Liminal states

“We’re dealing with the most difficult-to-motivate generation ever. People today feel so powerless, like they can’t have an impact on anything that matters. But you can! So one of the things I’m trying to share with the community is that when you come together, we can make a difference. ”

– Save the Rave organizer Liam Shy

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With qw3ries and the intersection between writing, activism, entrepreneurship, psytrance, and transformation (and in so many other ways), I’m not just rejecting choices but finding ways to synthesize and combine them.

— from DJ Anomaly at the party without a name

Indeed!  It’s looking like my startup qw3ries‘ first forays into helping everybody get answers and find information may include an ebook about pitch competitions, questions and answers about Patriot Act activism, partnerships with startups specializing in transformation — and who knows, maybe even psytrance.   Meanwhile the re-enegerized #snubor was a hit at SXSW just as politicians including McCain, Kerry, and Obama are calling for an online bill of rights.  And starting next month I’ll be serializing revising my novel about the diversity-friendly social network site g0ddesses.net.  About those intersections …

It’s a banner weekend for electronic dance music in San Francisco.  Tonight John Digweed’s at Ruby Skye, Paul van Dyk’s at 1015, and the Road to Ultra at Mighty including Saturnia, Christine, Helios, David Christophere of Rabbit in the Moon, and more.  Tomorrow it’s Tall Sasha at SupperClub — or Pisces with Kode IV, Michael Liu, and an early (!) set by Witchdokta and Spook.  I heart SF.  I heart psytrance.

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An activism group I know is thinking about setting up a Q&A (question-and-answer) site.  What technology base should they use?

Here’s the functionality wishlist:

1. users can ask and answer questions, vote on others’ answers, and leave comments
2. multilingual and accessible
3. a pleasant and attractive user experience
4. good moderation tools
5. easy to attach tags (or categories) to questions and to browse all the questions in a category
6. people can sign in with their existing Twitter, Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Facebook, etc. IDs
7. questions, answers, and comments are easy to tweet and look good when posted on Facebook etc.
8. there’s a way to include Twitter, Facebook, etc. responses as answers or comments
9. users can have profiles if they want but don’t have to spend any time setting them up
10. the overall look-and-feel can be customized (to match the activism campaign’s overall branding)
11. there are a few options for themes for questions, answers, profiles, and categories
12. it’s possible to integrate discussion forum and chat software [to help people as they’re learning to use the system, and to talk about ‘lessons learned’ as we’re using it]
13. secure
14. privacy-friendly (meaning a robust privacy policy if it’s hosted elsewhere)

In general, open-source software with a fairly  unrestrictive license (BSD-style) is preferable; if the GPL’ed or commercial tools for the job are better, that’s fine too.

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The SXSW panel got a decent amount of attention, including article by Helen A. S. Popkin’s Vote on your ‘Social Network Users’ Bill of Rights’ on MSNBC’s Technolog, Kim Cameron’s post on the Identity Weblog, and a brief link from Mark Sullivan of PC World. Here’s the voting so far

1. 41 yes 0 no Honesty: Honor your privacy policy and terms of service
2. 41 yes 0 no Clarity: Make sure that policies, terms of service, and settings are easy to find and understand
3. 41 yes 0 no Freedom of speech: Do not delete or modify my data without a clear policy and justification
4. 33 yes 4 no Empowerment : Support assistive technologies and universal accessibility
5. 35 yes 2 no Self-protection: Support privacy-enhancing technologies
6. 37 yes 3 no Data minimization: Minimize the information I am required to provide and share with others
7. 39 yes 1 no Control: Let me control my data, and don’t facilitate sharing it unless I agree first
8. 39 yes 1 no Predictability: Obtain my prior consent before significantly changing who can see my data.
9. 38 yes 0 no Data portability: Make it easy for me to obtain a copy of my data
10. 39 yes 0 no Protection: Treat my data as securely as your own confidential data unless I choose to share it, and notify me if it is compromised
11. 36 yes 2 no Right to know: Show me how you are using my data and allow me to see who and what has access to it.
12. 24 yes 13 no Right to self-define: Let me create more than one identity and use pseudonyms. Do not link them without my permission.
13. 35 yes 1 no Right to appeal: Allow me to appeal punitive actions
14. 37 yes 1 no Right to withdraw: Allow me to delete my account, and remove my data

So it’s in general overwhelmingly positive: five rights are unanimous, and another eight at 89% or higher.  The one exception: the right to self-define, currently at about 65%.  As I said in a comment on the earlier thread, this right is vital for people like whistleblowers, domestic violence victims, political dissidents, closeted LGBTQs.   I wonder whether the large minority of people who don’t think it matters are thinking about it from those perspectives.

The voting continues at http://SNUBillOfRights.com.  Please voice your opinion!

Great discussion! Kudos to organizer Christina Gagnier, panelists Jack Lerner and Lisa Borodkin, and moderator Alex Howard (aka @digiphile).

What next?  You can vote for or against individual rights at the Social Network Users’ Bill of Rights site, and you can also vote for or against the entire bill via Twitter.  My post here has some thoughts, and there are also some questions on Quora (1, 2).  We’ll propose at least one session on the Social Network Users Bill of Rights for this year’s ACM Computers, Freedom, and Privacy conference — June 14-16 in DC and online.  Stay tuned!

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A broadly-recognized social network users’ bill of rights will be a huge step forward for online freedom and privacy. For me, and hundreds of millions of others, sites like Facebook, Twitter, tribe.net, and free-association are how I stay in touch with friends and family. As Voces Contra Las FARC, Barack Obama, #iranelection, and hundreds of other campaigns have shown, social network sites are also vital for political activism. And yet, today we the users of the sites have only minimal rights.

— me, in It’s time for a Social Network Users’ Bill of Rights, June 2010

Today’s SXSW panel Social Network Users’ Bill of Rights: You Decide is a great chance to rekindle the energy on the #billofrights (as we like to say on Twitter).   Panelists Christina Gagnier, Lisa Borodkin, and Jack Lerner all spoke at last year’s ACM Computers, Freedom, and Privacy conference last year when we crafted the document.*  Alex Howard of O’Reilly joins them.  Cool!  Check out the #snubor hashtag!

I like what CFP has done because I think they’ve covered all the bases, and they’ve done it with language that 95 percent of Web users can understand.

— Terry Sweeney, A Manifesto in the Name of Privacy, Internet Evolution

Since last June, the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt have helped highlight the importance of social networks for political purposes, the Commerce Department has called for an online Privacy Bill of Rights — and ongoing news stories like A Chinese Activist and Mark Zuckerberg’s Dog continue to spotlight many social network sites’ challenges with free speech, and pseudonymity.  With this year’s CFP scheduled for Washington DC in mid-June, now’s a perfect time to get serious about organizing.

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The Q&A (question and answer site) market segment is red hot right now.  Here’s some links to complement my own posts Life imitates art imitates life, Prisms, Kool-aid, and Opportunity, and What do you think of this one-line pitch for qweries?

The overall landscape

• Choe Sang-Hung’s South Koreans Connect Through Search Engine (in the New York Times) describes how Naver’s Q&A site catapulted them to dominance in the South Korean search market.
• How do social Q&A sites monetize and scale?, with answers by Lisa Kavanaugh of Ask.com and others
• What are other Q&A sites besides Quora?, What are some sites that are similar to Quora?, and What are some private-label Q&A solutions?
• Just How Many Q&A Websites are There Out there?, Daniel Roberts, Fortune.

Quora

• Boomtown Tries to Get some Answers from Quora’s Adam D’Angelo, an interview by Kara Swisher of All Things Digital.  Kara frames Quora’s challenge as “trying to move the site well beyond its Silicon Valley-tech-dudes forum to one in which a plethora of topics and memes thrive.”
• Confessions of a Quora newbie, by Christie Ann Barakat, with a great set of references.  The comments are pretty spectacular too.
• Quora Raises Questions, David Pogue, the New York Times
• Quora Backlash Slams into Quora Backlash Backlash, MG Siegler, TechCrunch
• Quora Investor Scoffs at $1 Billion Offer Price, Nicholas Carlson, Business Insider
• Question: Does Quora do Politics?  Answer: …, Nancy Scola, Tech President
• Early Quora Design Notes, by Rebekah Cox on Artypapers, and Life without Photoshop, by Joel Lewenstein, discuss Quora’s design philosophy and process
• Quora Engineers Accused of Vandalizing Clone’s Site, Grey Review; the Hacker News discussion and comments on Quora are interesting too
• Why do some people prefer Quora to StackExchange?, on Quora
• Quora Gamifies: Credits and “Ask to Answer” Live for Everyone, Alexia Tsotsis, Techcrunch, and  Everything You Need to Know About Quora Credits, Yishan Wong (“the richest man on Quora”), Quora Review
• What is Quora currently doing to improve the diversity of its user base? (answer summary: nothing), How would Quora be different if it prioritized diversity?, and Quora diversity: a big red flag — all written by me, on Quora.

Stack Overflow

• Stack Exchange/Quora competitive positioning, Joel Spolsky, Hacker News
• Forget Quora, Stack Overflow is Killing It, by Adrianne Jeffries, The New York Observer.
• Stack Overflow Architecture Update, by Todd Hoff in High Scalability
• Blekko Partners with Stack Overflow to Improve Search Results, Matt McGee, Search Engine Land
• Series A funding announcement and chat Q&A

Ask.com

• Are Quora and new Ask competitors?, with an answer by Doug Leeds of Ask.
• Ask.com Rediscovers Its Roots as a Question & Answer Site—Powered by People This Time, Wade Roush, XConomy
• Why Do People Answer Questions on Q&A Sites? Ask.com Users Speak Up, Wade Roush, XConomy

And …

• 1.8 Billion Questions Later, ChaCha Has Evolved Past Text Message Roots, Sarah Kessler, Mashable
• What’s the difference between Quora and Focus?, with an answer by Scott Albro of Focus
• Federated Fluther Lets Third Parties Integrate Q&A With A Few Lines Of Code, Jason Kincaid, TechCrunch
• Which Q&A Sites Are Best for Business?, Angela West, PCWorld
• What are some Q&A sites in Spanish?
• Quora Competitor Opinionaided Raises $1 Million in Funding for Mobile App, Devon Glen, Web Newser.
• Crowdbeacon: When Quora Meets Yelp, Paloma Vasquez, PSFK.
• Q&A Platform LawPivot Raises $1M; Launches Legal Services Marketplace, Leena Rao, TechCrunch.
• Doctors and lawyers get gamified on Avvo, but will they play along?, John Cook , GeekWire.
• The Race to Build a Page Rank for the Social Web Continues, Mathew Ingram, GigaOm
• Quora for the Enterprise: Two Contenders, Klint Finley, Read Write Enterprise
• Quora for Startups: Sprouter Pivots to Focus on Q&A for Entrepreneurs, Audrey Watters, Read Write Web.
• Le réseau d’entrepreneurs Sprouter se repositionne pour faire face à Quora, Roxanne Varza, TechCrunch France.
• Seattle’s Questionland builds Q&A community around popular alt.weekly The Stranger, Paul Boutin, VentureBeat

Draft! Revised version to appear as a two-part series on NWEN’s blog.

Congratulations to the 20 companies who advanced to the second round of the First Look Forum!  Hopefully by now you’re already scheduling your meetings with the coaches.   We’ve got a great list of coaches, including some of the highest-profile investors and entrepreneurs in the Seattle area.  From a startup’s perspective, it’s a huge opportunity — and potentially a little scary.

Back in fall 2009, I was in that situation with Qworky.  We were delighted to make it into the second round, and through the luck of the draw one of our coaches was one of the angel investors on our shortlist of “people we really really want to meet”.  Huzzah!  But then everybody’s schedule got busy and we didn’t prepare as thoroughly for the meeting as we had intended to.  One of the other founders still hadn’t left their previous job, and the other had some conflicts, so I wound up doing the meeting by myself …

And I bombed.
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It was so underground that there weren’t any flyers and it didn’t even have a Facebook group.  A tiny venue with headliners who we’ve seen at DNA Lounge and Barnevald, with DJ Anomaly opening and closing.  The music was fantastic, amazing visuals, incredible depth, great colors.  I heart psytrance.

I was in a great mood and totally had the “I’ve earned this” feeling.  The latest skirmish in the fight to restore our civil liberties worked out far better than anybody had hoped.  Twitter and blogs and CSPAN callers agree, Americans across the political spectrum hate the PATRIOT Act.   Yeah, who knows what’ll happen next: we’ve got three months to organize, and oh gee, there’s also wiretapping back doors (CALEA 2.0), the internet kill switch, COICA, domain name seizures, Wikileaks, and the TSA.  For now, though, time for some well-deserved celebration.

So we enjoyed the lava lamps and the glowsticks and the candles and the depth and the music and danced all night.

At 6 a.m., D read my cards in the atrium.

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qweries helps everybody

find answers
get in the conversation,
and contribute to your community

by prioritizing diversity and design

As I described on the NWEN blog in The agile one-pager (part 5), a good one-line pitch covers what a company does, who they do it for, and a bit about how. Here’s what I’ve currently got for qweries, a Q&A (questions-and-answers) startup that will compete with sites like Quora and Yahoo! Answers.

Reactions?

Suggestions?

Suppose I were to add a third word: “by prioritizing design, _______, and diversity.”   Some of the possibilities that leap to mind include “privacy”, “community”, “emotion”, “accessibility”, “fun” … Thoughts on any of those, or other ideas?

jon

PS: updated several times, most recently May 25.  Thanks to everybody who’s given feedback, and especially to Mikhaila for

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Draft! Revised version on NWEN’s blog.

The first four parts of the series (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) have gotten us close.  Now it’s time for the final push.  For impatient readers, here are the tips

• Go back over the section descriptions in the application form and double-check that you’re addressing the right questions in the right places.
  
• Do a section-by-section, line-by-line review
• Formatting and wording changes can often save you a half-dozen valuable lines, but don’t remove all the white space or emotion
  
• Make it look great.  Have you included a logo?
• It won’t be perfect.  Relax.  Nobody else’s is either.

Read on for more …

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As we head into the homestretch with the First Look Forum, we wanted to give an opportunity for people to ask some last-minute questions and get some quick feedback.  Email works, of course, but it’s soooooo 20th century.  So we’re also going to be having a Twitter chat, on Wednesday February 16 at 7:30 p.m.

If you’ve never been to a Twitter chat before, you’re missing out on some good fun.  It moves quickly, and with a lot of people talking at once it packs a lot of information into a short time.  Whether or not you have a Twitter account, you can follow the discussion on the #nwen hashtag using TweetChat at http://tweetchat.com/room/nwen or use your favorite Twitter client.

Want to join in the conversation?   You’ll need to have a Twitter account — you can sign up at http://twitter.com/signup.  Twitter’s FAQ and Howcast’s How To Use Twitter video have more information to get you started.

If there are some topics you’d like to see discussed, feel free to leave them as comments here — or you can email to me at jon {at} achangeiscoming {dot} net.    Or even better, you can tweet them to me –  I’m @jdp23.

Read on for more background (originally from the ACM Computers, Freedom, and Privacy conference‘s Getting started on Twitter page).   See you on Twitter!

jon

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