• Membership Drives
  • We need at least 20 active users, in 3 or 4 different workgroups, to get the dynamic interplay between people for this project to really take off.
  • Lloyd to send out invitations:
    • I'll invite Tharkun and his Facebook group and some TB members to join the Mathis work group.
    • I'll invite Sebastian's group, Brant, some TB members and NPA members to join the Aether group. Ask CC for the link to Sebastian's Aether work group
    • I'll invite Brant, Mozina, TB members and some NPA members to join the EU work group.
    • I'll invite CC and some TB, EM and NPA members to join the Science Reform work group.
    • I may invite Dirk and some NPA members to start a Paranormal group.
    • I may invite people to the QDL chatroom for each work group on different days for each group.
• Questionaire
  • Lloyd is asking people to fill out this form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1fUIADWSRBu08l1-jZAfztHl0uEF-YLvshNBIIu5Yqso/viewform.
  • Lloyd might revise the questionnaire. Ask CC for suggested revisions for it.
  • Lloyd believes that most group decisions can probably be made without much live group chat. Instead, Google forms and forum discussions can probably handle most of the work of decision making.
    • CC: This is a really cool idea. But better than using Google (or any other external software), we could do this right inside QDL, using built-in questionaires. For sociocratic decision making, this would be easy, where the "question" is the problem that we're trying to solve, and the "answers" are the proposed solutions. In a QDL questionaire, it lists the names of people who have selected each option, so you can easily tell who has voted, and whether or not a consensus has been achieved.
• Branding
  • Currently there isn't any sort of consistent message. So people don't know what to make of the whole thing. It would catch on faster if it was clearer what we're doing.
  • We have a "QDL / Topics / Science / Monthly Newsletter" folder, but more effort could go into updating it, and it could be positioned more prominently.
  • Come up with a distinctive name for the process.
    • LK: like Mecholoscience (for Mechanistic Holoscience).
    • CC: "Holoscience" is Thornhill's site, right? Is he going to appreciate us hijacking his name? :) Anyway, let's develop the process, and let it mature a bit. I'm thinking that "Sociocratic Science" might sum it up, but maybe not. There's more to it than that. But I'd like to suggest that we find out what works, and define what it is about it that makes it work, and then name it after the active ingredient, whatever that turns out to be.
• Skill Building
  • People would be more interested if they could see how involvement would enhance their skills, for personal enrichment and/or career building. This could include encouraging people to do animations of their ideas.
• Video Vignettes
  • Everybody to review a few of Chad's videos, as examples of how we could start disseminating the fruits of our labors: https://www.youtube.com/user/ChadGlassify/videos
  • Chad to review Charles' document on geomagnetism as a possible pilot project: Video Scripts
  • Everybody prepare to discuss how we could proceed.
• Technologies to Investigate
  • Software Requirements

  • Video Conferencing (Skype or Google Voice)
    • Nothing beats face-to-face communication, and short of actually being there, video conferencing is the next best thing.
    • Skype also allows texting, which can be useful for sending links, etc.
  • Webinars
  • Questionaires
    • Google Forms are very useful for questionaires.
    • QDL can also do simple questionaires, with inclusive/exclusive multiple choice answers, and the ability for users to add new answers.
  • Chatrooms
    • Lloyd believes that it's likely to be helpful to have monthly group chats to discuss ideas, but a facilitator may be needed to help keep discussion on point for half an hour to an hour, after which discussion can be chaotic.
  • Forums
    • QDL can do forums, with the advantage that threads can be interspersed with articles, lumping all related material together.
  • Concurrent Text Editing
    • GoogleDocs is one of the best at this.
    • Disadvantage: everybody has to have a fast connection, and 3~4 people is about the limit, and they have to keep the document under 10 pages or so. Also, images can be a problem. And these aren't just responsiveness issues. Docs auto-saves every second or so. If saving takes longer than that, it starts the next save before the last one is done, and then it gets confused.
    • Still, this might be the preferred method for collaborating on the evaluation of theories. The reason is that it allows people to expound upon ideas, and for others to ask questions. And they do the sorting in real time, just by positioning the cursor at the relevant place before beginning to type.
    • To do this:
      • The moderator prepares the document in advance, with some opening questions. (Lloyd is really good at that.)
      • Everybody picks a distinctive color, and starts typing.
      • If something somebody else says interests you, you respond to it.
      • After the end of the session, the moderator condenses the discussion down into a summary, and that forms the basis for the next discussion.
      • The completed GoogleDocs version, as well as the summary, can be stored in QDL for quick reference.
  • Animations
    • Armand recommends Blender. The application is free, it has a very active user community and excellent tutorials, and it is very powerful. Sample: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRsGyueVLvQ. Caveat: It has a very steep learning curve, but there is a great 'Blender For Dummies' book, and other, more in depth books, available...
    • Google Sketch-up
  • Storage
    • QDL
    • GoogleDrive
    • vixra.org
    • YouTube
• Software Features on QDL

• Miscellaneous
  • Ask CC for rights to modify the QDL Science section.
    • Let's discuss any changes that you think should be made. Differences of opinion in how things should be set up have resulted in a lot of mixed metaphors in the folder structure, and this makes the whole thing extremely confusing, especially for new users. So I'm looking to clean up and consolidate the material that we have, and to make it easier to understand. Did you have any thoughts along those lines? Merging the forums with the articles really simplified things a lot, so that was an awesome idea.
• Prepare to discuss the Proposed Team Protocols.