team permies

In antother thread there was some discussion of me adding some more functionality to the site - someone even offered money if it would help.  My general response was that I am already spread too thin.

And then an idea popped into my head. 

I don't know about the rest of you, but I feel like I really am changing the world.  Not only are there about 3500 people coming to these forums every day (and growing), but my videos are getting about 2500 views per day (and growing) and my articles get about 2200 views per day. 

I see a lot of stuff that says it is changing the world but it sounds like greenwashing to me.  My direction has a different flavor. 

It is possible that other people want to do what I do, but they aren't sure where to start, or they don't have the time, or .... whatever.  It is possible that helping me with my projects would be fulfilling to them in some way.  Or, maybe they have ideas for their own projects and they wanna do it under the permies umbrella because we bring more traffic to the project.  Or something. 

I have the footage for about 50 more videos to put out, and the meat of 20 more articles in my head.  And I get slowed way down by day-to-day tasks that could probably be farmed out to somebody else. 

It's mostly boring work that pays nothing.  But I think it does far more to change the world than most stuff. 

Does anybody have any interest in this sort of thing? 

Make it so I can delete spam posts...

not to give you more work, but on the registration page, to keep out spam bots, you could put a simple permaculture related quiz question, using text field, not a list to select from. "what color is kale?" 

describe some of this boring work that pays nothing.

Travis: Red Russian or Lacinato?

Seconding tel's request, Paul. Not everybody finds the same kind of stuff boring!

A huge part of what I do every week is try to make people aware of the forums, the videos and my articles.  If it weren't for my past efforts in this space, I think these forums would be about 50 times smaller.  Think about it:  how did you find these forums? 

So I assume the thinker position and try to think of something I have not thought of before.  About half the time, I can't think of anything at all, so I ask somebody if they have any new ideas.  And that person usually doesn't want to be bothered - fair enough.

Boring.  But necessary.  A chore to be sure.  I don't like doing it, but I figure that this is the key to getting this information into more brains.  And building our community. 

Along the way I see interesting tidbits of information I did not know.  And I try to bring it back here (with an appropriate link, of course). 

I have a stack two feet deep of magazines I have browsed loaded with sticky note tags sticking out of them.  Each represents a bit of information I want to share with the community here.  But, this is a low priority - so the stack gets bigger. 

About twice a week I need to go into a thread and clean it up a bit.  If I could get alerted earlier that things might be a little off - I might save a lot of cleanup time. 

I think it would be good to develop a richer relationship with appropedia and some other web resources.  Each site has a fair bit of work involved. 

I would like to see threads started (or existing threads refreshed) that are a plant of the day.  We have some really excellent stuff already - but I think there are a lot of plants still to go!  The key is that when the time comes that somebody wants information about black locust, they can come here. 

For each relevant book and magazine, I would like to see a thread created and some good discussion. 

I haven't done a book promotion in a long time.  It is possible that we could do more.  Especially now that the site is getting more traffic. 

I should probably better understand facebook and do more stuff there.

Should I bother with linked in?

What other social network stuff should I be tapped into?  I like reddit a lot. And stumbleupon. 

If more permies.com regulars used quirk searchstatus, that would be good.  And it would also be good to have more allies to learn SEO with me.

I have mugs and t-shirts that I bought with the idea of alerting big players to permies - a few times it has actually worked out.  I should probably be smarter about this - after all, it takes money and effort to get another box in the mail.

Most of all - it seems every day is a day of creativity.  It would be great to create with people rather than by myself.  When somebody posts an idea for growth in this forum, it is really great to see that sort of thing.  And even better when somebody replies and says "paul tried that and ..."

Does this give you an idea of some of the boring things I do that I could use help on?    And the best part is that you could get paid more than me:  nothing!  Because "nothing" is more than having to pay for this stuff! 

Yes, it was me (I?) who offered money to help make this site more comprehensive - a one-stop database of all things permie.  I value this site enormously, and would like to help in a small way.  I have no computer skills to speak of, so I can't help with the actual work.  I don't have a ton of spare $, but I value this site enough to help pay for it, if that's needed. 

I guess I"ll go sign up at reddit...

Is Digg still around?

I think digg is circling the drain.

I could get behind the plant of the day.  maybe plant of the week might be a bit more doable, though.  there are a lot of plants that I like to talk about.

having a separate forum for this, or maybe a sticky to keep a new plant at the top of an existing forum for the week might help.

Are there any permaculture podcasts? I'd listen to you talk to that skeeter guy, or Oehler, etc... for an hour once a week...

post more work for paul to do in this thread

for clarification, I was volunteering to post a plant of the day or week.  I wanted to get the sticky/separate forum issue cleared up first, though.

If the plant is a tree, put it in "woodland care".  If it is something like carrots, put it in "organic practices".  If it is something like comfrey (one of the permaculture faves) put it in the permaculture forum.  If it is a medicanal herb, put it in the "medicinal herbs" forum.

And make sure there isn't already an existing thread!  Better to add to an old thread than to start a new thread.

travis laduke wrote:
Are there any permaculture podcasts? I'd listen to you talk to that skeeter guy, or Oehler, etc... for an hour once a week...

post more work for paul to do in this thread

I might be able to arrange something like that.  But you're right:  it's extra work.

paul wheaton wrote:
If the plant is a tree, put it in "woodland care".  If it is something like carrots, put it in "organic practices".  If it is something like comfrey (one of the permaculture faves) put it in the permaculture forum.  If it is a medicanal herb, put it in the "medicinal herbs" forum.

And make sure there isn't already an existing thread!  Better to add to an old thread than to start a new thread.

seems like there are an awful lot of really useful plants that would qualify for more than one of those categories or none of them.  any chance you would consider a separate forum?  if I had heard of a plant, but couldn't remember the name (for instance), it would be real nice to be able to scroll through a list of plants rather than three or four lists.

what do you think?

Well, part of my devious and wicked plot for world domination is .....

once they are in and doing pretty good, I do that thing where you can type black locust and it makes an auto link.  Then, people end up at the page and start to groove on that forum.  So I really like the idea of not adding a forum like that.  I prefer it this way. 

I have lots of strategies.  I just don't have enough of me.  But, there appears to be enough of me so that we now have about 3500 people a day coming here (most of them are lurkers).  The average person looks at seven pages in a day.

I will help.  I can assist with some of the functionality. I am a Java programmer.  I can work with general web languages (html, javascript, xml, etc) and can write very effective SQL.  I love strong databases (and queries) but I have no illusions that the back-end controls look and feel of an interface.  I'm no "form-submittal" writer!     

Just gimme a heads-up if you want help.

Suzanne

Suzanne Reiner wrote:
I will help.  I can assist with some of the functionality. I am a Java programmer.  I can work with general web languages (html, javascript, xml, etc) and can write very effective SQL.  I love strong databases (and queries) but I have no illusions that the back-end controls look and feel of an interface.  I'm no "form-submittal" writer!      

Just gimme a heads-up if you want help.

Suzanne

Are you familiar with JavaRanch?  We'll be using the JForum software that is already in use there.

Yep.  I am familiar with JavaRanch.  It has been quite a few years since I've actually posted anything, though. 

I will go check-out the format.

i'm very new to these parts, but i would have time to help with projects or do boring stuff 10 to 20 minutes most days.  i have a little experience personally, interning and a short term paid gig doing social media stuff, research and writing and i'd like to get into doing more of it.

  paul wheaton re: podcasting wrote:
I might be able to arrange something like that.   But you're right:  it's extra work.

have you heard the agroinnovations podcast?  how about seeing if you can be a guest?  that'd only take an hour.  he also accepts podcast submissions. 

i'd highly rec. doing twitter and tweeting new videos, articles, etc. 

what % of active forum members here are websavvy?  if everyone who is or has a blog just spent a couple minutes mentioning this site it i'm sure you'd get some extra traffic.  i have a fairly dormant blog that i hope to get going.  i'll put a link to this site on it.

I'm going to speculate a little bit here, paul.  please forgive me if I'm way off base.

it seems like you would like to delegate a lot of the unpleasant or boring work that goes on with the site.  it also seems like you have very little interest in delegating any control of the site.  I think those two things are going to come into conflict.

one drawback for even a benign dictator is all the work involved.

making a few more folks administrators might help.  making each of them responsible for a particular forum might also help.  maybe you've already done that and I'm just not aware of it.

Well, on coderanch, I've delegated so much that there are entire branches of the site that I've never even seen. 

As for a benign dictator - I'm not signing up for that.  People start laying their stuff on you and saying "hey you can't be 'benign' unless you do the things i say".  So I'm more of your "evil dictator" - all the power and none of the responsibility. 

But some people like the stuff I do and wanna help me push this stuff forward.  I welcome their help. 

I created a new subreddit about homesteading.  I hope folks will add this subreddit to their reddit frontpage and maybe add a few things here.

http://www.reddit.com/r/homestead/

paul wheaton wrote:
I created a new subreddit about homesteading.  I hope folks will add this subreddit to their reddit frontpage and maybe add a few things here.

http://www.reddit.com/r/homestead/

700 subscribers after one day.  Wow.  Thanks to those of you from here that added to that pile!

some of this stuff could probably make it onto Make magazine or BoingBoing.

Ooh, maybe someone should submit their rocket mass heater...

http://makezine.com/tagyourgreen/?c=renewable




[size=4pt]unrelated
http://www.boingboing.net/2010/12/22/jury-pool-mutiny-in.html
go missoula[/size]

Feel free to post anything from permies or richsoil or my youtube stuff to anywhere you think would be a fit.

I have been getting a lot of emails lately about folks that really groove on all of my stuff and want to help.  And I feel like a doofus about what to suggest, and then it happened again today and I remembered this thread.  So I think I will start directing people to this thread.

Suzanne - if you are still interested in helping with Java programming, please send me an email (paul at richsoil dot com)

For a really good topic, I would like to ask folks to make sure the topic has lots of pictures and links to lots of good stuff.  Then the thread can be submitted to reddit or other social networks.  That brings a lot of folks here and is a big help.

Also, for all of your fun projects at home, take LOTS of pictures and be sure to upload them here.

I think it is healthy for us to to have a hundred links going both ways between us and appropedia.  So for a particular thread of interest, there is probably a matching topic on appropedia.  We should have a link from our thread to the appropedia page.  And there should be a link from the appropedia page to our thread.  For appropedia pages that don't have a matching permies thread, we should create a new permies thread.  For permies threads that don't have a matching appropedia page, we should create a new appropedia page. 

Each time I put up a new video, I go to about two dozen places and let folks know.  It takes me about three hours.  If other folks did some of this also, it would go further.  I have already noticed that a few people are already doing this!  Thanks!  If a new video gets a lot of views in the first 24 hours, youtube will move it up to a bigger stage.  And about one video out of three has been getting there!

Anybody have more ideas?

Paul, the amount of work you are doing to get these topics into the public eye is amazing. 

I do think you are making a difference in the world, and I would like to see this information get out there even more.  (I keep thinking about how much better I would feel if I knew our uphill neighbors had read your lawncare article, for example, as we are setting about building a mycorrhizal filtration system to eat the crap that drains downhill through our fence.) 

I wouldn't mind picking your brain about your favorite SEO tools and techniques.  But rather than ask you to write a tidy little article that you don't have time for, I'd like to learn by doing.

Care to give us a Top-Ten list of things we can do to help boost forums, videos, or articles out to a larger readership?  I promise to try at least 3 of them in the next week.

Your choice whether to start a new forum.

Yours,
-Erica Wisner

1) make links to my stuff. 

2) the next time you search for an interesting topic that should be covered in the forums here, make sure there is a thread on that topic here.  if there isn't, please create a thread where the subject line contains an exact match for what you were searching for.  So if you were searching for "foo bar", the subject line could be "foo bar - the ups and downs".  then mention "foo bar" every two or three sentences.

3) sing up with my email list thing.  When you get an email about a new thing, try to post it to a forum or or mailing list or something. 

4) post something to reddit - directions for that are here.

5) start a blog.  When I have a new thing that you like, express what you like and don't like on your blog and make links to the new thing and maybe one old thing.

6)  For the stuff of mine that you like, give it a stumbleupon thumbs up.

7)  retweet my new stuff on twitter.  Tweet on old stuff.  Teach me how to make better use of twitter.

  "share" my stuff on facebook.

9)  talk to relevant sites about making a link to me - and that you will make a link to them from the forums here.

10)  find new places/ways to tell folks about what all is going on here.  Stuff I have not thought of or been to.  And then share that info here so other folks might get more ideas too!

paul wheaton wrote:
1) make links to my stuff. 

2) the next time you search for an interesting topic that should be covered in the forums here, make sure there is a thread on that topic here.  if there isn't, please create a thread where the subject line contains an exact match for what you were searching for.  So if you were searching for "foo bar", the subject line could be "foo bar - the ups and downs".  then mention "foo bar" every two or three sentences.

3) sing up with my email list thing.  When you get an email about a new thing, try to post it to a forum or or mailing list or something. 

4) post something to reddit - directions for that are here.

5) start a blog.  When I have a new thing that you like, express what you like and don't like on your blog and make links to the new thing and maybe one old thing.

6)  For the stuff of mine that you like, give it a stumbleupon thumbs up.

7)  retweet my new stuff on twitter.  Tweet on old stuff.  Teach me how to make better use of twitter.

  "share" my stuff on facebook.

9)  talk to relevant sites about making a link to me - and that you will make a link to them from the forums here.

10)  find new places/ways to tell folks about what all is going on here.  Stuff I have not thought of or been to.  And then share that info here so other folks might get more ideas too!

Great list!  There are at least 3 things on there that I wouldn't have thought of, and I've been paying attention to your work for a while.  I'mma go out and try those new things!

-Erica

I *might* have an opportunity to visit Tamera Ecovillage in Portugal sometime this summer.  Tamera is a sepp holzer consultation, as explained by Paul and Maddy Harland in podcast 016.  My wife wants to visit portugal, so why not visit Tamera. Not sure if I'll have a video, but will definitely have photos.  I wonder if this would be a place for "team permies" to assist Paul with the plot for world domination?

joe pacelli

If nothing else, take pictures and make sure they are here on permies.  Especially get lots and lots of pics of the hugelkultur stuff. 

paul wheaton wrote:
If nothing else, take pictures and make sure they are here on permies.  Especially get lots and lots of pics of the hugelkultur stuff. 

Will do Paul.  Coincidentally, Sepp Holzer is going to be at Tamera while I will be in Portugal.  I'm trying to arrange it so that we can visit them while he is helping them build their dam and shape new terraces.  Would be nice to meet the mighty, glorious, amazing Sepp Holzer.

Facebook.  I fought it forever because there are too  many busybodies prying into personal lives.  However, there are so many things that I like to keep up with that feed into Facebook that I finally caved in. 

I am there under an alias to keep my co-workers and skeletons from bothering me.

I have already posted your link on my 'wall' once.  I get feeds from many homesteading sites, urban gardeners, organics, herbal stuff as well as news sites that I like. 

I don't know how linking works but I'm sure a smart computer person could just figure out how to 'like' your forum so that the forum could stay the way it is.

joe pacelli wrote:
Will do Paul.  Coincidentally, Sepp Holzer is going to be at Tamera while I will be in Portugal.  I'm trying to arrange it so that we can visit them while he is helping them build their dam and shape new terraces.  Would be nice to meet the mighty, glorious, amazing Sepp Holzer.

If you can get pictures of green hugelkulture with dead, brown, dru stuff in the background that would be excellent.  Even better if the hugelkultur has recognizable garden plants on it!

paul wheaton wrote:
If you can get pictures of green hugelkulture with dead, brown, dru stuff in the background that would be excellent.  Even better if the hugelkultur has recognizable garden plants on it!

The main forum page has a facebook button at the bottom.

Paul, I know this is an old thread, but I have a suggestion. I don't know how feasible it is because I'm not an internet god, but I will suggest it anyway.

I spend a lot of time on another forum called gardenweb.com. I know there are lots of experts that hang out there in some of the sub-forums, so when I'm looking for really specific garden advice I know that will be the best place to go, rather than searching the entire internet.

So I go to Mr Google and I type in, for instance, "climbing rose for north wall gardenweb". Now the first result Mr Google gives me is a list of five or six links to threads within gardenweb.com. And under those links is another link that says "Show More Results from Gardenweb.com". And then I click on that and browse through the thread titles until I find a likely candidate.

You might have to try it to see what I mean.

I like this method because, like permies.com, that site has heaps of sub-forums, and there's a lot of crossover. So it's better to do a google search for the whole site, rather than search for roses that might grow on a north wall in the Antique Roses forum, the Roses forum, the Organic Rose Growing forum, the Cottage Garden forum, and the Gardening in Australia forum.

I wish I could do that type of search for info at permies.com.

Marie,

You can do that kind of search pretty easily. if you go to Google and type in "site:permies.com climbing rose for north wall" you will only get results from permies.com.

Ahhh cool, thanks!

From the not-internet-savvy Marie.

Hi, would there be room for someone to take a big ol' thread, squeeze the juice out of it, then turn it into an article?
-forums put some people off when it comes to finding information
-and articles are much easier to share over the internet

...i'm very happy to be that someone, with the honorable Duke's blessings of course.

Jason,

That would be SO SO SO amazing for you to do. Like, I can't even tell you how amazing it would be. I give you Paul's blessing one hundred percent. He has been trying to get me to do this sort of thing for ages but I just have been busy with other things.

There are SO many opportunity's for really cool threads to be turned into articles and I agree forums are offputting to some people, so sharing information via article is a REALLY good way to spread the permaculture word. If you did this sort of thing, we would share the crap out of it just as long as you put lots of links to permies in the articles.