue. It is probably implicit in the concept of content. But archives are a special kind of content. It is also very important for democratic communities to have archives. And finally communities like the CDS are making very valuable experiments. All pertinent information about these kinds of experiment have to be kept.[/quote:yrken2y2]Yes I agree! Things change in SL and CDS so quickly, and new people come in, that we very much need a way of remembering our history. Archives can serve as a kind of community memory.

[michelmanen]

This is great. People with the expertise in the field are best placed to develop the portal in a creative and functional way. I think that, if done right, the Portal will become one of the defining features of the CDS.

So, while the Executive will approach the current owners to establish the modalities of the transfer of rights and data of current CDS sites from private to public ownership, Jon could draaft the NGO Bill and Arria could talk to other interessted people in the community and make up a list of future members.

This means we could start immediately brainstorming about what the Portal would be used for, what it would contain and how it will be presented, so as to come up with a draft proposal for the RA as soon as all rights are transferred and actual work can begin.

The portal (at least version 1.0) could be finished well before the next election and represent an importantn achievement of our community - and of this RA - during the second part of the year.

This is exactly the type of dynamic cooperation between individual citizens and public officials CARE is advocating: a new system of governance in which citizens themelves take the initiative and, with the support and help of elected officials, create added value for our community.

So thank you Arria and Jon for triggering this discussion and project; I am excited to see how it will develop over the coming weeks.

[Jon Seattle]

Lets arrange a meeting of people who are interested in this. My current thought is to offer to build (for free) a CDS web portal to the specs provided by the CDS Chancellor 's office (with RA approval), but I would like this new organization to be able to work on a voluntary basis to set up content and systems for a larger range of democratic organizations.

Lets have a meeting! What about Sunday 19th August at 8 AM SLT at the Lodge on Sea Turtle Island. (160, 191, 56). If you would like to be involved please IM. Also tell me if you will have trouble making the above time and I will try to arrange another. I will also set up a group for communications.

[Rose Springvale]

Recognizing this task to be mandated by the RA to the PIO, and assuming the PIO will have responsibilities before it is all said and done, please include me in communications you may send, or perhaps post or distribute notecards? as i know groups are at a premium. I have 4 for CDS governmental or quasi governmental alone and suspect others have even more. (Hopefully that is an issue that can be resolved soon as well.)

I appreciate the community taking this on and support the activity of the group, having no wish to interject or intervene. As a friendly query, though, I wonder why a CDS meeting is not being held in a CDS sim?

[Jon Seattle]

[quote="Rose Springvale":2hrc1lhj]I appreciate the community taking this on and support the activity of the group, having no wish to interject or intervene. As a friendly query, though, I wonder why a CDS meeting is not being held in a CDS sim?[/quote:2hrc1lhj]It is not yet clear to me that the members of this group will opt for being "quasi-governmental" and thus presumably restrict our work to CDS projects under governmental control. This is just one of several options.

Web development can be applied to a large number of projects for non-CDS non-profits and in other SL democratic communities. The position I see the Web Cooperative taking, ideally, is as contractor who is willing to work at cost or for free to specifications provided by the eventual user of the systems. This means that we need not be restricted to CDS projects, but can work for all sorts of organizations. If we wanted to do work for a RL school board, health organization. or a science museum, we would be free to do so. We also could accept non-CDS design and software professionals as members.

I am not yet sure what the term "quasi-governmental" means since it appears nowhere in any CDS document, and the concept behind the designation appears to have been rejected by the SC and earlier by the RA when it considered the New Guild charter. Perhaps you can explain it's advantages?

[Rose Springvale]

i meant simply that four of the groups out of my 25 deal directly with land holdings or activities related to the CDS. Most of them, for my purposes, overlap.

As the person charged with increasing traffic in our sims, my question was simply directed at using "our" facilities for "our" work... not at all concerned with the ultimate operation of the cooperative.

Perhaps I should review my job description... when a member of the RA chooses to use another sim for meetings that are at least from my reading here, aimed at solving a CDS issue... then maybe traffic isn't what we are looking for after all.

Thanks for your work on this though. I"m sure it will be great.