Hi Andrius

I add my voice to those of my Minciu Sodas friends Kennedy Owino, Samwel Kongere, and Franz Nahrada, who have already replied  to your email about doing an archiving project and funding it through Kickstarter (I have copied a shortened version of your email below and highlighted it).

I would support the creation of the archive for various reasons.

Not philanthropy

My contribution to the archive project will not be a part of my normal charitable giving.

In some ways it is hard for me to say openly, in front of so many of our friends in Africa, that I will respond to your request, when I do not normally respond to direct individual requests for financial help made through Minciu Sodas. People often ask for individual help with all kinds of urgent family and community expenses. Perhaps they will wonder how can I support you if I have not supported all of them? It is not something I can easily explain. Will people understand if I say it is partly because I am not in Minciu Sodas as a philanthropist? (What if I try to explain that there are some places, and people, in Nigeria that I simply do not want to go back to because of the mismatch between who I am and who people expect me to be in terms of deep pockets, and responding to immediate needs? Will they understand then? Perhaps only those who know both cultures can understand.)

Even if I was a philanthropist and I had the deep pockets necessary to respond to repeated requests for financial help through Minciu Sodas would I do so?  Would I respond to all requests? How would I judge between them? Would Minciu Sodas be the best channel to direct my charitable giving? I don't know.

Minciu Sodas was home to me, for my non-formal post-graduate studies

I came to Minciu Sodas for the opportunity to think. In some ways there was huge overlap, between your views of Mincius Sodas, Andrius,  and mine, but in other ways we had differences, which we sometimes discussed. You (its founder) saw it as a laboratory and a potential business, while I (a participant) saw it as a kind of non-formal university. For me it was an online home and study centre for self-directed learners - place where I was encouraged to "think out loud". Other people in Minciu Sodas found other things there.

I found it to be true to the name you gave to it "Minciu Sodas" - Orchard of Thoughts. I wrote some of my thoughts  while I was there, but, more importantly to me, I participated in and observed the amazing, groundbreaking, global, online community that you created and nurtured - like a farmer creating and tending an orchard.  I believe you will see it bearing fruit, but perhaps not in the ways that you originally expected and hoped.

Support from alumni

It is perfectly normal for universities to approach alumni for financial support (especially when the university is building a new library, or buying some precious archive, or setting up some new research facility). Given I see myself in that relationship to Minciu Sodas I am happy to be approached to contribute to your work on the archive (which I see as a combination of library, archive, and innovative research tool).

I will contribute to the archive fund in appreciation of what Minciu Sodas has given me, and because I believe it will be a unique and valuable resource, both to those who were part of it, and also as a mine of information for researchers  who come later - especially if they are interested in socio-technology and the development of successful online communities.

Additional information

You have also asked for additional information from us about the value of Minciu Sodas. I cannot begin to do justice to that here. Maybe we can have a separate conversation (or series of conversations) about it. I would also welcome the chance to explore ways in which things that I am doing, planning, and thinking about now may complement things you are doing, planning, and thinking about.

Pamela

On 19 November 2010 05:16, Andrius Kulikauskas <ms@ms.lt> wrote:
 

Thank you to everybody who participated at Minciu Sodas and Worknets
from 1998 to 2010. More than 1,000 people wrote us letters and hundreds
more participated at our wiki and our chatroom. We also got to meet
each other every now and then.

This year, I gave up trying to make that work as a business. In May, I
moved to Chicago to work as a tutor. Now, I wish to share what I'd like
to do next. I have two projects in mind (a book "Gospel Math" and a
Worknets archive) that I would like to do through the funding platform
http://www.kickstarter.com I share my thoughts at John Rogers's
working group Cyfranogi, Pamela McLean's Learning From Each Other, and
my own Living By Truth.

I'm only working 18 hours a week right now. I have time to look for
more income, something that would be more relevant to my life and that
ultimately I could do from Lithuania.

I would like to support self-learning. I have a Ph.D. in Math. I was
always taught math as a hodge podge of techniques. Instead, I want to
think of it as a language of a few dozen deep ideas. As a teacher at
UCSD and AUBiH, and as a tutor at Ivy League Tutoring, I have fleshed
out parts of that language.

(snip)

I want to try out http://www.kickstarter.com with a smaller project
first. I imagine that Gospel Math will open up a new chapter in my
life. I would like to make available an archive of Minciu Sodas /
Worknets which came before. I would truly appreciate support from all
of us because the archive of our 35,000+ letters, our 4,000+ wiki pages
and our years of chat is a testimony to our many achievements. The
archive would be thousands of read-only pages with headers that link to
our many current projects. I would add search tools and organize
everything nicely. It would also be a good time to do interviews and
summaries regarding our efforts in the Pyramid of Peace and other
projects. It's a good time to reflect on our culture and share what
each of us have learned. The archive will point to our future projects
and we can point back to the archive whenever we reflect about our work.

Would you contribute $10 or $100 or so for such a Worknets archive? I
want to raise at least $1,000 for my work to organize the many pages and
$1,000 to assure that they stay up on the Internet at worknets.org for
at least the next 10 years. I believe that if we think of good rewards
that people want, then we could raise more, perhaps enough for a team.

Please write!

Andrius

Andrius Kulikauskas
Gospel Math
http://www.gospelmath.com
+1 (773) 306-3807

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