What about Ning?

[John Bessa]

Andressen who created Netscape (no big deal really, he just took Mosaic from the NCSA) created this site.

Supposedly you can extend the functionality here, and keep the code to use to build another site. That other site would be what we want from OEN, but owned by us.

What do we know about this? Can we use Ning to steal Rob's thunder? How would you change OEN (besides dumping Rob), and how could we code that here?

My ideas were to create a sort of desktop to assist the writing process, rather than impact it as OEN does. Besides creating the tags, there is some magic that can be done to create linking information to plug the article into the blogosphere so that the info is linked to by other stuff, giving the writing a high page ranking on Google.

Having content distributed that links back to our writing would also create more links, which would further increase page ranking, and hence more links. I think the strategy is to write about your writing in other places, such as similar pages with discussion pages, so that you link back to yourself from other places, and make it appear that your writing is seriously esteemed by others. Or maybe I should say "link back to ourselves" so that our writing appears important, as appearances are everything in a world lacking the ability to conceptualize because it is led my neural defectives.

I bet having google advertising will boost your ranking, though I don't see it as much of a revenue source (look at Rob's continual begging).

BTW, where is GLloyd?

[curt]

GLloyd may need a map or a URL. Would love to see a few more show up. Richard is already a member. Richard Mynick would be a treat but might be turned off by the lack of friction.

Ning? Dang, I had to look twice to confirm we're already there (here). Although I do have co-admin rights on an other ning site, one with Mark called "noinnovember" (which I hardly ever visit), I have no idea to which extent one can exploit ning's capabilities. I suggest you start a new "network" as a test bed. There is a ning forum, or there should be and that would be the 2st place I would go to get many answers and to avoid reinvniting any wheels.

curt

btw, Mark says Rob begs for money so people won't think he's on the big D payrola. The whole alternative web world is part of a big network of payolas that lead back to the 3.10.1

[John Bessa]

Is this Mark w/ the Afghani hat and the thick glasses? I think I know him from Care2. He is a friction expert.

GLloyd may need to have his login created for him, and a password sent to him. But then he can start composing art write-ups here of the kind that I am proposing for creating our own writing venue.

[curt]

yes, John, that's my Mark.

Regarding GLloyd, get with WP to have a login created. I'm not sure how that works or if it can be done but I'm sure Pisano Paper will help where he can.

[John Bessa]

I am going to go ahead and start a set of "technical criteria" for a venue--not sure what to call it our how to describe it yet, but I know it will need certain "facilities"

Supposedly I am also trying to create a news and content site for capital trading, specifically OTC STP, or over the counter straight through processing.

Just as an aside:
OTC happens to be the host for the parasite that Ellen Brown likes to attack: the CDS or credit default swap, which is a form of insurance for bad loans traded as an instrument like a stock equity

Basically, you could buy insurance for your high risk loans, and make them look low-risk, boosting the value of your corporation. AIG gave most of those loans driven by unbelievably fast trading systems, that I worked on but without knowing what a CDS is. When all the bad loans came due, AIG could not pay the money, and, basically, the US govt bailed out AIG. Which was dead wrong; AIG should have broken up allowing the defective and corrupted parts fall away.

Back to the topic:
I am thinking of using Ning to start the content site for this guy and then break it off, or make it private or something. Point is, the "linking" necessary to get our writing read will also be necessary for this equities project. My name for the project is "trade veritas" and I mean it as a moral compass, an oxymoron of course, but that's my approach.

Maybe I will go over and look at Ning applications.

Oh, don't you think we need to balance the genders here if we want people to read our writing?

[Mouse]

The more I think someone will read me the less I feel inclined to write.

I have written far more letters than I have posted.

[curt]

"Oh, don't you think we need to balance the genders here if we want people to read our writing?"

Two things wrong with this. Gender plays no role and we're not interested in being read or heard. Perhaps difficult to imagine but, we're beyond that.

[pan]

There are a few members who post with regularity: Waldo, curt, bo, myself and now, John Bessa - all male. There is another group that posts fairly often: Hannah J, Cal, Mouse, littleoldme, Sandy Beach, Lara - all female.

I wish the second group posted more often - not for an ideal of gender parity but because I enjoy hearing from them.

[BO]

I think most of us came online -- via The Smirking Chimp -- about the time that Bush was getting ready to invade Iraq. The common bond, I believe, was a need to express our outrage and hang out with kindred spirits. Ultimately, we needed to find a new home once the Smirking Chimp started banning our posts due to our collective anti-democratic party and anti-zionist sentiments. We were just a bit ahead of our time.

As things go from bad to worse, there's never a lack of material to comment on. In fact, there's so much shit going down, I find it difficult to focus on any particular subject. Essentially, we're all experiencing the death of an empire. Maybe even, the death of the planet. There's something to said for sharing grief with others. Without this simple form of catharsis, I think I'd be much more insane than I already am.

[curt]

Well? Where the hell is GLloyd? Dude had something really nice to say about people like me....(over at OEN);

" No, Chris, there were MANY individuals who saw it coming.

And a lot of them have long since left the U.S. to live in foreign coutries - from those like Canada and Italy which have hosted prescient Americans since at least Vietnam - to a country like Venezuela which is dealing with its "Naomi Klein" situation in many constructive ways including workers taking over factories. These American ex-patriots are betting on making a far more meaningful contribution to world progress outside of the U.S. than in "the belly of the beast." And who's to say they're wrong?

America suffers from an almost unbelievable self-centeredness; the rest of the world exists, and a great many Americans who "saw it coming" are living and thriving there."

Okay, he's not talking about me. I'm not even sure who he's talking about but I did like the way GL mentioned ex-pats.

That was his reply/comment to the mega article "It's Not Going to Be OK" by Chris Hedges

Touching on Gender once again but only because it's an important subject for me, I don't buy into categorizing by gender. I just won't do it, can't support it and know deep down in my heart how wrong it is. People are people, basta.

Smirking Chimp.....only dropped a few words there but was turned off right away, as was the case with DailyKos by joining, joining in on a conversation and immediately being labelled a troll because I was new on the block. I've always been an outspoken radical never afraid to speak my mind so I often ended up telling people to just fuck off. Funny thing though, the first place I was EVER banned from was OpEdNews. I spent a good eight years following Mark around and Mark was banned from EACH AND EVERY website we frequented. Well, 90%. I think I even banned Mark once and Mark once banned me so we're kinda even steven on that.

My comment about us not wanting to be heard or read may have been out of place or over the line. I love reading WP's writings. And I shouldn't try speaking for the group because I'm not a rep. We're all equal and each is unique.

[Cal]

You guys above have all described RBC well. There's a quiet sense of humour and irony underlying everything too that makes this quite a unique cybernook ... food for the soul ... the fights can take place elsewhere.

[John Bessa]

I had two great groups on Care2. One supported the Katrina flood victims and had a US Senator in the discussion, but as a lurker, Evan Bayh. We would get 24hr turn around time w/ acts of Congress with contributions coming from the ground. I wrote a paper for my degree on it (getting an A), which sums up the disaster and the experience of the group; it is unique is that nearly everything in it is eye-witness. Later on I tried to lure Bayh into the fray, but he got immediately attacked. I wrote about that too:

http://thinman.com/text/katrina_story.html

My empathy group was a collection of my 100 or so friends from Care2 and we were supposed to go after China, but I hesitated, and got pressure from the group to give it direction. My final degree paper was on "Spiritual Darwinism" talking about the evolution of morality from its animal roots as Darwin's "natural affection," so I focused on that seeing I was becoming an expert on the topic. The discussion became an acid test for the empathic ideas starting with Aristotle going on to de Waal's experiments with Elephants, and much more. Unfortunately Care2 went belly-up because of the introduction of fascistic control; after all it is about advertising, so the group has languished. I put most of the significant discussions on permanent display for reference.

I created a Wiki on the Wikiversity called "Empathy Model" as an attempt to create template for action for the Empathy group, which I now call Empathy Action. The wiki stands on its own now, number one on Google last I checked for "empathy neurology," and defines the lack of "emotional communication" as the problem both with the wicked world and the individuals bothering currently. As it happens the dysfunction affects a small percentage, but that small percentage is very busy making us all miserable, and setting us on each other--and collecting taxes!

Here is the wiki URL, and it is still growing: http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Empathy_Model
And here is the group: http://www.care2.com/c2c/group/empathy

I wrote a very extensive paper on a model for web communities based on the action research model that would create "info bombs" to influence policy-makers, for instance Obama. (Who is actually making changes as fast as he can! Lets hope he keeps it up.) This paper is thick, and I only got an A- for it, because I think my professor could not understand it:

http://thinman.com/text/new_model_design.html

This is why I got interested in OEN, but it has become obvious that Rob has the vanilla pro-Israeli agenda that has ceased to fool America since Lebanon and Gaza. I have long been interested in creating a desktop writers' app, or site, that would automate much of the research, fine-tuning, and delivery process. It would be like what Rob has done, but done right, and democratically.

Also I am supposedly working on a similar project that I mentioned for capitalism content, but as you can image I am not thrilled about it. More exciting is the prospect of me becoming a teacher in the fall.

This site has a pretty good text area that generates visible HTML rather than WYSIWYG text; I like that and I wonder if they will let us extend it.

~~John

[BO]

I'm still a pretty good xhtml coder. But the server-side apps that deliver content--such as this site--boggles my mind. I think there are a number of open source apps for content delivery and management--Joomla for one. But you almost have to decide whether you want to be a site administrator (geeky type), or content provider. IMHO, they're two different hats.

I've been mainly focused on content generation throughout a long, fairly successful career as a designer/art director. But, unlike most right-brainers, I dig the geeky stuff too.

Still trying to think of something original to do with both sides of my brain. Adding another outrage blog ain't it (Stonefruit already has that market cornered--very well indeed). Think I'd rather start a non-profit...like the church of the absurd. Or maybe something a little more theatrical like Reverend Billy's, The Church of Stop Shopping. Or maybe an online psychiatric center. Or a site that could help the hopeless commit suicide. ala...101 ways to die in style.

My problem is...I have so many ideas that might be worth doing, I can't decide on which one to do. On good days, I could jump on board the empathy train. On others, I simply want to attack. Seems I have an estrogen/testosterone imbalance problem that's disabling me.

In the end...I'm just old and tired. Such quandaries can always wait to be settled after my next nap.