Forward Momentum / Volunteer Roll-call

[Patrick]

Great to see people taking the initiative on keeping the ball rolling!

The next couple of days are going to be crucial in salvaging as much
momentum as possible.

In terms of volunteering for the new festival, I think it makes sense
for people to say what they think is the most important stuff to work
on, and what they're willing/able to work on, and see what overlap
there is.

Right now I think establishing the new alternative online community
should be job one.
If anything is going to cause attendee drop off its there being a big
fat CANCELLED on all the net presence for Ephemerisle, with no
alternative site and just a couple guys saying "we're gonna do
something anyway"

The prep of who's bringing what to where, who's sharing what can be
left till later, pre-festival build up can't.

So:

Is the Ephemerisle site going to be able to keep going? if not, we
should get a replacement site up ASAP.

Which leads me neatly to what I can contribute:

I'm UK based so my IRL contribution is limited to when I come over to
SF (july 14th), but I'm happy to do web design, research etc.(I worked
on the defunct www.makerisland.com).

So if I don't hear back on the fate of ephemerisle.org soon, I'll
start work on the alt site, feel free to email me with ideas/support
in regards to that. Bear in mind its going to be cheap and cheerful to
get something up ASAP.

One thing I can't do that I do think we need to get a handle on, is
sort out the legal basis for this kind of impromptu event on public
water ways, and good practice of who we need to inform, insuring we
don't piss off the wrong people etc.

Okay, so what does everyone else think is important, and what are
people willing to work on?

[Matt Bell]

Oh no! A big long email!  Don't have time to read it?  Then please do me a favor and go say you're attending our gathering that is not Ephemerisle:  http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=126532500718931

-----

Here's the actual email:

-----

Getting forward momentum right now is a really good thing.

Some thoughts on various critical issues:

Location:

Mikolaj is right -- we should be able to simply gather at the previously chosen location like any of the many houseboat parties that gather on the Delta in the summer.  Without a communal structure, we won't attract nearly as much attention... unless Mikolaj buys those new sailor boots.  In fact, we'll probably be much less rowdy than the rednecks the authorities used to dealing with, so we are unlikely to encounter issues with the authorities.  The Ephemerisle organizers went to considerable effort to pick a location that's not high-traffic or high redneck density yet still has enough draft for larger vessels.  I'm thinking we should keep it. 

Name:

It would be useful to have a name for our gathering so that we can track our various activities.  This may sound odd, but I think we should call it "not-ephemerisle".  That way, anyone who googles for Ephemerisle will find us, and the name explains both what we are not and what we are trying to replace.  Plus, I'm thinking TSI is unlikely to sue us for trademark infringement.  Does anyone have other suggestions?

Getting the word out:

I'm thinking that the Ephemerisle attendees consist of a significant number of non-overlapping groups, so some of them are hard to reach.  I've put messages on the Ephemerisle blog, the Ephemerisle Facebook group, and Ephemerisle-community.  Are there any other places it should go?  I've already triggered Facebook's spammer behavior detector, so I can't send messages to all the Ephemerisle attendees.

I just set up a facebook group for people to join -- we should get as many people on it as possible quickly so that we can show the event has momentum.  Please add yourselves ASAP: 

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=126532500718931

Patrick -- I think it could be useful to have a pretty and definitive-looking homepage.  I think the main purposes of the homepage should be to display generally-agreed upon event information and point people toward the Facebook event, wiki, and mailing list.  Since this is a fairly grassroots effort, I think that the active lots-of-things-in-the-air organizing should take place on this google group and its wiki. 

Other key organizing pieces:

What else is critical right now?  What do we need to think about? 

One big thing we'll need to self-organize around is transportation.  We'll need to work together to ensure that people arriving and leaving at various times can get to Ephemerisle from the docks.  The houseboats are far too slow to do pickup/dropoff runs.  Perhaps people can get rides on other people's houseboats.  We might be able to do a run or two with the speedboat on the day we have it, but then we should give John Smart extra money for gas. 

--

Hmm... writing this is actually more fun than going to Precompression 2010. 

The giant koosh is coming along.  I now am the owner of over 200 pool noodles, and am starting to assemble the modules.  http://nasu-dengaku.livejournal.com/306511.html

- Matt

On Sat, Jun 19, 2010 at 7:14 PM, Mikolaj Habryn <dic...@rcpt.to> wrote:

Making lots of online noise to advertise that there's a plan B is a fantastic idea.

As far floating legalities, there's well-established precedent for people taking a bunch of houseboats out for a weekend, and I'd suggest that we simply follow that. Explicitly setting out to provide communal structures and supplies is what sank the whole thing in the first place, so just arrange things communally with your berthmates on a boat level and be prepared to act surprised in front of any hypothetical authority figures when something greater than the sum of the parts emerges.

m.

[Jeff Chan]

Good going folks! I was hoping this might happen, but I've
already cancelled the houseboat I reserved. Not sure if I will
make it but am glad you self-organized a replacement.

Cheers,

Jeff C.

On Saturday, June 19, 2010, 9:44:38 PM, Matt Bell wrote:
> Oh no! A big long email! Don't have time to read it? Then please do me a
> favor and go say you're attending our gathering that is not Ephemerisle:
> http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=126532500718931

> -----

> Here's the actual email:

> -----

> Getting forward momentum right now is a really good thing.

> Some thoughts on various critical issues:

> *Location:*

> Mikolaj is right -- we should be able to simply gather at the previously
> chosen location like any of the many houseboat parties that gather on the
> Delta in the summer. Without a communal structure, we won't attract nearly
> as much attention... unless Mikolaj buys those new sailor boots. In fact,
> we'll probably be much less rowdy than the rednecks the authorities used to
> dealing with, so we are unlikely to encounter issues with the authorities.
> The Ephemerisle organizers went to considerable effort to pick a location
> that's not high-traffic or high redneck density yet still has enough draft
> for larger vessels. I'm thinking we should keep it.

> *Name:*

> It would be useful to have a name for our gathering so that we can track our
> various activities. This may sound odd, but I think we should call it
> "not-ephemerisle". That way, anyone who googles for Ephemerisle will find
> us, and the name explains both what we are not and what we are trying to
> replace. Plus, I'm thinking TSI is unlikely to sue us for trademark
> infringement. Does anyone have other suggestions?

> *Getting the word out:*

> I'm thinking that the Ephemerisle attendees consist of a significant number
> of non-overlapping groups, so some of them are hard to reach. I've put
> messages on the Ephemerisle blog, the Ephemerisle Facebook group, and
> Ephemerisle-community. Are there any other places it should go? I've
> already triggered Facebook's spammer behavior detector, so I can't send
> messages to all the Ephemerisle attendees.

> I just set up a facebook group for people to join -- we should get as many
> people on it as possible quickly so that we can show the event has
> momentum. Please add yourselves ASAP:

> http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=126532500718931

> Patrick -- I think it could be useful to have a pretty and
> definitive-looking homepage. I think the main purposes of the homepage
> should be to display generally-agreed upon event information and point
> people toward the Facebook event, wiki, and mailing list. Since this is a
> fairly grassroots effort, I think that the active lots-of-things-in-the-air
> organizing should take place on this google group and its wiki.

> *Other key organizing pieces:*

> --

> - Matt

--
Jeff Chan
mailto:nation-...@jeffchan.com
http://www.jeffchan.com/

[Jeff Chan]

BTW, for personal financial survival, make sure to have insurance
on the houseboat and personal liability insurance. The latter
can be included in a homeowner's policy, for example.

Cheers,

Jeff C.

[Paul Böhm]

Hey matt,

I think non-ephemerisle is a really depressing name. I can't pitch going to an "it's been cancelled but we are still going" event to my friends.

Can we just do a real exciting art and science on an artificial floating patchwork island event and call it, i dunno, fuck it, drowning man?

Paul

Sent from my iPhone

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[Michael Katsevman]

Floating Man is perhaps more auspicious than Drowning Man, though I
would prefer something less derivative and more unisex :)

The idea of naming deserves some thought though. For some reason I'm
unable to join the Floating Festival google group, but someone who can
should create a File where name suggestions can go.

Mike.

[David Weinshenker]

Patrick wrote:
> Anyway, I don't think this is the time for too much pontificating. I
> think talking about general ideas about what the festival is gonna be
> like might be better left to another thread, and keep urgent/immediate
> volunteer work in this one.
>
> i.e. things that if not done in the next couple of days will lead to
> significantly worse outcome

Might be a good idea for someone to touch in with the marina and
let them know what's up - in general keep relations open, and make
sure that, if we do go for some sort of more informal event, there
won't then be a shortage of rentable houseboats.

-dave w

[Christopher Rasch]

Paul B�hm wrote:
> Hey matt,
>
> I think non-ephemerisle is a really depressing name. I can't pitch
> going to an "it's been cancelled but we are still going" event to my
> friends.
>
> Can we just do a real exciting art and science on an artificial
> floating patchwork island event and call it, i dunno, fuck it,
> drowning man?
>
> Paul

Agreed that "non-ephemerisle" doesn't inspire.

I like the name Patchwork Island. Patchwork City? Patchwork Isle?

Drowning Man seems a little fatalistic to me.

Some other suggestions:

Autonomy
Emergence
Morphogenesis
Morphotropolis
Autopolis
The Shoal
Liquid City
Evanescence
The Swarm

Chris

[James O'Neill]

Ephemerisle Reloaded?

Would help with web searches.

On 6/20/10, Christopher Rasch <cra...@gmail.com> wrote:

--
Sent from my mobile device

[Matt Bell]

Hi all,

Some quick comments before I run off and help my girlfriend move all of her worldly possessions from one container to another:

- We really do need to get the word out to more people.  We should get as many people as possible to sign up for the facebook group and mailing list.  At this point, we should look to recruit broadly within our social networks, including to people who were not planning on coming to Ephemerisle in the first place.  If you all post about this gathering to your blogs, facebook accounts, and twitter, you can help build the momentum.  I have actually not seen much posting by others yet, though I'm thankful for those who have posted.

- We all should get on the facebook group to show our numbers.  There are over 25 people on this list, but only 12 on the facebook event.  It's just a little link and a couple of clicks! 
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=126532500718931

- If the name has a hyphen in it, like not-ephemerisle, google will prioritize occasions where the terms occur together and hyphenated or as one word.  My own fresh and low pagerank blog post with the tag #notephemerisle is already fourth on the list, despite the fact that ephemerisle.org has way more pagerank.  We should pick something like:
-- not-ephemerisle
-- neo-ephemerisle
-- diy-ephemerisle
-- ephemerisle-reloaded
-- ephemerisle-reborn
etc today and run with it.  Name suggestions welcome for the next few hours, then we should pick something today.  It is a working name for now, and we do have to prioritize awareness over prettiness, though perhaps someone has a name that is both pretty and contains the word "ephemerisle". 

- We should not ask TSI to take down ephemerisle.org as it's currently a valuable resource for people to find out more about what we're doing via the blog post comments.

-- I can call the marina on Monday and let them know what's up.  They are unlikely to reserve houseboats for us as we're not providing financial backing or guarantees.  However, they might be willing to extend the discounts. 

- Matt

On Sun, Jun 20, 2010 at 10:41 AM, David Weinshenker <daz...@earthlink.net> wrote:

Patrick wrote:
> If we can get ephemerisle.org to temporarily put down their website,
> then we could easily become top listing for "ephemerisle", practically
> over night if we have an url that includes ephemerisle.

Taking down "ephemerisle.org" sounds like a bad idea: it would
be better if that address still worked - people will still be
going there to look up the event.

It would be good to ensure that the announcement of the
cancellation of the original event has a link to the potential
alternate - I think it does, that's how I found this mailing
list. (I think it was Matt's comment on the blog announcement
on "ephemerisle.org", actually!)

-dave w

[Dana Harrison]

Re houseboats/the Marina (which is really Seven Crowns-- nothing happens out of Paradise Point, it's all handled separately):  All houseboats have already been reserved and paid for, either by participants or by TSI on behalf of Ephemerisle participants -- so the houseboats are already reserved (and paid for) including the discount.

A couple of people have contacted TSI to say that they want to turn their houseboats in, which would free up more houseboats for Eph-Reloaded (or whatever the name is), IF someone is willing/able to take over the payment to Seven Crowns and free up the ccrds of the original reservers.  This is actually something participants can handle entirely amongst ourselves.  (In fact, it's likely that Seven Crowns will FREAK OUT when they find out that EI is cancelled... unless the houseboats just simply pass from one renter to another, and that's all they need to know.  They were VERY concerned about having all their eggs in one basket in this way already.)

D

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