Outreach

[RU Sirius]

To gain even a smidgen of credibility for these efforts, we need to get a lot more people involved, even just at the level of joining. This means outreach. This is a place to discuss how to spread QuestionAuthority, OpenSource Party, OpenWire, and so on.

Here are a few of my own suggestions:

1) A few purists might find this distasteful, but we need some people with communications skills and energy and nerve to do publicity. (Would it feel better if I put that word in quotes?) Contact appropriate journalists, influential bloggers, influential politicos, join conversational networks like Daily Kos... and so on.

btw, this is a shitty time to do that. It's a good time to talk about it, but wait until after the holidays. The second week of January would be a good time to begin.

2) We can reach out to create a Board of Directors for each organization. The Board of Directors can be a combination of those of us who are really contributing to the groups and individuals whose names would give the groups some power and credibility. Who would you recruit to attach his or her name to either of these efforts? Let's talk about it here. (I'll also create separate topics for this on both the QA and the OSP sites.)

3) Personal outreach. Are we still being too cool to email or call or reach our friends and relatives and people in our social networks etc.? We need to stop being shy. (Again, you may want to wait until the new year.)

4) You tell us.

[mabeysan]

addendum to last entery
typo correction
"i need 2 know more about the ning package "

after visiting "the point.com" - very cool idea for micro funding cool ideas btw. i noticed the $ meter has'nt moved much. i wonder if this is'nt having a chilling affect - such great ideas ....so little traction. maybe counterproductive to cns raising in our little counter culture.

as to making the wiki more muscular, the idea is use it - the wiki - as a point of focus to drive readers-n-writers to the impressive inventory of content in the MG network since the is wiki more coherently organized.

over

[Phil Leggiere]

on money, it's important to keep in mind with 85 members if everyone kicked in $7 (the cost of a six-pack of micro-brew) we'd be over the goal-line.

I like the idea of expanding the wiki's functionality and it'd be good certainly to tie in links to archived MG network content in a simple interface. But at least the way I'm imagining a blog working it'd be about providing in a really focused way daily news bites about the state of civil liberties and authoritarianism, so having it prominently datelined, chronologically updated and easily referenced by outside bloggers so they could link our stuff on their blogs. Can that be done within the context of a wiki?

[Michael]

Not really, which is why I'm not recommending we use the Wiki in that way. Wikis are great for "static content", by which I mean topic-oriented essays, like an encyclopedia. You can, of course, do a blog-like thing in that context, but it's not a natural fit.

As a framework for archival of our conversations here, it might be valuable, and that's what I was talking about above -- but I don't consider that a good organizational technique for any ongoing conversation, and it's not really a good way to run a blog either.

From a blog's perspective, the Wiki provides a place to put things to which the blog can refer, background information, timelines, pictures and other media assets, that kind of thing. But the entries of the blog are always intended to reflect the time at which they're written. Two entirely different animals.

[Phil Leggiere]

thanks michael. That's what I thought. Just wanted to make sure.

[Yodhe]

Is there enough news to justify a blog about the state of civil liberties and authoritarianism. I must admit to being a "blog sceptic", but it often seems to be a case of hack journalism repeating ad nauseaum what little actually disseminates into the public domain. That isn't to say I don't think it is a worthwhile and admirable task, but do we actually need another third/fourth hand commentary on events, I can't really see this "turning the people on" tbh. It seems to be replicating the work that is already being done by a host of other sites, and the information is merely going around in circles.
I dislike being the proverbial "stick in the mud", but I think and hope with the talents and resources we have available that we can come up with something a bit more interesting, and exciting.

[Phil Leggiere]

Valid concerns, Yodhe. And I’d be inclined to agree if the blog were viewed as an end in itself rather than as a small but I think necessary building block toward evolving a serious publishing/media platform. If one key goal of QA is to become a rallying point in cyberspace (and hopefully in real space as well) for multi-dimensional dissent against the culture and politics of authoritarianism wherever and however they manifest themselves than becoming a must-go to destination for information about the state of personal and civil liberties is a means to that goal.

You’re right, there are some good sources out there covering particular aspects or facets of authoritarian encroachment. The Progressive does good stuff on the repression of anti-war and other progressive political activity (but rarely ventures outside that box). Reason and some libertarian blogs cover the absurdity of the drug war, neo-prohibionism and the nanny state really well, Boing Boing does great stuff, more official civil liberties groups (ACLU, Center for Constitutonal rights) shine the spotlight on the underbelly of the war on terror from Abnu Ghraib to Guantanamo to Extraordinary rendition. Other places people can find info on electronic freedom, free culture and the monopoly abuse of intellectual property, the prison-industrial complex, forced pharmaceutical “treatment”, and the concept of cognitive liberty.

Nowhere that I know of are these and other far-flung threads of authoritarian culture brought together in a single prism. If that could be done in a timely, topical way (and there is plenty of news to work with) with some edge, humor and style I think that would (slowly and gradually) build a readership.

But again the blog as such would be a building block for what would hopefully evolve into a wider array of publishing activity including wikis, original journalistic reports and essays, pamphlets, books, videos. The thing is its achievable to get a daily blog moving and the fact of doing it on a daily basis could provide a focal point for the wider media efforts.

[Michael]

Phil, drop me a line at [e-mail] -- I've got MoveableType installed (took all of 15 minutes, this stuff really isn't as hard as it used to be) and, well, we need to talk over a bit how to start, e.g. title of the first blog, users to set up, etc. Later I'll also look at integrating MT and the Wiki, etc. That kind of stuff. But in the meantime, it's off the ground.

Incidentally, I also found a boneheaded move I made months ago when setting the server up which was seriously slowing the Wiki down, and here I thought it was just PHP being a hog. Anyway, now that it's corrected, I don't cringe every time I get a Wiki page and see it take 30 seconds to respond. That's better!

[Yodhe]

"And I’d be inclined to agree if the blog were viewed as an end in itself rather than as a small but I think necessary building block toward evolving a serious publishing/media platform."

And as a part of the process you do have my utter support, and I look forward to reading the blog as part of my staple diet of disauthoritarian commentary.

I think that a collection of links to other sites, information and organisations is something that would be very easy to do, and would fit in nicely with the blog, where hopefully people can educate and inform themselves. Hyperlinking our way to freedom, so to speak.

[Michael]

Yodhe: exactly -- the Wiki is perfect for sets of background information, links, timelines, etc., quasi-static information that can be easily linked to from the blog. Then for "what's going on today" you refer people to the blog. They're each a wholesome part of the complete breakfast.

[Gary F. Moraco]

http://www.mnftiu.cc/mnftiu.cc/war72.html

[Gary F. Moraco]

[Ejay]

Hey gang,

Firstly, I would like to introduce myself. I'm 25, college graduate, etc. I found RU on the intertubes probably ten years ago around the time I first had the thought to google "Timothy Leary". I was a big fan of the Revolution political party, occasionally listen to the RU Sirius show. In short, I support what goes on here. I'm looking at the tabs on the left side of the screen on the main page and I'd like to see the fund raising efforts become a little bit more successful and I offer a possible suggestion, without knowing what the price would be to implement it.

I am wondering if you guys have considered advertising on 4chan.org?

According to this article, the site gets 8.5 million page views per day and 3.3 million visitors per month. Most of them are computer nerds and would probably have the banner adblock'd anyways, but if you could get m00t to throw the link on the page a few people might be sympathetic to the cause.

I have no idea what this would cost, but seeing as the site is a cesspool for dissent and anonymous douchebaggery most companies don't want to be associated with its content. However, that shouldn't stop us, and furthermore, it might drive down the price of tossing up a banner on a site that gets a lot of traffic.

http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1821435-1,00.html

I realize I'm posting in an old thread but I'm not sure where else to put this. Let me know what you think and good luck!