Seth's Excellent Proposal

Hi all,

I spent some time thinking about the systems afoot so far and want to contribute with constructive design suggestion for the internet communications meeting in-person, particularly how to improve process of direct art action, aid and organization.  I CCed open source contacts as well because it's an IT topic as well.

A few things have resonated with me so far in one meeting I attended and reading this list.   First are the people numbers breakdown, 300+ on Arts & Culture list vs 30 who go to daily meetings and even smaller amount with much energy steering things moreso than others (no fault or critique, just how things can go, esp in current structure).
 
Then there are the two sites for Occupenial and Arts & Culture…weighted heavily towards an archivist model, moreso than actions of proposing, inputting and making art.  By archivist, I mean that with Arts & Culture site it's all meeting/notes/docs and with Occupenial, mostly a date-based archive with blog entries that get lost as time passes.  These are more venues for recording what already happened and discussing those events.  

What may help to balance equation and help any newcomers and existing members online is a future forward dynamic that can augment and stand alongside this dominant archivist model.  This would be a system addition that focuses on filtering ideas and people power into art making, proposing and realizing ideas, noting skills to contribute, and volunteering to help.
 
In doing so, and having a constant tally from all members possible on a given project, plus idea of members willing to contribute to it…there can be a nice synch between what's prioritized in in-person meetings, on the list, and on websites.   It could also be an easy launch point for anyone new with any idea…i.e. organize, upload it, announce it on list and in-person…see what happens while working on it anyway.

I threw together the attached mockup built off Occupenial website, mostly because it seems the site can be customized somewhat more than Arts & Culture, also there's the word "action" in there :)  So on left there you'll see Art Actions In Progress vs Completed.    

I used my mural idea as the filler content because it's on-hand.  The photos of hand gestures come from the General Assembly PDF (there's no photo of Maybe / Lukewarm gesture so left blank for now).

Votes could be instantly tallied by anyone clicking on the picture or word.  It would likely require logging in to create an account to at least minimally prevent gaming the system.  In-person meetings about specific projects would prove whether the online voting, input and energy is matched on the ground by real people.  On left side I divided the main categories between Art Actions In Progress and Art Actions Completed.

Each project could have a direct and static link which could always be posted when anyone talks about it on this list.  It does not just have to be visual art projects…theater, performance, events, and even the living documents all work fine.  And just as Occupy started from creative/arts base, this system put through test of art activities may work work on broader scale, ie it could be used for General Assembly stuff like marches or other proposals.  

By seeing what attracts the most interest from the body as a whole, the respective members can then focus and help enable those projects.   A few people could track which projects get the most steam and relay rankings now and then via the email list with links so people can check in and input.  This could also inform the setup and priority of things discussed and acted upon at the in-person meetings.  It's a check on power of the few and also allows remote/online members to participate more.

I don't have time or skill to build this but this attached design is enough for someone with back-end capabilities…there would need to be project upload section and server setup to deal with assets and categorization of projects (the cookie crumb trail thing you see under main header).   And there's simple auto actions like showing most active 5-10 projects and probably good idea to have curated set of projects to for compare/contrast.

I'm happy to share this Illustrator file if there's a builder interested and could help a bit more.

Best,
Seth