Summary. The content on the ResourcesForLife.com website represents the collective, cooperative, and collaborative efforts of hundreds of people around the world. After more than 10 years in development, as of 23 March 2009, the inner workings of ResourcesForLife.com have now been opened to the public. Imagine a factory with walls of glass that allows those passing by to see how it all works. Inspired by the Open Source Community and Transparency in Governance, ResourcesForLife.com is now moving toward a creative commons, open source, transparency model of operation. Feel free to join the community.
Getting Started. We recognize that people are already busy and involved with existing online communities such as Facebook, Curbly, and Ning. So, joining an additional website results in another username, password, and website to visit regularly. For this reason, we’ve created a presence on most of the popular online networks. Chances are, we are already on your social network of choice. Below are other sites where Resources for Life.com maintains a presence. Some of these are for the purposes of demonstrating and comparing the features offered by these providers.
- Bebo – Bebo.com/resourcesforlife
- Blogger – resourcesforlife.blogspot.com
- Curbly – Curbly.com/resourcesforlife
- eBay – http://myworld.ebay.com/resourcesforlife
- Facebook – http://www.new.facebook.com/group.php?gid=26905513532
- Freewebs – FreeWebs.com/resourcesforlife
- Gaia – resourcesforlife.gaia.com
- Google Sites – http://sites.google.com/site/resourcesforlife/
- Hi5 – http://resourcesforlife.hi5.com
- Jamie Oliver – http://www.jamieoliver.com/blogger/resources4life
- Kiva – http://www.kiva.org/team/resourcesforlife
- LinkedIn – http://www.linkedin.com/in/resourcesforlife
- LotsaHelpingHands – http://www.lotsahelpinghands.com/c/609178/
- MySpace – MySpace.com/resourcesforlife
- Ning – http://resourcesforlife.ning.com
- Orkut – http://www.orkut.com/Main#Profile.aspx?uid=924349468378786220
- Osmosus – http://www.osmosus.com/resourcesforlife
- Picasaweb – Picasaweb.google.com/resourcesforlife
- PickensPlan – http://push.pickensplan.com/profile/resourcesforlife
- Plaxo – http://resourcesforlife.myplaxo.com
- Scribd – http://www.scribd.com/resourcesforlife
- Smuel Ocarina – http://ocarina.smule.com/my/ocarina/user/resourcesforlife/
- StumbleUpon – http://resourcesforlife.stumbleupon.com/
- Squidoo – http://www.squidoo.com/resourcesforlife
- TinyURL – http://tinyurl.com/resourcesforlife
- Twitter – http://twitter.com/resources4life
- YouTube – http://www.youtube.com/user/resourcesforlife
- WordPress – http://resourcesforlife.wordpress.com
- XMind.net – http://www.xmind.net/account/resourcesforlife/
On Our Site. Below you’ll find general information about our own online community, including a video tour overview, and a video presentation showing the quick and easy steps to join.
Video Overview Tour. Below is a brief (10 minute) video tour of the online community and how it is organized. At the bottom of this page, there is another video, showing how to edit and post information.
Enter the Community
What It Is. The online community is a larger version of the ResourcesForLife.com website that is collectively edited and collaboratively maintained by hundreds of people. The information is organized around the principles of life described on the ResourcesForLife.com map page. The reason for this is to help inspire holistic thinking and living.
How It Works. As groups of people have conversations, in the community’s online discussion forums, the ideas presented, and projects collectively worked on, take shape. These random, scattered, chaotic conversations are aggregated, organized, filtered, processed, edited, and then presented as cohesive articles and pages on the main ResourcesForLife.com website. The principle is similar to Wikipedia, but the public is able to see the process at work and join in.
How It Works For You. As you become a participant in the community, you can use the online forums as a place to make your life more efficient. For example, instead of answering e-mails directly and individually, consider posting public (generic) responses like small articles. Reply to the e-mail and point the person to the location where you’ve posted the answer to their question. The next time someone writes you with the same question, you can simply point them to the online reply, or point them to an article someone else has written.
Collective Knowledge Resources. The online community connects minds in the same way that distributive computing connects computers. The end result is a creative computational force greater than a super computer. As challenges are presented, many people can work on the challenge to discover and develop practical solutions. Since the online community is easily searchable, you can find answers to questions. As the online community grows, the answers are more plentiful and more helpful.
Membership Approval Required. To have your membership request approved, in addition to completing the online signup process, you must also send an email to community @ resourcesforlife.com (without spaces) explaining your interest in joining the online community. Please send the message from the email address you plan to use for your membership in this community. This additional layer of confirmation helps us limit community membership to people who are genuinely interested; and filter out automated signup attempts by spammers. As a result, the community can be free of advertising and spam.
How to Edit and Post Information. Below is a video showing how to edit and post information, including how to use the editing toolbar.
