Homelessness and the web (really about class & money)

[Anitra Again]

On Mon, 12 Jan 1998, Lorraine Pozzi wrote:

> Anitra -- are you suggesting we might be myopic, arrogant 
> bureaucrats?  People who start out doing good works often slide
> into that mode -- but I don't think we are quite there yet.
> Of course, we are always the last to know.

I do *not* think that ... entirely. :) Honestly, anyone gets myopic
occasionally, arrogant occasionally, bureaucratic occasionally.  Human
beings tend to start out trying to help people, develop procedures to
help them do that better, and wind up sacrificing people to the
procedures.  This is How Things Go.  But there are a lot of genuine,
caring, and highly intelligent people in SCN working very hard to get
things working for everyone, although they get frustrated a lot.

On a side note, I am often reminded of an observation I made in the
last days of my marriage.  Both my ex-husband and I were convinced
that *we* (single-handedly) did most of the work around the house.
We couldn't both be right.  In my more objective moments I conceded
that we might each be slightly biased.

This is one of the reasons why I like the idea of a newsletter, or any
sort of forum that improves communication between members and
departments.  As I say about our SHARE meetings -- when you get caught
up in daily emergencies, you get to a point where the crisis in
homelessness in America is whether your shelter has toilet paper
tonight. It's good to get together with the rest of the folks
regularly and get your horizons re-widened.

What I was trying to say in my previous post was that there are a lot
of forces that make it easy to become myopic, arrogant bureaucrats
-- and it takes a lot of hard work and awareness to stay grassroots
and self-managed, it is not accomplished by good intentions and a pure
heart alone.

A newsletter, an open online forum, more users involved in meetings --
all of these are ways that we could maintain a 'grassroots culture' in
SCN.

Brainstorming:

) To pull in more user involvement, how about a "User Contribution
Award"?  Have a forum where discussions like this are posted for user
comments and suggestions.  Useful suggestions that get implemented get
a colorful graphic (with an equally 'colorful' text alternative) to
post, if they have their own webpage, and a mention on an SCN awards
page.

) We could set up the "newsletter" as a webpage, with semi-permanent
articles that each have a link to a discussion area, which could
either be set up as an SCN forum or a WebApps forum (a service I have
recently discovered which maintains a forum for you, handling all the
CGI on their own server).

) We could have an webpage archive for this mailing list, accessible
by all users.  It could be sorted by date, author, subject line or
message thread. I know of two mailing lists doing that, and I had an
offer from a member of one of my mailing lists to set up the same
thing, so if there isn't anyone here who knows the mechanics involved
(I'm sure there is!) I could find out.      

I edited a long email thread into a webpage presentation once, and it
can be done.  Archives' easier. :)
___________________
WRITE ON! -- Anitra
Save America's Vanishing Frompers!  Support Thalia, Muse of Comedy, 
in the Site Fights!  http://www.thesitefights.com/circus/side2.htm

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *  From the Listowner  * * * * * * * * * * * *
.	To unsubscribe from this list, send a message to:
majordomo at scn.org		In the body of the message, type:
unsubscribe scn
END