We need to raise $500 to save our Ning presence!

[Michel Bauwens]

Hi all,

Please help us to raise $500 in 5 days to help save the P2P Foundation Ning and contribute towards building a replacement open source home for the members and content.

Go here to make valuable contributions:

http://www.indiegogo.com/Save-the-P2P-Foundation-Ning

Please help spread that link far and wide!

Thanks in advance for your generosity,

Josef.

[Tom Crowl]

Michael,

Thanks! I will. But give me a little time. My housing situation is currently difficult and precarious. I suppose it's a common story at this point but the banks are busily engaging in mass destruction of civil society. I guess I'm a little upset right now... It's a long story. Positively Kafkaesque. And makes focus difficult sometimes.

But meanwhile my blog is http://culturalengineer.blogspot.com

I believe the concept is a very big deal and would be operational now if I hadn't got crippled by the banks before launch. I pretty much am coming out of nowhere and don't have much of a network yet though its been growing recently. it's simple really, think x-box points for Commons-oriented action either political or charitable... combined with networking capabilities (especially facilitated along electoral/geographic lines) and some graduated systems of anonymity similar to dating sites.

As for how the Commons is defined? Initially it can rest on simple legal IRS criteria on the nature of the recipients legal registration. And with similar standards for other nations.

Ultimately however, such a network can define the Commons as whatever the network decides it is. The fundamentals of such a network are actually the fundamentals of government itself... empowered association.

BTW, in the "BIG DREAM" and long down the road it could also become a People's Bank and a new foundation for localized currency creation based on, e.g. a co-ops garden's production, or hours of labor in some community endeavor... without being dependent on externally created and controlled financing.

I know there's a lot of interest in this and it seems to me such a Commons-owned structure based around traditional currencies serves as the best foundation for that.

I believe the monopolization of currency creation has been a real weight on the neck of the under-developed world and fosters external exploitation by the currency creators... and that even if well-intentioned, tends to end very badly.

When I hear of the money that goes to guys that design opaque financial structures for fraud... and that startups get money for websites where you can place 'bet's' and 'hedges' on grades in school...

While nothing is spent to develop an empowered and informed citizenry... (in fact our duopolist political parties seek to degrade informed discussion in favor of narrow 'lizard-brain' buttons which are easier for them to push)

I frankly start to feel ill and very, very sad about our futures.

This neutral structure, btw, is also the logical response to Citizens United. I'm actually amazed I'm still sitting out here without a team ready to go. I'm a pretty good theorist but a terrible entrepreneur. Nor am I a developer and can't do it by myself. Some very interesting people are joining me on LinkedIn though... and without me asking! Anybody here would be welcome if interested. I could seriously use experienced advice and support.

When I thought of this a few years ago... and being a (now) 60 year old guy completely unconnected with this 'techie', social media world, I just started putting it together by myself with the help of some great guys in India who got me this far. And have been trying to figure out how to get 'seen' ever since.

[Alex Rollin]

The Ning import to http://commons.peerforge.com is complete. You may retrieve a new password from the site at http://commons.peerforge.com/user using your Ning account email or make a new account. Only users who authored posts or commented were migrated. I look forward to hearing the feedforward on the build-out.

[Michel Bauwens]

By the way Tom, if you want to discuss a series by you on the p2p-f blog, please write me at michelsub2004 at g mail

[Michel Bauwens]

Tom, feel free to propose a blog post on: The Individually-controlled / Commons-dedicated Account concept

[Michel Bauwens]

thanks to chris and tom and others for your input. Tom: will check your links, and really sorry to hear about your house! More and more people it seems, will go through that rite of passage ...

Michel

[Chris Watkins]

Anders' comment re BuddyPress:

"I think you would save yourself thru alot of Drupal Pain… http://buddypress.org :)."

+1 - Drupal is worth considering if you have much more money for coders, a lot of patience and willingness to debug, and actively maintain over coming years, and have site needs that can't otherwise be satisfied. Not the case for the P2P Foundation, I think.

Grou.ps looks like a good option, and being a hosted solution, probably much less work even than BuddyPress - see this thread on a GlobalSwadeshi discussion. It's also open source, same as BP.

Both solutions support a P2P society, by being so accessible (which Drupal is not). There are better uses for the money you've raised, if the donors are okay with it.

[Tom Crowl]

I'm afraid I can't help with money right now... My house was just taken by the bank yesterday and though progress on my project is getting close... its not quite here yet.

BUT!!! I do believe my little endeavor is gaining traction and is the sort of thing that eventually will become a huge catalyst to peer-to-peer empowerment.

The Individually-controlled/Commons-dedicated Account* (and especially the resultant network) is a simple concept... but provides an essential framework essential for re-vitalization of Enlightenment principles within an excessively commercialized world.

*A Self-supporting , Commons-owned neutral, platform for both political and charitable monetary contribution... which for very fundamental scaling reasons must allow a viable micro-transaction (think x-box points for action in the Commons). The resultant network catalyzes additional functionality for co-ordination of other 'social energy' utilization. (P.S. Its the most neutral and ultimately politically viable method for the public finance of elections.)

Money and the Machinery of Representation
http://culturalengineer.blogspot.com/2010/07/money-and-machinery-of...

Personal Democracy: Disruption as an Enlightenment Essential
http://culturalengineer.blogspot.com/2010/06/personal-democracy-dis...

The Foundations of Authoritarianism
http://culturalengineer.blogspot.com/2009/05/foundations-of-authori...

How would hunter-gatherers run the world? (pssst... They Do!)
http://culturalengineer.blogspot.com/2009/11/how-would-hunter-gathe...

Credit Creation and the Building of Sustainable Economic Ecologies http://culturalengineer.blogspot.com/2010/02/credit-creation-and-bu...

Demo (crude but all I could afford) http://www.Chagora.com
LinkedIn http://www.linkedin.com/in/culturalengineer

[Anders Abrahamsson]

cool, thx! :)

[Michel Bauwens]

thanks Anders, it will be up to a few technicals to decide, but I copied your proposal to the list,

Michel

[Anders Abrahamsson]

@Alex;
I'll quote from the comment I made in the comment thread on the crowdfunding platform;

"What the BP solution takes us is making communities far more accessible for the layman level. Drupal takes so much more from the developer. Showcasing BP solutions is “spreading the word” of how powerful the WP tool is. http://buddypress.org/2010/04/ning-to-buddypres... also saves alot of development time/cost. IMHO."

http://www.indiegogo.com/Save-the-P2P-Foundation-Ning?c=comments&am...

Self-hosting on Open Source platform, with simplicity of use and installment - that is WP/BP in a nutshell. And as for data migration, export will be available in BP 1.4+

http://buddypress.org/about/roadmap/

@Michael;
If you already have a popular WP blog, also easy to synch themes. And extend the WP blog to a BP community site then maybe will keep it even more straightforward and cool, promo wise?

Just some 2c, decision is yours. I'm not on the mailing list.