Jeff Mowatt said in "The end of omidyar.net: creating new communities" on Sat, 21 Jul 2007 00:25:59 PDT:

Yes, Community. Fairly easy to start a new forum but attracting people to participate is a far greater effort and not to be discarded.

Given the responsibility, I'd be looking for a reputable hosting environment with adequate bandwidth rather than my own basement server, making financial contribution optional with other revenue streams as suggested and setting up as a profit for purpose effort with the hope of being able to inject small funding opportunities to the projects that develop here and perhaps attract more substantial donors in so doing.

Can WE use some term like "The Old Omidyar Site?"

Did you ask Jim Carroll?

If Jims on board to create an instance of the basic set of tools here, along with the content, it could be a real boon. i would hate to see him end up in a situation where he's regularly berated because feature x, which gets us by, doesn't perform exactly how person y think it should etc... setting some clear expectations up front about what the site will be, and how decisions about tech specs are made could be critical to its success as a network of communities (esp if such discussions are "public")...

Lars Hasselblad Torres said:

If Jims on board to create an instance of the basic set of tools here, along with the content, it could be a real boon. i would hate to see him end up in a situation where he's regularly berated because feature x, which gets us by, doesn't perform exactly how person y think it should etc... setting some clear expectations up front about what the site will be, and how decisions about tech specs are made could be critical to its success as a network of communities (esp if such discussions are "public")...

That is the hard part... I agree. I think we could open up the ability to add features to whoever can gather the resources... but I also think that good intentions can sometimes cause more harm than good when they come from all sides. I think we'd have to agree to some principles that the site tries to follow.

I would also want to experiment with ways of keeping the quality high... I would want to be able to temporarily disable accounts when there's too much berating happening.

I would also like to do experiments like putting a limit on the number of posts per day by any individual, to see if that limit produces more quality than quantity. The one day time-frame gives a mandatory cooling off period for any two people who are arguing back and forth...

I do think that the success of this site has been from its leadership, and a big part of that is saying no to requests that don't blend well with the core functionality, and address the guiding principles. It's going to be harder to do this in the future... but that might lead to some great things too.

Lars, I think you and Norb and I have to have some good conversations next weekend! Especially about domain names and such.

Right, sounds good Jim! Coming up fast... :)

That one editorial that you made Norbert makes it sound a little more optimistic that we could keep content intact. It's likely we would have to deal with some legalities, and get lots of explicit permission... which is an issue the board will be exploring.

I could imagine that we could hide content on the new site until the old author signs in and agrees to make their old content visible... or something like that.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that part of the costs might be retaining a Lawyer to guide a few of the decisions, and avoid any litigation that would completely halt the project.

RicHARD ~The Anointed One~ Makepeace said:

Can WE use some term like "The Old Omidyar Site?"

The branding of the new site can't associate itself with the Omidyar name, but it's going to be hard not to keep it from coming up in conversation. I would also still need to give credit for the programming done.

Did you ask Jim Carroll?

Those were my words. I'm taking it as a compliment that Norbert thinks they're worthy of him.

Jim,

thanks -- and after I posted I did think "would" was too forthright (I have now replaced it with "might"). I could imagine the archived stuff could simply be labelled "comment withheld due to missing permission" or something like that -- and then people could sign on and fill in a form saying "OK already, go ahead and post what I said" [hmm -- how to authenticate -- would omidyar.net be willing to facilitate here?]

Anyways, lots of good ideas bubbling up here. I'm gonna be on an airplane next weekend (you know me: always up to no good ;) -- how about right now? or some other time?

ps: oh, and I didn't want to quote you without your permission, so that was why I didn't say they were really your words. ;D

-- should I change it now to reflect the fact that they are indeed your words, or should we let people keep wondering what the actual truth is? ;)

Jim Carroll said:

Lars, I think you and Norb and I have to have some good conversations next weekend! Especially about domain names and such.

Think you fellas could include Harry and Brad? Maybe even invite THEM? I would invite them, but MY tech skills are so lacking that THEY would probably think I was dissing them.

Jim Carroll said:

That is the hard part... I agree. I think we could open up the ability to add features to whoever can gather the resources... but I also think that good intentions can sometimes cause more harm than good when they come from all sides. I think we'd have to agree to some principles that the site tries to follow.

I would also want to experiment with ways of keeping the quality high... I would want to be able to temporarily disable accounts when there's too much berating happening.

I would also like to do experiments like putting a limit on the number of posts per day by any individual, to see if that limit produces more quality than quantity. The one day time-frame gives a mandatory cooling off period for any two people who are arguing back and forth...

I do think that the success of this site has been from its leadership, and a big part of that is saying no to requests that don't blend well with the core functionality, and address the guiding principles. It's going to be harder to do this in the future... but that might lead to some great things too.

I'm a thinkin' and a wondering whether the overall site could be rather liberal (kind of like "community-general" here) but the subsites would be encouraged to be more "owner" oriented than here. One way I have suggested to do that here was simple to implement something like sponsor feedback -- and thereby entire groups could "bubble up".

For more ideas about "the more things change, the more they remain the same", please consider posting to:

I Want You Just the Way You Are (Please Leave Everything the Same as it Ever Was -- Don't You Ever Change!)

COOL!! I like this development starting!

In another thread; http://www.omidyar.net/group/com munity-general/news/1924/321/

Julie, says;

Let's have a brand name that attracts new members who may never have heard the word OMIDYAR.

Brad Byrne said:

are you open to the members governing the site?

Brad, I don't know who your question is directed to.

You might be interested in my response to the question "Do you have views on how future communities should be governed?" (perhaps that will develop over time, so check there). If you would like to "chat" with me (in particular) about it, then please consider using this discussion thread.

:) nmw

Richard, I am not inviting anyone further to the workshop/"opportunity" Jim is referencing - pretty maxed out, and I think there has been ample opportunity to sign up.

Perhaps more importantly, we'll be gathering to discuss + share + play on other matters, and I suspect Jim is just suggesting there will be informal opportunities to discuss this topic without moving in a decision-oriented direction.

Hope that clarifies...

Ravi Arapurakal said:

Let's have a brand name that attracts new members who may never have heard the word OMIDYAR.

Yes, Ravi!

I started a brainstorming thread at "Kick the Can" -- and I've also posted some ideas at "Killer Domain Names"

:) nmw

Jim Carroll said:

I guess what I'm trying to say is that part of the costs might be retaining a Lawyer to guide a few of the decisions, and avoid any litigation that would completely halt the project.

Maybe that lawyer would like to look at this clause in the current user agreement:

COPYRIGHT. omidyar.net and/or its suppliers, as applicable, retain ownership of all proprietary rights, notices and marks in, or displayed by, the Services. You will not remove, deface or obscure any of omidyar.net's or its suppliers' copyright or trademark notices and/or legends or other proprietary notices on, incorporated therein, or associated with the Services. All material you submit or post on this website may be used, reproduced, modified, and distributed as omidyar.net deems necessary in our reasonable discretion.

Emphasis is mine.

I believe getting explicit permission from each author in order to republish their contributions to a discussion would pretty much cripple continuing work that was started here and transported to a new site.

Maybe a general waiver would suffice, ie:

Sign up here if you give [person x] permission to republish your content at [site y]?

Norbert, I was just identifying a potential question that will likely arise in the midst of the development that is being discussed here, as all good endeavors eventually get asked the same questions (Frequently Asked Questions), there was no critique intended, just simply trying to help ;)

ADDED: Norbert I reread your reply, and I guess I read it wrong! sorry :)

anyway, I would love to discuss all these things eventually, I just really do not have time right now to get involved in anything more then is on my plate now, :)

Lars Hasselblad Torres said:

Maybe a general waiver would suffice, ie:

Sign up here if you give [person x] permission to republish your content at [site y]?

OR even:

Sign up here if you give [site y] permission to republish your content.

I guess my problem is that IANUS (I am not usefully sapient ;)

Lars Hasselblad Torres said:

Maybe a general waiver would suffice, ie:

Sign up here if you give [person x] permission to republish your content at [site y]?

Stats

And we have how many active users who will sign in between now ant Sept 7 to give that permission?

Can you imagine going through all of those groups, topics, comments and workspaces in order to delete or fold all unauthorized posts?

It's a great idea but I don't think it works :-(

It just seems that if Onet authorizes a spawned site to post as a continuation and not some other use that might alter text that that would class as "reasonable discretion." It is also much like quoting....everything is cited to the author far more exhaustively than MLA standards.

Thanks for helping to think it through Linda. My proposal assumes several things:

1. there is an "intake" process ie registration involved
2. only some amount of content will be desired
3. only some number of people will migrate over and there are to ways to handle their data:

• a: a single click "publish all" feature (enter disclaimer + waiver)
• b: a "let me choose what to publish" feature (enter disclaimer)

If we all made sure the people/content we most value know about the new space, and took some responsibility for making a small effort to reach out to the creators of that content, the idea I am proposing may not be as impossible as you assume...?

Speaking personally, I have zero interest in seeing all of the information/data from o.net republished elsewhere. I assume others are in the same camp, but maybe I'm off...

Brad Byrne said:

Norbert, I was just identifying a potential question that will likely arise in the midst of the development that is being discussed here, as all good endeavors eventually get asked the same questions (Frequently Asked Questions), there was no critique intended, just simply trying to help ;)

ADDED: Norbert I reread your reply, and I guess I read it wrong! sorry :)

anyway, I would love to discuss all these things eventually, I just really do not have time right now to get involved in anything more then is on my plate now, :)

Brad, if/when you (or anyone else) has time, I have set up a discussion thread for this topic at:

Do you have views on how future communities should be governed? If so, what are they?

Linda ทรัพยากร Nowakowski said:

And we have how many active users who will sign in between now ant Sept 7 to give that permission?

Can you imagine going through all of those groups, topics, comments and workspaces in order to delete or fold all unauthorized posts?

One thing to remember is that the vast majority of those 19,000 simply lurked and did not contribute content. I'll see if I can dig in deeper on Sunday night to see exactly how many authors there were who'd need to be contacted to get permissions from.

We may be able to help scope the problem by seeing just how many people contributed content (more than just a single comment?) to help narrow the outreach.

Thanks Thomas, that information would be really helpful. I know I certainly don't have the time to do the required sifting.