livingbytruth November 27, 2010

 

Dear Kennedy Owino, Franz Nahrada, Pamela McLean,

I'm encouraged by your response to my proposal
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/livingbytruth/message/1059
to pool funds through Kickstarter to set up a Minciu Sodas / Worknets
archive so that we can build on our content in the Public Domain,
reflect on our experience, and point to our latest endeavors. Thank you!

Kickstarter is an "all or nothing" funding platform.
http://www.kickstarter.com I will propose a project there along with a
minimum budget and rewards for funders. People will then have 90 days
to commit funds. If they pool together the minimum budget, then all of
their credit cards are charged accordingly and I will receive the funds
and do the project. If the minimum budget is not pooled together, then
nobody will be charged and I will not do the project. Here is more
about how it works: http://www.kickstarter.com/help/faq

I'm impressed by Tom Henderson's success in funding his "Punk Math"
book. He sought 2,400 USD and collected 28,701 USD from 1,022 backers.
He offered rewards of many sizes: $2 for an index card from the rough
draft; $9 for access to the online community where he'll write the book;
$20 for a printed copy of the book, as well; $29 an invitation the
release party, as well; $42 access to the Math Emergency Hotline; $64 a
handmade color mindmap; $256 custom research-interview-mindmap; $400
live performance. Note also his short video about his project:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1541803748/punk-mathematics the
podcast "Math for Primates" which he co-hosts
http://www.mathforprimates.com and the interview which led to his
book:
http://technoccult.net/archives/2010/02/25/the-punk-rock-philosophy-of-mathematics-technoccult-interviews-tom-henderson

I ask for our thoughts:
* What should be the minimum project?
* What rewards do we want?
* What should be the minimum budget?

Here's what I want to do, as a minimum. I want to set up
http://www.worknets.org as an archive, in the Public Domain, of all of
our work together from 1998 to 2010 at Minciu Sodas, Worknets, Pyramid
of Peace and related venues.
* I have software for downloading our letters from our Yahoo! groups. I
want to download them all (more than 35,000) and make them available at
http://www.worknets.org/letters/
* I want to put up a read-only copy of the Worknets wiki at
http://www.worknets.org/wiki/
* I want to put up our chat archive at http://www.worknets.org/chat/
* I want to put up related video - we have just a few
* I want to put up the Pyramid of Peace story at
http://www.pyramidofpeace.net
* I want to put up and organize the most important papers, writings
* I want to set up a simple search engine/system so that we can find
information across the archive, in particular, by author, date and key word
* I want to have a page for each author that shows their participation,
what they are doing now, and what thoughts they have, if any, about
their experience
* I want to have a way for people to add their reflections (or links to
their reflections) into the future
* I want to have a way for people to note or add "kind words" that they
have said about each other, this would be a useful reference
* I want to set up links from the many archive pages to our existing
projects, communities, ventures, services
* I want to upload a copy of the entire site to archive.org
* I want to pay for the worknets.org domains and server for at least the
next five years
What else is a "must have" for the core features of the Worknets Archive?

What rewards do we want? Here are some ideas. I (or our team):
* include links from archive pages to your current projects
* send you the archive on CDs or a flash drive
* record and post an interview with you by video or audio (via Skype)
about your experiences, reflections and current activities; publish a
transcript of part or all of the interview; edit and post the interview
for You Tube
* interview you regarding your answers to the "12 questions"
* draw your portrait or create artwork about your dream-in-life
* research the archives for answers to questions you may have
* publish an electronic book (PDF or other format) of your selected writings
* publish an electronic journal that includes some of your writings
* submit for publication an article that includes some of your writings,
past and current
* interview a participant (of your choice) of the Pyramid of Peace about
their experiences
* a Minciu Sodas or Pyramid of Peace shirt, mug, etc.
* have your face, symbol, picture, logo, etc. be included in such a shirt
* collect "kind words" that people had for you and you for others
* do custom programming to support our current venues, for example, set
up a chat room for Pamela at dadamac.com or fix up Pro Wiki for Franz at
http://www.globalvillages.info, I could do such work at a rate of $20
per hour, and of course, be sure to link prominently to the new venues
* do projects in Kenya, for example, interview participants of Pyramid
of Peace, or make better known our achievements (Samwel Kongere, Peter
Ongele and Tom Ochuka owe me money and they or others might do such work
for me)
* transfer ownership of worknets.info, worknets.biz or other such extra
domains
* do personal introductions as requested
* invite you and your friends to an "online party" (by Video Skype)
* promote your old and new work by linking to it from all manner of
online venues
* create a mindmap of your activity or of a topic that interests you
* publish a photo album of our participants and get included along with
a few people you choose
* it may be possible to host your websites for free on our server - I
have to look into the details - there are no limitations on disk space
or bandwidth or number of domains, but there may be limitations on
"resale" - but alternatively, we can likely find somebody to host your
domain for you inexpensively
* we can provide virtual assistants for your current projects

What do we actually want?

The minimum budget should include at least 1,000 USD for me so that I
can afford to do this. There should also be about 500 USD to pay for
the domains and server for 5 years. Each reward has to pay for itself
and also contribute to the minimum budget, so we have to think that
through as well.

I look forward to our thoughts and giving this shape in the next few
weeks. Then I'll make a video and submit my proposal at Kickstarter.

Samwel, thank you for your thoughts on my new venture, Gospel Math
http://www.gospelmath.com

Thank you!

Andrius

Andrius Kulikauskas
Minciu Sodas
http://www.ms.lt

------------------------------

.

__,_._,___