Thanks for starting this thread. I hope many will participate. The lessons learned will guide whatever happens next.

ONet (and Sue Braiden, who I have never had to honor of communicating with) challenged me to open myself in ways I never considered. It gave me the courage to step forward and say, "Hello, I am Linda Nowakowski." When many of us first got on the internet it was lots of siamcat53's, geek_boy87....

Onet challenged us to break down a barrier of anonymity and be transparent and accountable. In the last 18 months, that standard has moved so high up my list of priorities that I am amazed sometimes. This has allowed my internet personal to reflect my real life persona and throw away the fear and secrecy and unaccountability that is so common on the net.

I did "good" things before onet. I will do "good" things after onet. But this little piece of cyberspace housed a family of like-minded, good people where I could let down the facades and grow.

My story of the place of onet in my life is much longer than that and much more complicated but that is the one thing that stands out. With out that aspect....none of the rest would have happened.

Thanks.

We all probably learn what we are ready to learn, from each experience we have.

I learned here that things like fonts and colors and the shape and position of buttons really matter. Great job on the site design! I have a million suggestions for improvement, of course, but that's a tribute to this site's complexity and richness.

I learned more about the types of people there are in the world, and what kind of projects are out there. I got exposed to tons of other high quality books and web sites and articles and organisations based on recommendations from people here.

I think I learned that while it really takes a lot to set up and run a community like this, it's also really doable. That is so awesome. I remember back in the early 90s being part of the very first mailing list hosted by a major newspaper (I think it was the Seattle Times or something). That was also a new experience, like a tiny proto-o/net, and they also ran it for a while and then just as it was getting really good they closed it down without explanation.

In the future we will look back on this the way people look back on the first telephones, or the first transister radios, or the first digital clocks. Communities will be doing amazing things with this kind of technology, its impact will be greater than that of cars or air travel, similar to the impact of the printing press.

David is surely right about learning what we are ready to learn. When we're ready so often seems to come out of the blue.

I've learned so much, but making a list seems so hard to do now. The one thing that sticks out in my mind tonight is the importance of repair.

Online communication can get so twisted and hot. In no other online social setting have I encountered people eager to step in when they witness misunderstandings and step in for growth and repair, not just papering over situations.

People here have been willing to put themselves on the line, or at least in socially awkward situations, on my behalf. And I've seen the same for others too. So it's the importance of being willing to step in and reach out to others that's been such an important lesson for me.

I've noticed people complaining about cliques. I'm sure they exist online as in real life. My experience isn't so vast here, but this habit of standing up for others and mediating disputes really seems to mitigate against the dominance of cliques.

I've seen, although I can't remember a specific instance of this now, members here rip into somebody's post on one thread, and then, maybe even on the same day, that same member will defend that same somebody in another thread. It's loving each other enough to really listen and respond, being present in the conversations. I hope I'll continue to learn this lesson.

Great point, John, about people being inclusive by standing up for one another.

I've been in lots of online communities so I've seen the destructive power of putdowns and flames. But I don't remember ever seeing the constructive power of people sticking up for principles (e.g. "everyone has something to contribute"), which I have seen here.

David Frayne in Phoenix said:

I've been in lots of online communities so I've seen the destructive power of putdowns and flames. But I don't remember ever seeing the constructive power of people sticking up for principles (e.g. "everyone has something to contribute"), which I have seen here.

good observation dav.

I've been in lots of online communities so I've seen the destructive power of putdowns and flames. But I don't remember ever seeing the constructive power of people sticking up for principles (e.g. "everyone has something to contribute"), which I have seen here.

Neither did nabuur.com suffer from "put downs and flames"; it was just dead

just plain dead, as far as providing benefits to 3World village ....

(unlike omidyar, which has rather vague goal of "making the world a better place,

nabuur.com was expressly founded to revolutionize philanthropic assistance)

http://www.nabuur.com/blog/ here is nabuur's blog addressing the problem

the founders encountering in attempting to realize nabbur's mission.

Martin, I look at it like this. Philanthropists have money. We have projects that could use the money. So we are basically applying for a job.

Now, what makes it interesting is the application process. Some philanthropists come right out and say what they want. You have to have this kind of nonprofit status, this many years in business, this kind of endorsement, this kind of project, and fill out these forms, etc. and you will be eligible for this amount of money if you win.

Other ones keep their metrics close to their vest, and get lots of people working together creatively with a vague sense that maybe the philanthropist will step in and participate if it looks promising. There's nothing wrong with that, in fact, it seems to me it tends to make good things happen.

It can be underwhelming and disappointing, too, especially if the philanthropist pulls the plug after people put in lots of effort!

see also http://www.omidyar.net/group/tra nsition/news/34/?page=2#comment2 9

why should i care about the fancy neeedlework of rich people?

i could care less how they get and spend the money they have.

however today the "social entrepeneurs" and "new philanthropists"

and "fair trade merchants" take up the marketing space that rightfully

should belong to the artisans who could really make use of the access.

By collaring the "social enterprise", "new philantropy" and "free trade"

brand names, money-interests assume a profitable interest in the misery

of poor people, by justifying activities (and taking tax deductions)

that are designed and intended not for the other's good, but one's own profit.

Martin, quoted you at gifthub.org.

This is such an important and serious point about how the

altruistic mission has become a marketing trump card so much

so that nowadays one can hardly market any product without

some story about how it is for impoverished people in africa

yet when an artisan from the 3rd world tries to market product

everyone directs the hopeful vendor to Ten Thousand Villages

which uses same automatic message response the past 10 years

meanwhile using its profit margins to further reinforce brand identity.

What is the automatic message response from 10 thousand villages?

Send an email to Ten Thousand Villages. Tell them you are

a village in the 3rd World with a tradition of handcrafts

Make it sound good. Tell them you are willing to work and

insure quality and do anything and everything it takes to

develop a working commercial relationship with 1000 Villages;

in reply you will receive the message that is sent to such solicitors.

I learned that in spite of all the platitudes you listed above that many folks who claim to want to do good are very intolerant of contrary opinions.

I'm surprised, given your experience; you learned that here. Not long before clicking into this space.

But if that's what you garnered from O.net, I imagine Pollen Path is stronger for the experience.

[Pollen Path] Mission Statement:

The Pollen Path empowers at-risk young people in America and internationally to overcome the challenges, barriers and disabilities that block them from achieving their dreams and goals. We provide TV programs and live interactive internet presentations featuring individuals who have overcome a multitude of challenges to achieve their own dreams. We are about hope, education, inspiration and action, helping individuals achieve their dreams and improve cultural understanding.

Page said:

I learned that in spite of all the platitudes you listed above that many folks who claim to want to do good are very intolerant of contrary opinions.

[edited: to punctuate link]

I learnt what I have noted from 100 other virtual communities doomed not to achieve what they hoped to open space for that virtual communities cannot rely on teach alone - they need a journalist

a youthful curious passionate about humanity (warts and all) journalist not an expert; one who: -is independent of the contributors and their favourite solutions to issues

spends most of their time looking reading through the community conversations for micro-entrepreneurs' big action/experiment issues of the next week and writing these up in a short linked newsletter that goes to every member

over time the journalist (like a qualitative researcher) and community host can learn from their interactive participant productions; if the community founder sees stuff among the next week's actions he/she values as especially vital, valuable or curious to nurture he can ask the journalist to do some detailed one to one emails with whomever is at the grassroots gravity of evolving that experiment/grassroots project; and these potential best of cases can can be arranged in their own community subspace so that as the world looks back (or newcomers join) on the years of that community it can see its flows of most actionable projects and undestands how cross-cultiral and other interlocal contributions helped to scale - linking local to global connections between

systemically the impact on the socila n etworks of participants and the collision of micro open spaces as documented in actionable projects, multiplies with the flow of the jourmnalist and the weekly newsletter archive of interaction foci; this can include the occasional time sensitive special across neighbouring chnage world communities - so omidyar and ashoka are sponsoring a chnagemaker competition on healthcare or transparency - I know that's a different web but isnt it worth the attention of 20000 audience signed up to now the competition is starting and has 8 weeks to search for best in world solutions (out there but in need of linking in through m inimising all our degrees of separtraion when it comes to life-critical questions)

The failure to include one human journalist in the cost of running any virtual community box is part of globalising the west coast disease these last 2 decades of overselling ICT and under-selling the connection of ICT and human brain power.

gee we only needed the smallest doses of mathematical foresight from those such as von neumann to rememeber his warnings that computer and human learnings have 2 different brilliances; unless we systematically and openly design the best of both those different brilliant worlds as they collided worldiwde and through everly local cuture on one networking generation 1984-2024 we were always bound to compound the worst of both learning worlds - a tragedy whose http://peoplepower.jp scale in this case means lossing the sustainability rights of all our grandchildrens as The Economist first asked you to join in debating 24 yearsd ago http://www.normanmacrae.com/netf uture.html

whatever else you claim for this age of machine management of knowledge, and west coast omnipotence , please do not begin to suggest that it develops whole truth learning flows in diverse enough ways to credit the whole human journey of our species so far - this lost learning cultural crisis is explored in a world citizen first edition here http://www.valuetrue.com/home/ga llery.cfm

and we offer 5 by $1000 prizes for different hemispheres that want re-edit this open source guide to how learning is the root causes crisis at the epiventre of all sustainability crises ans Einstein, Montessori and Gandhi mapped for us between 1920-1930 but be the change worlds of california long since deleted from being top of mind in our communal conversations

last sunday over 100 collaboration londoners piloted a first1000 readers club of the world citizen travel guide to l,ondong - their emerging do next projects wiki somewhere around here http://wiki.espians.com/100 ; if you have a community of 100 people who want to meet to discuss the same communal stimulus on the crisis of learning mail me at info@worldcitizen.tv and we will figure out who's going to pay the postage cost

I read your comment last night Peter and decided to wait until today to reply. I still cannot find the disconnect between my comment in this thread and the Pollen Path mission.

I suppose some of it comes from a "hope" that folks here might have risen above "themselves." Most of the time I haven't seen that and I have really tried. I have examined my own observations again to the best of my ability and still find my proposition accurate.

The Pollen Path was about looking and seeing outside one's own box and its walls. It was about hope not teaching specific things. I hear all the time about educating people but if they have no hope to start with it is kind of like pouring a fluid into a cup with no bottom.

Teach some to fish, sure! But teach them how to figure out how to fish themselves, well then we have really done something!

Peter Rees said:

I'm surprised, given your experience; you learned that here. Not long before clicking into this space.

But if that's what you garnered from O.net, I imagine Pollen Path is stronger for the experience.

[Pollen Path] Mission Statement:

The Pollen Path empowers at-risk young people in America and internationally to overcome the challenges, barriers and disabilities that block them from achieving their dreams and goals. We provide TV programs and live interactive internet presentations featuring individuals who have overcome a multitude of challenges to achieve their own dreams. We are about hope, education, inspiration and action, helping individuals achieve their dreams and improve cultural understanding.

Page said:

I learned that in spite of all the platitudes you listed above that many folks who claim to want to do good are very intolerant of contrary opinions.

[edited: to punctuate link]

I learnt what I have noted from 100 other virtual communities doomed not to achieve what they hoped to open space for that virtual communities cannot rely on teach alone - they need a journalist

a youthful curious passionate about humanity (warts and all) journalist not an expert; one who: -is independent of the contributors and their favourite solutions to issues

spends most of their time looking reading through the community conversations for micro-entrepreneurs' big action/experiment issues of the next week and writing these up in a short linked newsletter that goes to every member

Good!

people power GB-chris macrae wrote: "I learnt what I have noted from 100 other virtual communities doomed not to achieve what they hoped to open space for that virtual communities cannot rely on teach alone - they need a journalist"

That's such a smart observation. There are many online who rather match that description. Just to offer a couple of real life examples: Ethan Zuckerman and Beth Kanter are two who have been so valuable to me. Ethan Zuckerman is with the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard. He was influential in starting Global Voices and started BlogAfrica among many other contributions. Beth Kanter makes tech understandable and accessible for the non-profit sector.

Zuckerman has an academic gig which I think helps makes it possible for him to offer so much of his time communicating for the benefit of others. Beth Kanter is an independent consultant, which I suspect is a much more tenuous way to make a living. It's none of my business how their doing financially. The reason I mention the money angle is because I think Chris makes an important point. Figuring out how to make sure that the valuable role journalists play are supported is an important challenge moving forward. So how Zuckerman and Kanter are doing financially is important to me at least in the sense that I care very much they continue doing the important work they do.

I think we're agreeing.

I was surprised your O.net experience was the trigger for your observation. Instead of them being fashioned previously.

Page said:

I read your comment last night Peter and decided to wait until today to reply. I still cannot find the disconnect between my comment in this thread and the Pollen Path mission.

I suppose some of it comes from a "hope" that folks here might have risen above "themselves." Most of the time I haven't seen that and I have really tried. I have examined my own observations again to the best of my ability and still find my proposition accurate.

The Pollen Path was about looking and seeing outside one's own box and its walls. It was about hope not teaching specific things. I hear all the time about educating people but if they have no hope to start with it is kind of like pouring a fluid into a cup with no bottom.

Teach some to fish, sure! But teach them how to figure out how to fish themselves, well then we have really done something!

Peter Rees said:

I'm surprised, given your experience; you learned that here. Not long before clicking into this space.

But if that's what you garnered from O.net, I imagine Pollen Path is stronger for the experience.

[Pollen Path] Mission Statement:

The Pollen Path empowers at-risk young people in America and internationally to overcome the challenges, barriers and disabilities that block them from achieving their dreams and goals. We provide TV programs and live interactive internet presentations featuring individuals who have overcome a multitude of challenges to achieve their own dreams. We are about hope, education, inspiration and action, helping individuals achieve their dreams and improve cultural understanding.

Page said:

I learned that in spite of all the platitudes you listed above that many folks who claim to want to do good are very intolerant of contrary opinions.

[edited: to punctuate link]

Perhaps it was more of a re-affirmation than a new lesson. But it has been a bit of a disappointment.

Peter Rees said:

I think we're agreeing.

I was surprised your O.net experience was the trigger for your observation. Instead of them being fashioned previously.

Page said:

I read your comment last night Peter and decided to wait until today to reply. I still cannot find the disconnect between my comment in this thread and the Pollen Path mission.

I suppose some of it comes from a "hope" that folks here might have risen above "themselves." Most of the time I haven't seen that and I have really tried. I have examined my own observations again to the best of my ability and still find my proposition accurate.

The Pollen Path was about looking and seeing outside one's own box and its walls. It was about hope not teaching specific things. I hear all the time about educating people but if they have no hope to start with it is kind of like pouring a fluid into a cup with no bottom.

Teach some to fish, sure! But teach them how to figure out how to fish themselves, well then we have really done something!

Peter Rees said:

I'm surprised, given your experience; you learned that here. Not long before clicking into this space.

But if that's what you garnered from O.net, I imagine Pollen Path is stronger for the experience.

[Pollen Path] Mission Statement:

The Pollen Path empowers at-risk young people in America and internationally to overcome the challenges, barriers and disabilities that block them from achieving their dreams and goals. We provide TV programs and live interactive internet presentations featuring individuals who have overcome a multitude of challenges to achieve their own dreams. We are about hope, education, inspiration and action, helping individuals achieve their dreams and improve cultural understanding.

Page said:

I learned that in spite of all the platitudes you listed above that many folks who claim to want to do good are very intolerant of contrary opinions.

[edited: to punctuate link]