Weblog/Aug-2007
[[AboutUsWeblog.org|
Bringing some new ideas to the new AboutUs Workspace
30 August 2007
Beyond just being a place for our growing staff to stretch our wings, the new space provides a way to work within an "open space" environment; all our desks are outfitted with wheels, allowing ad hoc pairings on projects simply by rolling one workstation towards another. (This has led to a variation of the WikiWay philosophy LawOfTwoFeet which we call "The Law of Five Wheels.")
The staff seems to be enjoying the space. Says Kasey, "I appreciate how fluid the space is and how easy it is to collaborate ... it almost seems like a metaphor for wiki."
JasonParmer of our development team also really appreciated the dynamicness of the space, which allows for not just teamwork, but the ability to retreat into a corner if you're needing a quiet space, "The flexibility of being able to change for current needs is really hot."
The building, of which AboutUs is among the first tenants, is part of an area that's just across any of three bridges from the downtown Portland core, but is still developing, something that was a benefit to AboutUs founder RayKing. "We're in an up and coming neighborhood that is quiet and yet alive," he said.
Of course, moving offices had one disadvantage -- we'll miss our friends at the old space at River Park Center Executive Suites, who were nice enough to put up with "those crazy wiki people" for the last 9+ months.
For anyone needing to send us mail, cookies or other care packages at the new space, the address is: 107 SE Washington #520, Portland, OR 97214
Contibutor: TakKendrick
AboutUs is...
23 August 2007
We are honored that Dan G. took the time to write his weblog post: What is AboutUs.org? and that he recommends his readers visit AboutUs.
One of the questions posed was about our connection with Name Intellignece. Jay Westerdal, CEO of NameIntelligence.com, in fact, recently stepped down as AboutUs CTO when the inventor of wiki, Ward Cunningham joined in that role. Ward, like the rest of us, is excited about the scope of this wiki project and the collaboration emerging from it.
We believe that an "About Us" page born from the efforts of both the organization it describes and the people it touches is better than the more typical static AboutUs page seen on many sites today. Wiki allows that collaborative style of writing and incremental improvements. Ultimately, we hope to host continuously changing information about the people of the world and particularly how they choose to organize and relate.
In terms of content on AboutUs, we are intentionally incomplete. Wiki is by definition a work in progress; Wikipedia as an example seeded itself with some of the 1911 Britannica when it first started. By providing some information with obvious room for improvement we are inviting folks to click on the edit button and experience wiki.
Gratitude to Dan G. for inspiring us to express our vision.
Contibutors: MarkDilley, Julia
Comments
- Nice mention of Dan G's blog post, good use of the AboutUs homepage. However, I am not so sure Dan G is a fan of Aboutus, I get sort of a tounge and cheek feel from his post. Especially when he makes this statement near the end: "Is Aboutus.org good content. The answer, truthfully, is its basically junk, pure unadulterated junk. It is an attempt to get your attention before you get to the real site."--Evenplayn 13:54, 23 August 2007 (PDT)
New book by the AboutUs caricaturist
17 August 2007
The owner of DigitalPainting.com, Rhoda Grossman has created many of the caricatures you might have seen on AboutUs for our active community members. Creating her works in Photoshop and Painter, her work has also been featured on WikiIndex.org, and the ICANNWiki.org. She has authored or co-authored around a dozen books and tutorials for teaching digital graphics and painting applications.
If you would like to have a caricature of you, upload an image of your beautiful self onto your PersonalPage and add the tag: [[Category:NeedsCaricature]]
Contibutors: TakKendrick, MarkDilley
Adult Content Policy Implementation Begins
10 August 2007
In addition to the AdultContentPolicy implementation, the plan for the "flag" menu is to allow community members the ability to mark pages for other reasons, including:
- mark a page because you have a question
- mark a page to have other community members take a look at it
- nominate a great WikiPage as a featured page candidate
- flag a page as spam
We hope to gradually roll these abilities out in the upcoming weeks.
Contibutors: TakKendrick, MarkDilley
Farewell Listening Man
08 August 2007
In with the new... 
... out with the old
After a year of our "Yellow Stick Figure" logo (aka the "listening man"), a new AboutUs Logo was ratified via a Consensus Poll last week. After much discussion of our values, we settled on the emerging properties of a growing leaf to symbolize the gardening of the wiki we have here at AboutUs. This is just the first step in a series of face lifts for AboutUs, but we couldn't wait to flick the switch on the logo. Stay tuned over the next couple of weeks to see some more of the exciting plans we've got in store for the visual redesign of the wiki. As is everything wiki this will continue as a process. We look forward to your input.
NOTE: Some community members using Windows-based machines have reported some anomalies with the new logo (namely that it's "partially chopped off"). Clearing your browser cache should resolve the problem, please add any issues you may have in the ErrorLog.
Contibutors: TakKendrick, MarkDilley
Wiki Wednesday at Wikimania
01 August 2007
In the wiki community, the first Wednesday of each month is generally designated as "Wiki Wednesday," with events planned all over the globe in an attempt to get people to chat, learn about wiki, and just generally have a good time.
As a rule, WikiWednesdays are co-located in time in a multitude of cities providing events. As it happens today, WikiWednesday corresponds to the first un-official day of Wikimania, an annual conference for the Wikimedia community (including Wikipedia, Wikitionary, Wikiquote and others). Wikimedia is an opportunity for these enthusiasts to gather and report on ongoing research, projects, and just connect and exchange ideas involving wiki culture, free and open source software and other wiki endeavors around the world.
As reported in an earlier post, AboutUs has a contingent of staff on hand at the week's events in Taipei, Taiwan.
Other WikiWednesday events happening this month include a London gathering for today, as well as one in Kiel, Germany next week on Aug. 8, and a San Francisco Bay Area event also set for Aug. 8. To see a list of upcoming events, check out the Wiki Wednesdays page on Socialtext.net.
Contibutor: TakKendrick
