Hi Cliff,

Here is the group to join to work on site changes and other stuff with other sustainers. We are trying to do a community outreach right now. Just starting.  Z Consumer Council.

It's a new group. Hope to see you there!

--Cat

-Oooh, la, la. The great Mutual Aid section. Such promise. I'd looooove to see these also located a under local/area (town-city/county/metro) forum organization. Speaking of, what's the easiest way I can find fellow and sister Michiganders?
 

Hi Cliff, we are in the process of re-coding the site and in the process improving many facilities such as forums, ZSpace, etc., so hopefully we can breath some new life into the Mutual Aid effort. As far as finding others by location, you can search members and sustainers above, links located beneath the ZSpace tab above, but it depends on people adding the personal information to be really useful, which we continue to ask for...

-The upload activity/donation space. I've really got to develop it more, especially with my children in mind.

We hope to make this much easier with coming developments too...

-The ZSpace page is very dynamic.

Yes, there is actually a lot that one can do with it, despite a few wrinkles....

-Blogging, forums and our very own pages now make it that much more vital and possible to interconnect.

And we are working to improve....

So what are some ideas and questions I can bandy about regarding contributing?:

-Where can I wiki? Where can we in our groups/communities/networks/issues make our own instructionals or reading lists or ZWikipaedias? (A Michigan-Aajigaaning ZGroup/Network with this stuff for instance. Or perhaps a really dynamic Labor page with exploits-history-actions that'll have me droolin' for the lessons of our ancestors and living comrades (with a beautiful subsection devoted to the anarchist collectives of the Spanish revolution ;))

In fact we have a wiki for sustainers. It can be found from your personal page under the "tools" section. However, we have been meaning to remove it due to problems with these external packages (spamming). You can try it though and maybe if more people do use it regularly we will see more value in maintaining it.

-Some more good bells and whistles. A wikisite I've remained breathlessly excited about - www.boardgamegeek.com allows you to submit files, photos and stuff like ZSpace and let's people comment, but also give thumbs up to those posts. I can also see what my "geekbuddies" are also posting. I can create my own tags and hit those to bring varied and, perhaps, disparate posts and images and other submissions together.

We are going to soon have, not a thumbs up or down, but a weekly and monthly preference system that allows users to see content most accessed. Perhaps after we can try some kind of voting too. About the tagging, does it save these searches? Are they viewable only to you? How is better than say having an easy search facility with filters accessible from the page?

-Start a group. I know you can, but I can't find anywhere that gets me info on how to. Oh, what I'd give to see 'Start a Group/Network' button.

A simple button is a good idea, linked from somewhere maybe on a personal page. We do have quick access links from the top of the page, just beneath the tab menu, with links to admin, and here is a video tutorial on creating groups: http://www.zcommunications.org/zvideo/videoTutorials/9

-Manipulate it/Organize it/Display it/Crunch Data. (q.v. Item #1 in this list) This might be Phase XIX further on down that already, but can we crunch numbers? Can we change our graphical representations of the information. Can we outdo or mix and match the best of Lexus/Nexus (never had full access to it) or Wikipedia (hell, yes!) or whatever blogsites people on our forums or blogs are ravin' about? I can, at least, volunteer (and do) to learn and help where I can.

- Not exactly sure what you mean by this: crunching of how to change graphical representations? Do you have an example? Some kind of tool to pull links and data from wikipedia may be good, but not sure how to do, for that or for other online databases. Do you know of anywhere that has these tools, and to match them to sustainer content?

-Could we ever end up with some webspace ? An over-the-top request, perhaps, in terms of current scope, energies and plans, but I got to dream and I want my lair here! And if it's not actual webspace, well, I can certainly say it's already on the way having stuff I need on my webspace. I just don't want prospective employers knowing everything on it. ; )

You mean you want to be able to hide your ZSpace page? Perhaps I am confusing your meaning, but if I get it, than you can turn off your ZSpace page from inside your account admin.

-And dial-up won't always be around I imagine, but I'm still unavoidably on it. We especially can't afford it now with recent and increasing underemployment - I'm talking walkin' the line of unemployment here - but we are stuck in this odd donut-hole of no access to affordable broadband (DSL) because we are told we're 10,000 feet from the nearest available access. And that's in suburban Grand Rapids, Michigan. This is all to underscore my appreciation that I can still relatively easy get to everywhere but video tutorials on my Z Space. I'd like to request text tutorials, too. I'll help type 'em up, too.

Ahh, yes, connectivity would be a problem with the video. I honestly don't think I'd ever get around to typing them up, although we have tried to provide text in admin explaining how to do thing. Although, I'm sure the instructions could use some updating, and I am always available for help.

-Oooh, what if we could take excerpts/quotes from our favorite speechs/articles/data and, complete with autocitation - mold them into our personal instructionals/database - with the aforementioned  tag system (item #2 of this list)?

Well, really some of this is possible with current facilities, certainly uploading quotes and articles, and if you're creative you can figure out a way to utilize ZSpace offerings to put together some kind of tutorial along these lines. The auto citation and tagging stuff is pretty advanced though and beyond our means for some time I think...  If you ever get around to trying to create a tutorial though please show me or ask me for help if you need.

-Hmm... and maybe we could use an -Other- or -General- category for bloggin', too.

I don't understand the need?

So, that's my take on it. I wish I had the advanced html/css/and other web-related acronyms know-how to volunteer that way more actively to help, but all I've got in that regard is the excitement and some passion. Thanks for all the efforts, I've had the great scope of fifteen years where to see CyberZ has come, gone and is going and it's working better and better all the time.

The ideas are very helpful, thank you.... and again, we're available for help if needed.

Viva La OLS! (the ol' Organization for a Liberated Society)

Viva!

p.s. I really have to recommend looking closely at your personal ZSpace -Edit Your ZSpace- option. It really has lots to offer!

I'll cc: this by way of e-mail too.