hello birgitt, and thank you for your last message. and hello judi! ...to clarify... i did not mean to imply "separate from the community." you are right, i think. that's just not possible. it is possible, however, to be un-involved in what is happening in the websites.
if you don't visit the sites, you are largely un-involved in the sites. once you do visit, however, you are fully involved. there is no formal joining. there is no password required. there are no security checkpoints. there is no web development skill required. there is only passion and responsibility. they are simple pages that any (english reader) can view. what's more, any viewer can click the 'edit' link at the bottom of almost every page and add/edit the text of those pages. no coding required. just simple english and the ability to click the 'edit' link and the 'save' button when finished. it's really quite a marvel. once you are there, you CAN contribute. once there, you are deciding about contributing on every page you view. you can choose as consciously or unconsciously as you like. you can set lots of limits on your contribution or can jump in with reckless abandon. once there you have many choices, in a law of two clicks sort of way. you ARE in! at the ORG site... which TELLS stories ABOUT open space... anyone can read. anyone can refer others. anyone can click the 'edit' link at the bottom of any page and add a bit of text. That text might be correcting a misspelling, cleaning up the formatting AND/OR adding a story soundbite, an ost explanation soundbite, their own contact info, their own notes and toolbox resources, etc. There are only a handful of pages there that are not yet totally open for editing. These pages hold the rest of the place together, preserve an easy-to-navigate structure, and require a higher level of familiarity with that structure to edit them effectively. as the number of people with that higher level of famaliarity and understanding increases, these core pages can be opened to more editing. at the NET site... which is intended to SHOW how we work in open space, by archiving our actions... anyone can use the space to support their own local group's work in openspace. anyone can post their public/community proceedings. anyone can invite their participants to post proceedings. anyone can allow community groups to make their own ongoing openspace websites WITHIN the osw.net space. anyone can invite their participants to manage ongoing action plans and the crafting of new ost invitations right there in this space. and as some of us venture to contribute in this way, all of us can watch and learn and in some cases perhaps collaborate. i think this is really quite revolutionary. at the NET site, it is also possible that we can convene our own ost-community projects there. i think this is where the OSONOS proceedings will be posted this year. last year's were posted at the ORG wiki site. some simultaneous and followup conversatoins were posted there, as well. but we need not have a whole conference to make a community project anymore. all it takes is an OSLIST invitation announcement and the starting of a project page at the NET site. the NetSpaceDevelopment topic is one such community project that i have started there. it is both a demonstration and an active invitation to others to join directly in the planning and development of the sites themselves. this project is my invitation to anyone who wants to deal with the deeper structure and larger holding of space that is showing up in the OSW sites. Artur has already used this space as a springboard to make an Iberian languages wiki, separate from the others. John Engle is doing a separate HaitianCreole wiki. Both are posting technical and other questions in the NET site, where they can be answered and also recorded for those who will later make French and German and Swedish and who knows what other ost wiki websites. the websites have never been separate from the community and non-involvement in them certainly does not separate anyone from the largest community of ost friends and leaders and practitioners. the websites ARE, however, moving closer to the whole community, now rivalling the openness (but not the life and function of) the OSLIST. what we are wanting everyone to see clearly here is that this new websites openness is possible, is invited, AND is still voluntary. it is important to notice that non-attendance in the sites work is very different from non-democracy. the sites are being shaped by those who show up in them. only those who show up are really able to understand how the sites work. by showing up, they learn how to implement their suggestions directly, for themselves. they also learn to understand and appreciate the history and existing structures that hold the sites together. this understanding and appreciating, technical skill and personal responsibility, is absolutely essential as our community and websites continue to unfold. these questions are all great. they have helped with the introduction of the new sites. they are also a LOT of work to answer and CAN be a valuable demonstration of how we work -- by passion bounded by responsibility. the invitation is to a higher level of responsibility. to the extent that some of us are ready, willing and able to post these questions inside of the NetSpaceDevelopment pages in at http://www.openspaceworld.net, (to the extent that we are non-separate from the sites) then we can ask and answer and use these questions to demonstrate ever more clearly our practice, our process and our principles. besides, i'm tired of having so much responsibility for the growing and maintaining of the sites! the more people who will come play, the less work i'll have to do to keep them clean and clear and inviting. so jump in if you like! jump in if you can! the power of what now can happen is easier to SEE in the sites than it is to EXPLAIN on the list. it is possible to make it happen (directly) in the sites, and quite impossible to make it happen as long as the development conversation stays separated out on the list. EVERYBODY is welcome. please join us! michael Judi Richardson wrote:
Hello Michael, Birgitt and all, I have been reading this topic with great interest. And part of what I read here stayed with me for a bit and I felt I wanted to respond. Michael, if I read this correctly, below you suggest that someone who has chosen not to join the wiki sites has made a choice to be separate. That is the part that sat with me the most.
Michael wrote:
I am glad to have this conversation continue, but I have asked that it continue as part of the work of the http://www.openspaceworld.NET website. If it were part of that site, our writing would necessarily be shaping that site. It would be part of that record. It would be a demonstration of how to clarify givens, if that is what we are doing. As you choose to have it here, you necessarily separate yourself from that work. Not my choice, but yours, to be separate. To be separate is okay. To be vocal is okay. To be separate and vocal does nothing to support the sites, which is what I'm most interested in now.
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