Hey folks,

This is a new web site intended to be easy for us to update and contribute to. It has numerous features that I am not going to go into now, because first I want to tell you what I'm aiming for.

My first goal is empowerment. I want you all to be able to create the web pages you need to accomplish the tasks at hand, with as few impediments as possible. I want everyone to be an author, and not have go through a webmaster to put some information out there, which I think becomes a bottleneck. This website is the result.

My second goal is to get out of the web page creation tasks. I am happy to answer your questions on this blog. (Just post a comment and I'll get it.) This way you can see other's questions and the answers they got.

This is still a work in progress. I am hoping that the spam attacks that attacked the previous blog will somehow not appear here. If they do, I will work to prevent them as they happen.

I am still working on the security model that allows you to do what you need, but not accidentally delete everything anyone has done. If you can't do something, let me know and I'll check it out. If you find everyone can do something that might have negative ramifications, and you think it's a bad idea, let me know and I'll try to turn that off.

This software is called Drupal. There are some links in my earlier blog entries that have links to docs that may be helpful as you try to learn about it. The software supposed to be easy to use, but I'm finding that while its easy to use--everything is on the webpage in front of you--it is definitely not as simple as I would like, and I can't see how to turn off most of the complexity for most of you, but I'm still working on it. If you see a checkbox or button and it doesn't seem clear what it does, you won't hurt anything by leaving it alone. If you want to check it and see what happens, you'll definitely be able to get back there and undo it.

Please register and give us all your information. This can become the membership list that seems to be currently somewhat haphazard. (I may be wrong about this.) Everyone who registers gets their own blog, and you've always secretly wanted a blog, right?

You can create groups. Once you have registered, you can create a group. Groups can be invite only or public, depending on what the group creator chooses, and each group can have a blog, forums, members, minutes, events, etc. Events can have timeslots to sign up for them, etc.

See my blog entry called "How to create a group" to find out how to make your group.

Also, please, let's not post anything to the home page unless it pertains to everyone, meeting announcements, etc.

Please use this and don't be afraid to experiment. I promise you can't break the website, and if you break the website in good faith experimentation, I won't get upset, and I'll try to work with you to set it right.

adam