H+SN Website

[Ben Hyink]

Bryan and Edward,

I mentioned you as possible volunteers in building a Humanity+ Student
Network website with many P2P features (between campus groups and
student advocates) and perhaps running on an open-source management
platform. We definitely want to cultivate an open-source collaborative
volunteer work style.

Thomas McCabe is the Humanity+ Director overseeing new developments in
the H+SN program. Curt Tigges has volunteered to serve as the first
Humanity+ Campus Outreach Coordinator and Josh Call has volunteered to
help him (they both run campus groups).

Michael Ferguson had volunteered to serve in the capacity of a
Coordinator over a year ago but we haven't been in close touch since
then, However, he did have an idea for a periodic open chat (like
ImmInst) and knows people in the Mormon Transhumanist Association who
have website development expertise.

My own vague conception of this website (linked to from the Humanity+
website or a part of the Humanity+ website) is that it should be very
user friendly, not require really esoteric programming knowledge to
manage, enable users to share electronic resources for
transhumanist/futurist campus organizing and advocacy, and maybe share
resources for doing other kinds of organizing, like creating labs, in
addition to a social networking function (connected to job networking
if possible). My thought is that we could build up the capabilities
slowly on a flexible platform. I should admit upfront that I don't
know the first thing about programming so I can't say what is feasible
or how feasible objectives could be accomplished.

Bryan, Edward, do you have any initial thoughts to share about this
undertaking and would you be willing to volunteer some of your time to
the project (or know of people who might who we could contact)?

Thanks,

Ben Hyink

[Edward Miller]

I have control over the old TSN group on facebook and also have a couple hundred transhumanist friends there. If you'd like me to make any announcements, I can.

[Bryan Bishop]

On Wed, Mar 23, 2011 at 9:38 PM, Ben Hyink <neurobi...@gmail.com> wrote:

Bryan, Edward, do you have any initial thoughts to share about this
undertaking and would you be willing to volunteer some of your time to
the project (or know of people who might who we could contact)?

No, I don't have time to code this right now, but it's totally something that I'd usually offer my software contracting for. 

My opinion has been that competing to be "yet another social network" is mostly useless and a waste of our time. Transhumanists are supposed to be at the bleeding edge, not the butt-end ;-) creating yet another social network or sandbox is a losing position to be in.

- Bryan
http://heybryan.org/
1 512 203 0507

[Ben Hyink]

When the time is right, that would be great. Thanks, Edward.

[Ben Hyink]

Ok, we don't have to recreate social networking functions, but we do
want a platform for resource sharing.

Do you know of anyone who might help us in your stead, Bryan?

Ben H

[Bryan Bishop]

On Thu, Mar 24, 2011 at 4:34 PM, Ben Hyink <neurobi...@gmail.com> wrote:

Ok, we don't have to recreate social networking functions, but we do
want a platform for resource sharing.

Use dropbox. Done.

[Ben Hyink]

I corresponded with Edward Miller off list about the website and got
his permission to repost two messages for everyone's consideration. A
website is more essential than even an organizing guide, so unless
someone in this thread (I just added Ben Goertzel and Natasha Vita
More) knows someone else who can set up a decent website in a timely
way I suggest we ask Edward Miller to make one, with the understanding
he will hand off the management to someone else once he is done. The
new website can serve as a central hub for Wikis and other features.
I'm not sure Wordpress would meet that need best, but I'm a novice
when it comes to IT. Maybe it would work fine.

If and when one or more people offers to build a better (yet easily
manageable) site, the H+SN coordinator and Humanity+ Board of
Directors can consider the offer. Students can offer their opinions in
web polls with a comments feature or informally in the volunteer work
groups and maybe, at most, a chapter leaders advisory council, but
*not* a Board of Directors (since as I've said several times in
another thread, H+SN must to be owned by Humanity+ to survive, though
it can endeavor to treat student "customers" so well its almost as
though they have ownership of it - certainly in the forms of feedback,
participatory influence, and some degree of control over resources
H+SN provides).

I would think Humanity+ Board of Directors should be o.k. with paying
the modest amount to reserve an appropriate domain name annually,
which could be of their choosing.

See Edward's messages below.

Best,
Ben

On Wed, Mar 30, 2011 at 10:28 AM, Edward Miller <embrac...@gmail.com> wrote:
I can set up a preliminary website, but it would essentially be
installing an open source content management system and employing a
pre-built template for the design. I can't offer design help since I
am not really a designer, and I don't want a management role. Though
whatever content management system I choose will have a nice easy to
use admin panel from which to manage all the content. I would hand off
the responsibilities to you guys after that. You can change the
designs and add content as you see fit.

Second message:

It would be a good skill to learn how to do this stuff. It isn't that hard.

For instance, here is WordPress's "Five Minute Installation" guide

http://codex.wordpress.org/Installing_WordPress#Famous_5-Minute_Install

All you would need is access to the ftp server, and I believe David
Pearce can help you with that. His old network administrator was James
Evans, I believe. They can give you the passwords and such.

Wordpress is obviously limited to blogging, photos, and a few other
features but it is one of the easiest to use and install, and has lots
of great design templates available. Using that as a central hub from
which you can direct people to other resources is not a bad idea.

[Ben Hyink]

Great!

Does anyone have another suggestion than humanityplusstudent.org
(based on the humanityplus,org website)? Or is everyone o.k. with that
URL?

I think we should try to keep the name simple and self-explanatory.
Edward has time this week so maybe we should only wait a day or so to
collect any other potential URLs before Edward can start building the
website. The important thing is to get a decent site operational in
the very near future so we can direct students there from the
Humanity+ website and Humanity+ Magazine for resources (including the
full first edition of the H+SN Guide) as well as a Humanity+ list they
can sign-up for managed by the H+SN Coordinator (for announcements at
least, maybe discussion - or we could create a web forum for multiple
threads of discussion - though there are plenty of lists for
discussion already and while we want to encourage a sense of community
we mostly want it generated at the campus level).

So, within a day or so, any alternative URLs anyone wants to share?

Best,
Ben

On Wed, Mar 30, 2011 at 6:51 PM, Thomas McCabe <pphys...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hey Ben. I will personally authorize Humanity+ purchasing an
> appropriate domain name, as long as it's a newly registered domain
> (ie. costs under $15 to register). It would be awesome if Edward
> wanted to volunteer his time to make a Humanity+ student website, as
> long as he's clear that we don't have the funds to pay him. How many
> hours of work would be able to put in? (This shouldn't be difficult
> technically, I could just do it myself, but I have a whole bunch of
> other stuff on my plate right now, like fundraising so we can afford
> to pay someone to do web design... )
>
> Our current websites (hplusmagazine.com and humanityplus.org) run on
> Wordpress, and they seem to serve us pretty well.

> --
>  - Tom McCabe
> http://www.rationalfuturist.com/
>
> Department of Mathematics, Yale University
> http://www.math.yale.edu/
>
> Executive Director, Humanity+
> http://www.humanityplus.org/
>

[Bryan Bishop]

On Thu, Mar 31, 2011 at 9:26 AM, Ben Hyink <neurobi...@gmail.com> wrote:

Does anyone have another suggestion than humanityplusstudent.org
(based on the humanityplus,org website)? Or is everyone o.k. with that
URL?

students.humanityplus.org

I'm still against making yet-another-forum. The communities should be consolidated.

[Thomas McCabe]

Seconded

On Thu, Mar 31, 2011 at 10:39 AM, Josh <ethe...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I think student.humanityplus.org is fine. That way you wouldn't even have to
> get a new domain. And the double s in humanityplusstudent is a bit awkward.
> If we're going to be the student wing of Humanity Plus there's nothing wrong
> with making it a subdomain, is there?
> Josh

--

[Edward Miller]

Thirded

[Thomas McCabe]

Hey Ben. I think we've decided on students.humanityplus.org. Email me
if you need access to FTP etc., so we can start building the site.
Thanks!

[Ben Hyink]

That sounds great. Like I said, I'm novice (or not even) at IT, so any
advice and guidance is appreciated.

I just hung out with Edward to fix some computer problems and he said
he would handle the website set-up. I would like to see the Humanity+
Student Outreach Coordinator have managerial access to the site and
either do the site management or appoint someone trusted and competent
(preferably paid, someday) to fill that role so he can concentrate on
other work.

Best,
Ben

[Edward Miller]

Send me the ftp information when the subdomain is established, and I'll get to work.

[Thomas McCabe]

Cool, thanks Edward. I've set up the DNS for student.humanityplus.org;
are things ready to go on your end?