We started our first crowd funding cycle one week ago – for October. We collected $1254 to date – not bad. The goals are – 
and our timeline for October is – 
. We’re moving along. The Babington burner is flaring, 
, Bob is here, 
, and the Hexayurt 
is up. One Hexayurt is enough for now – unless we get more people. We’re looking for volunteers, and if our funding goals succeed, we will provide a $400 stipend. Let us know if you’d like to come here. Sasha wrote an excellent post on our work as well. Please spread the word on finding people. Remember that we are supported entirely by volunteer efforts.
It’s exciting and difficult work. Decision forks and dangers abound. We are up on our feet, and feel like we’re making history. We could taste the sweet flavor of progress for the common good – with the global community behind us. I wish I could communicate the feeling of historic events unfolding – starting to tap the potential of a globally-linked co-laboratory. Only a modicum of directed energy – integrated in a well-organized form – can change the world. Please contribute – we are collecting until the end of this month for the October cycle.
*WOW* – congratulations, OSE!
That’s really great, great news.
Tell me, if I’m sending people over there for the funding side of this, what’s the best URL to point them at?
Vinay
Vinay: http://openfarmtech.org/index.php?title=Open_Source_Ecology:Site_support
Or you mean the best page with information? I’d say Sasha’s!
definately check out the page on appropedia, http://www.appropedia.org/Open_Source_Ecology . it has the most abundant information and links available in one page. it should allow people the ability to make a well informed decision. sashas site i would highly recommend as well.
Hi all,
Marcin: Great work!
Vinay: Marcin put some work into http://openfarmtech.org/index.php?title=Open_Source_Ecology:Site_support
We’d love some feedback on it. Richard, what do you think a fundraising, or project update page with an “ask” on it should include?
We are working on a new method…
Keeping technical and project outcome data on the wiki.
Keeping updates, rhetoric, and opinions on the FactorEFarm weblog.
We are also adding a more obvious project and project phase tracking system on to the weblog to allow us to more easily and consistently reference projects on the technical side, and site, and allow us to issue shorter, more publicly aimed project and project phase descriptions that also reference the wiki.
It isn’t about duplicating information, but instead about keeping updates clear, and separating out a clear layer that communicates to potential collaborators and funders.
Any thoughts?
We are building this in Drupal, and will offer a copy of it for others to download and explore or modify if they like it, as well. A complete project reporting application. Cool.
—-
To summarize the links:
Donations site:
http://openfarmtech.org/index.php?title=Open_Source_Ecology:Site_support
Sasha’s compelling overview of why one should support us:
http://forums.treehugger.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=6445
Overview of OSE work at Appropedia:
http://www.appropedia.org/index.php?title=Open_Source_Ecology
ive been getting interested collaborators emailing me from a post i made on ic.org, but as of yet have not heard from marcin and brittany
i think it would be great to have a project tracking mechanism, possibly on openfarmtech.org linked from the blog
im not sure what drupal is
the funding mechanism seems to be working fine, however a more robust donor information packet is needed. I was thinking a nice pdf brochure, with images, along with references to the product tracking mechanism would help. Direct references to project cost could show what people are paying into.
the only thing about keeping technical and project outcome stuff on the wiki is that we need to bring in more wiki viewers and collaborators… right now its just marcin, rob and i.
i think this would be a good time to develop opensourceecology.org. my idea was to have a main page that acted as a portal, with links to donor and collaborator information, past, current and future projects, past collaborator experiences, infrastructure outline, etc. These would be sidebars on the main page that, when clicked, would send you to an openfarmtech.org wiki page. This is based on the site design appropedia has for OSNCamp 08 (http://www.opensustainabilitynetwork.org)
There also needs to be a cleanup for openfarmtech.org Wiki elements. go to http://openfarmtech.org/index.php?title=Special:Allpages to see an index of all the pages.
I don’t even know where to begin to categorize this, but once it’s done itll help… theres a lot of great stuff jumbled together, a library of revolutionary ideas with no dewey decimal system… but that might have to wait until after initially necessary projects.
should we turn this into a wiki page? Web Image Development, perhaps? i will have time this weekend in the mornings and late evenings to work on this…
I dont know where could this fit in , but having mailing lists in addition to wiki on technical asspects could be quite useful. I understand the wiki as a good place to put the organised knowledge into, but for brainstorming on various themes and technologies I think mailing lists are better.
hey i left a long response to your post yesterday alex, and it seems to not have made it? anyways, i think we should start a wiki page about an action plan for redoing the entire web image…
not sure what to call the project. ill tell you more details once i find the post i made yesterday.
hey we have a listserv via googlegroups. its factorefarm@googlegroups.com. we should definately start putting that to work, or maybe even a forum would be a good idea?
but hey, i am working on a wiki document, we can collaborate there for now and post discussions on it as well. the discussions work a lot like a listserv, and you can set “watch this page”. it is http://openfarmtech.org/index.php?title=Web_Image_Development.