DIY Discussion Carnival

We're coming up on our last full week of this month's Discussion Carnival on "The New Do-It-Yourself Organizing." There has been some good featured blog posts but not a lot of discussion here on the QuakerQuaker forum. So let's stop beating around the bush and ask the hard question:

• What's the Relationship Of DIY And Established Friends Bodies?
  Some of the DIY projects don't need large-scale institutional support. Which is good, because most yearly meetings wouldn't know how to provide that support or spiritual guidance. What does it mean when Friends feel they need to bypass our established institutions in order to engage in ministry and organizing which they feel called to? And how can we bridge the gap between the DIY start-ups and our long-established Quaker bodies?
  
  This isn't just an academic question for this site. Yes, the QuakerQuaker project has credentials, all detailed on the About page. But there's little formal connection between the site and the Quaker bodies that might be expected to sponsor it, and almost too many informal connections--Friends visiting the QuakerQuaker kitchen table, me visiting them in old brick buildings in Philadelphia and always a steady twirping of IM's. Why is so much of the active energy in the Religious Society of Friends happening in these DIY projects? This is promising and troubling at the same time. What do you think?

Podcasts Anyone? Columns? Projects?

Perhaps related to the above, in the past few weeks three people have approached me about the possibilities of hosting audio and podcasts on the site. Because of how our hosting service Ning works, it would cost us an extra $30/month but we could round that up--if nothing else, that's just  three new people ponying up for the $10/month donation plan). I'd like to know if these inquiries are just coincidence. Leave a comment or send me an email if you'd like to share or listen to audio here on QuakerQuaker.

Two of the inquiries were about also hosting semi-independent projects on QuakerQuaker. I'm not sure quite what this might look like but it's certainly interesting. We have the hosting and multimedia support. We have a strong audience of 1700 members here and over 2000 followers elsewhere (Facebook, Twitter, Feedburner, many certainly overlapping). It's a good place to share and hosting on QuakerQuaker lets independent media producers focus on their message and not get bogged down by technical details.

This could also evolve into a social media version of columns like you'd see in a newspaper. For example, check out Irene Lape's new blog here where she's share a walk through the Bible--very cool. For technical reasons I'm going to have to redesign the site in the next few months. As I do that I'll be thinking about how we might feature columns and independent sub-sites. If anyone feels led to start columns or has an independent project that might work well on QuakerQuaker, let me know and I'll see if I can add it to the redesign mix.

Featured Blog Posts This Week

• George Lakey talk on the call to leadership http://bit.ly/gWiWWu 
• Symon Hill: Quakers, ethics and capitalism http://bit.ly/eZT6iv 
• Forrest Curo: Disagreements in our Meetings http://bit.ly/eTlsd7
• Micah Bales: Freelance Ministry or the Body of Christ? http://bit.ly/hYYZjY
• Peterson Toscano: Quakers--Not Violent; Just Passive Aggressive (on the need for humor) http://bit.ly/hf0EEm
• Sarah Hoggatt: You Know this Painting? http://bit.ly/eOzrzR 
• Danny Coleman: The Quaker Testimony of Equality http://bit.ly/f4GcpP
• Anthony Manousos remembers modern-day Quaker martyr Tom Fox http://bit.ly/gfCiTL
• Tony Lowe on Quaker authority http://bit.ly/gR1xDt
• Nancy Thomas: Down on the farm: toward a Quaker missiology http://bit.ly/f9HvEM
• C Wess Daniels: Connecting with Poverty in Our Community http://bit.ly/icf51i

QQ Tips: What Do You Like? 

There's some new sharing options on the site. If you like a post, event or user profile you're on you can click either of two "Like" buttons. Click on the heart one and the page is added to a Likes collection accessible from your QuakerQuaker profile. Click on the one with the familiar "F" and it's posted to your Facebook account. Both are great ways to share content you like, thank its author and help build the QuakerQuaker community.

About QuakerQuaker

 QuakerQuaker is a community of Quakers exploring Primitive Christianity Revived. Support this work by signing up for the $10/month donation plan or by giving a one-time donation. Want to reach a Friends audience?: Try the Quaker Ad Network and get your message on four leading online websites including QuakerQuaker and Friends Journal. You can follow us on Twitter or Facebook.