[Robert]

Hello members. Your fearless leader here. I apologize for being less active/responsive lately. My day job has been very demanding lately as my team has been preparing a new product for market. I have been checking in several times a day to see how things are progressing and to take care of any emergencies. I hope to do some catching up here shortly.

One idea, suggested by member tedjay, is the need to better aggregate knowledge and improve the focus of the community. So, in response to Ted's suggesting, I've decided to set a monthly theme so we can bring the community's focus to specific questions and anomalies regarding the Theory of Everything. Here's what I'm thinking:

1. The theme starts on the first Sunday of the month with the first one starting this coming Sunday, November 4th.
2. A forum will be created for that theme and will appear in a prominent position in the forums/menus.
3. Members will discuss topics relating to the theme in this forum.
4. A quiz will be prepared and integrated with the website so members can take a quiz each month that relates to the theme.
5. A group chat will take place on the Saturday preceding the first Sunday of the month.
6. A dedicated theme page will be available with summary information, rss feeds from the theme forum, a downloadable mind map, book references, quiz link, forum link, wiki link, etc.
7. Themes may be repeated and the information will be aggregated over time in various ways: wiki, mind map, an aggregated theme map (more on this later), and more.
8. The theme page will be a launching point for all theme related discussions, knowledge repositories, and activities.
9. An email will be sent to all members to announce the theme of the month. This should pull in some of our less active members and keep them interested in coming back.

Please post your ideas and suggestions here. Now, I've got some work to do

Regards,
--Robert

[theunify]

One word Robert, "Trivia" that is the only way to get our people interested in what has been learned so far. It would be great if Carly was programmed simply to ask Trivia questions, and it would be a compitition, perhaps adding to one user's reputation as a reward. Let's say the trivia bot is not supplied with an answer, it gives out hints such as _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ - _ _ _ _ _ _

F _ _ _ _ _ _ _ - L _ _ _ _ _

F e _ _ _ _ _ _ - L e _ _ _ _


"Oh, I know" Fearless - Leader!

That is correct.. you have gained 1 rep point.

So go ahead and make a theme, I don't think we should have more than one theme though, just one theme is good, and email members telling them, and make a forum, so we can discuss the answers to the Trivia, and of course it would be wise to ask all thread starters to submit a crib sheet of questions and answers along with their threads as time progresses, so that you can incorporate those "truth tables" into a Trivia Bot.

Example.
I start a thread about the new mars exploration mission planned by NASA.
I submit a list of knowns, such as it will happen in 2011,
It will be called Pheonix...and so on.
As the thread progresses and more members post on the topic more information is learned, and it is up to the thread starter to update these factoids with the help of others.

[mkirkpatrick]

Interesting idea Robert,I look forward to taking part in it.



warm regards michael

[Profpat]

Great idea Robert;

And the topic for tomorrow is what?

Best,

Pat

[theunify]

Originally Posted by Profpat Great idea Robert; And the topic for tomorrow is what? Best, Pat

The Topic is "You wrong if you think Robert is here for your amusement"

ProfPat, this is a community, if you think you can pass on responsibility to others you are wrong and should start your own blog where everday you get to pick and choose every little detail; this is a member driven community, Please either post your ideas or suggestions as Robert asked, or remove yourself for the benifet of the whole.

~theunify

[Profpat]

Originally Posted by theunify The Topic is "You wrong if you think Robert is here for your amusement" ProfPat, this is a community, if you think you can pass on responsibility to others you are wrong and should start your own blog where everday you get to pick and choose every little detail; this is a member driven community, Please either post your ideas or suggestions as Robert asked, or remove yourself for the benifet of the whole. ~theunify

WHAT IN HELL IS YOUR PROBLEM. I WAS ASKING ROBERT A QUESTION NOT YOUR UGLY ASS

*** The administrator frowns on the use of bad language ***

[neutralino]

Originally Posted by theunify The Topic is "You wrong if you think Robert is here for your amusement" ProfPat, this is a community, if you think you can pass on responsibility to others you are wrong and should start your own blog where everday you get to pick and choose every little detail; this is a member driven community, Please either post your ideas or suggestions as Robert asked, or remove yourself for the benifet of the whole. ~theunify

What did ProfPat do to deserve that? From what I've seen of his posts over the past week or so, he's one of the most friendly members, and contributes a lot to the community of the boards.

[Profpat]

Originally Posted by neutralino What did ProfPat do to deserve that? From what I've seen of his posts over the past week or so, he's one of the most friendly members, and contributes a lot to the community of the boards.

THANK YOU NEUTRALINO. I NEVER SAW THAT COMING AND I THOUGHT IT WAS A LEGITIMATE QUESTION. SORRY UNIFY FOR CALLING YOU AN UGLY ASS

bEST TO YOU NEUTRALINO,

PAT

[NotStein]

Originally Posted by neutralino What did ProfPat do to deserve that? From what I've seen of his posts over the past week or so, he's one of the most friendly members, and contributes a lot to the community of the boards.

Ditto from me; Dear 'theunify' I haven't been around here long, but ProfPat has always been polite & respectful, and his ideas, kudos and criticism has helped me further my vision of what's going on in this amazing universe we live in. We criticize each others' ideas, not each other, in order for us all to gain new insight. I suggest to you "http://www.orkin.com" - maybe they can find that bug that is apparently stuck up your b---. Which, I guess proves I'm as imperfect at living up to my own ideals as anyone; ah, that darn Heisenburg!

I would like to suggest a monthly topic, or new forum. As some of you may have surmised, I am process oriented; I like to envision what may have happened from the Big Bang as real phenomena. What it looked, sounded, felt and tasted like, using imagination and deductive logic to develop a community vision. How it would have appeared viewed through a telescope. Like astromomers are to cosmologists, it has taken both for us to reach our present state of knowledge of the universe. I think the 'observational' (mostly virtual in our case) viewpoint has been somewhat under-represented here (although I just may be ignorant of where to go). We could call it 'The Sensual TOE' - although that might attract a few weirdos here [my bad; they're already here - myself included, of course!).

Jeff

[Robert]

Since communication is said to be mostly body language, which is not available in these forums, it's easy to trip up on what a poster really means, what's being insinuated, the underlying meaning of the words, etc. Let's mark this up to a mis-communication and go from there. We have much more important issues to tackle.

I'd rather not disclose the topic here otherwise we would probably start discussing it here rather than the monthly theme forum. Plus, I want the flexibility to change my mind at the last minute .

Regarding Carly, I can program her to ask trivia questions when given a keyword, and that may be a good idea. Or I can aggregate the knowledge into her database so she can throw out theme-related comments on occasion. Also, I'll be adding a final exam where members can take a quiz and be ranked for all to see. Perhaps an award of some kind for participating in and/or placing well in the quiz.

I'll be setting all this up tomorrow, but it will be a rolling start. At least the forum will be ready, but other pieces will fall in line as the month progresses.

--Robert