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Blogs are a familiar feature on the internet - where users post content in an accumulating manner, with comments, and search options, etc. They facilitate expression and exploration, and via attached comments, also debate and synthesis.


Reading and
Navigating Blogs

Our blogs are quite powerful. Each writer can post, as is typically the case. Sustainers who have the option can also post, however. All Blogs appear in the blog system, and sometimes also in content boxes the top page of ZNet - and always via the left menu of the top page - and can be found via searches, etc.

Commenting on blogs follows the blogs, attached at the bottom, and blog comments, like all others, are also visible in many places that show comments including in the forum system. In addition, the entire blog system gathers content for everyone - but one can look at the accumulating content in many ways.

  • For example one can look at one writer's efforts - so one is seeing what is effectively a blog system for that one writer, or Sustainer.
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  • One can look at blogs for particular Groups, too.

All this is easily done using the left menu. Searches allow even more variables and refinements.


Creating Blog Posts

If you are a Sustainer with permission, and are logged in, you will see a link in the left menu for you to post a blog - and you can use that to post one, and then tag it various ways (such as with a topic or place, or a group tag), and once you do, it is in the system with you as the author.

You can also use the console button to the left to post a blog - anytime and from anywhere in the site, as long as you are logged in.

Meanwhile, enjoy the blogs - and, by the way, if you are a Free Member or a Sustainer with a ZSpace page, of course you can put one or more content boxes on it, pulling blog links of any sort you may want to filter for, for example, by you or by your friends or by others - and by topic, about places, for groups, etc.

Blogs

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Mark Evans's Blog

Web Address: http://www.zcommunications.org/zspace/markevans
Bio: These things probably tell you something about me - I got my initial education in social justice listening to Bob Marley and the Wailers as a teenager, then in my late 20's reading Chomsky w... (More)

All Evans Blogs

More Members! Better Organising!

By Mark Evans at Aug 05, 2010


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This message is NOT for armchair revolutionaries!  Rather it is for those who are serious about organising for a participatory society – I assume that means all members of IOPS.  We all want to create a new global social system.  We all have quite a good idea of what that system would look like and how it would function.  We also understand that our organisation today needs to be informed by our vision of this future society.  What this means is that when we create a new chapter of the IOPS we are actually creating the institutions of our new society in embryonic form.  In short, local, regional and National chapters are seeds of our new global social system. 

Initiating and / or becoming a founder member of one of these new institutions is a very exciting and important first step in organising for a new global society.  However, if IOPS members don’t take this first step then our international organisation will never get off the ground.  We need IOPS members to 1) take the initiative and establish chapters where they live and 2) seek out members within their chapter area and ask / encourage them to join.

The new facilities on ZGroups makes these two basic organising tasks easier than ever.  Let’s take advantage of these new facilities and build a vibrant international organisation!  This groundwork will allow us to consider organising international gatherings, global campaigns as well as coordinate really significant solidarity with other worthy efforts like those taking place in Venezuela. 

Presumably this is what all IOPS members want.  However, maybe there are obstacles to taking these initial steps that other members are not aware of.  If so, it might be worth highlighting these obstacles – or other concerns – on the IOPS forum.  This way all members can see what is holding us back and therefore offer help.

First_191

Need Help

By Lapinel, Elliott at Aug 05, 2010 13:33 PM

I'm glad you put this blog post up.  I was all ready to see about organizing a chapter, when I realized I didn't know what my goal was exactly.  I'd like to know:

1) What can the people do in the chapter after the first few months of being created besides reading about PARECON?   I figure students would be the most interested in being a part of a chapter because they may feel that reading about PARECON will help them with their schoolwork (seriously).  I don't see much that a local chapter can do in the short term that a regular club could not, but on the bright side I think it would be a more interesting club to join.

2) What could these institutions acheive in the not so distant future?  I have only a vague idea, I would have a hard time saying "If we get this many people within a year, we can do these specific and awesome things"

3) As I understand it, the chapters are not necessarily anything but clubs - for the moment - right?  They don't immediately form worker councils, etc. As a practical matter should these chapters start trying to create more pareconish institutions just for practice sake?  (Students are probably some of the easiest to organize, but has anyone had success with a student club in which the 'products' the club created (a certain number of posters, talks, etc.) were formally conceptualized?   I'm afraid that people would balk at having such formal rules.

In summary: The best I know to do is to see if people are interested in making their student club explicitly for Parecon, (or something similar). 

Of more narrow interest, if anyone has any advice, I am trying to convince a faculty advisor for the larger club to actually advocate the society they want to see.  The creators of the club wanted it to be more of a 'coalition'.  (The problem with that mindset is that most of the members are Howard Zinn fans, and others don't have a specific vision of society they want.  So I believe the club members are 'compromising' without knowing what the people they are compromising with actually want.)   The fear is that  I'm probably a little irritating when I give 'advice' about how people should run a club.  I'm sure that's a risk many people run....

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588512

Re: Need Help

By Evans, Mark at Aug 15, 2010 12:51 PM

Hi Elliot – sorry about the slow reply, I was on holiday last week.

The blog I wrote has to do with building an international organisation – hence International Organisation for a Participatory Society (IOPS).  This is a ZGroup for members who are interested in, or already involved in, organising at the international level – which of course is necessary if we are to bring about a successful revolution. 

What I would like to see – and what I am trying to encourage in my blog – is for members of this group to set-up National chapters for this group.  I am also interested in finding out why members of this group (or those who would perhaps like to join) are not setting up National chapters.  I would like to hear what the reasons for this are.  It would be good if people highlight what, for them, the obstacles to doing this are.  I also state that we can use the new facilities on Z to do this – the group forums etc...

To try to answer some of your questions I think that the primary function of setting up a National chapter of IOPS is to help overcome isolation.  This is basic but so important! 

The other thing to keep in mind is that you (as the initiator of a National chapter) are not responsible for coming up with ALL the answers to ALL the questions you raise.  As you get new members you will work these things out together.

As for what members of  IOPS chapter can do (other than read about parecon) – the list is endless.  I mean, as a member of PPS-UK (the British branch of IOPS) I find it hard to fit everything in.  One of the primary tasks we face is to popularise our vision and strategy.  This involves writing, giving talks, organising speaker tours, running bookstalls etc.  Members may also be involved in broader left struggles (say in solidarity with Venezuela) where they can promote more participatory forms of organising etc.  All of this activity should take place via a self-managed local chapter – which involves further organisation.  Like I say, the list is endless.

The point is that to do this work effectively we need to build an international organisation and to do that we need people to take the initiative to set-up National chapters. 

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First_191

Re: Re: Need Help

By Lapinel, Elliott at Aug 22, 2010 01:44 AM

That makes sense. 

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