Prose Fusion, 2023-10-16

Topics

• Markdown, mark up
• Most important Git commands, Git workflow
• Two primary activities
  • Getting people going on Markdown+GitHub
  • A few collaborative writing projects, suited to a few individuals or more
• Liberating Structures
• Neobooks
• Massive Wiki

Markdown Quick Start

Markdown is sort of a "universal" way to add a few characters to any text, which can be read elsewhere as formatted text.

Here are the first things to learn with Markdown:

Words can be bold or italic -- you'll see we just added two asterisks on each side of "bold" **bold** and one underline on each side of "italic" _italic_.

Then there are bullet lists, which start with a dash and a space - at the beginning of a line:

• first bullet
• second bullet
• third bullet

And numbered lists, just put a number, then a full-stop / period character, then a space at the beginning of a line 1. :

1. first
2. second
3. third

(Technically, you can put any number, and when the Markdown is processed by a Markdown processor, it will fix the numbering.)

Next, how about headings? Type 1 to 5 number sign / hashtag characters and a space # at the beginning of a line. Fewer hashtag characters make a bigger heading:

• hash
• number sign
• pound
• octothorpe

heading 1

heading 2

heading 3

If you want to have a section of indented text, like a quote from an article or something, use a greater-than sign and a space > at the beginning of a line:

This is an indented quote. It can have multiple lines.

Three dashes (or more) on a line by themselves create a horizontal line:

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If you ever need to type something that would get processed by Markdown but you don't want it to, use a backtick character (usually the key to the left of the "1" key on your keyboard) before and after a string of characters; if you need to do this for multiple lines, use a line with three backticks, then your lines, then another line of three backticks.

this is preformatted text

and you can use as many lines as you want

''

Notes

• Let's focus on doing something - writing something together. Less focus on calls or communitty.
  • Helper calls - for help with Git and Markdown - as needed
  • As few people will have collaborative writing projects... and we will do that mostly asynchornously on a few projects...
• Relationship to: Liberating Structures - Nancy White might be an expert...
  • a lot of bootstrapping - is getting diads together... then diads of diads... and bootstrap up more group activity...
• As technology gets better - there will be ways to craft applications for specific purposes...
  • and being able to articulate those practices... and coach / mentor / help one another...
• Example - look at Lionsberg wiki and tell me key themes - need a lot of horsepower to really get that to be accurate...
  • Here are the things I find really important - where does those show up in (the wiki)...
  • My words, to ask whether you have anything about this...
  • What matters to individuals will shift week to week based on their journey...
• Questions about the way we used to think about things...
  • Here is what I am interested in - does the Lionsberg Wiki have anything to say about that...
  • Not just show me every sentence that has word in it - but tell me how Jordan thinks about teology...
  • How to construct the underlying tech
  • how to formualte the context and prompting...
• The dialogical aspect...
  • where if a question is being asked and the author or council hasn't provided...
  • someone bumps into content on git hub... finds a gap or an offering... and then make an issue or pull request... and start colalborating with you...
  • and the mechanisms... and colalboration process... has it baked in...
  • I used it and I need help... or want to help...
  • Triangulation - to building project...
• Bill - exploration - can tools like github... help with that kind of conversation...
  • being able to record what happened
  • and resulting outcome...
• How a person's interests shift over time...
  • Governance
  • Group behavior
  • Psycho dynamics
• Hypothesis - What needs to be constructed, if you are going to try to discover governance...
  • we can build ways to govern our selves - that are better than the ways we have now
  • they will be localized and differentiated
  • 1. How you are going to manage issues of power, authority, making decisions...
    • everyone has their own relationship to that...
  • have to determine - HOW - once you get the people in the room with the shovels...
• On any big job - you have to divide the labor... everyone can't do everything...
  • that can produce dynamic interpersonal issues...
    • that the group needs to be able to deal with...
      • and figure out reparations / forgiveness / atonement for the inevitable foot stepping on...
  • So the question is - are you going to do something or not...
• Practices...
• Klaus - has a draft on soil health, bioregionalism, and how to communicate things like that to different people in the spiral dynamics colors...
  • Klaus - ended up in a valuable place... where has talked to people about this - from individuals, to Sierra Club - discussion often falls on deaf ears...
  • and learning how to tune message to where people are able to hear it...
  • Hasn't had a strong editor... has structural opportunities to improve...
• More powerful if - the learning are decomposed, abstracted out...
  • applied with purpose...
  • to the various pillars of the meta crisis...
  • to equip and domain domain specific leaders...
• what is the purpose?
• how does Theory U or Spiral Dynamics help us communicate to different people?

1. carbon isn't the only problem
2. small water cycle is important
3. how to apply spiral dynamics to communicating deep, important issues
4. communicating 1 & 2, informed by 3

Next steps

• Practicalizing it: pilots - puts a reality underneath it - pulls it out of the abstract...
• Audience Segmentation:
  • Another part of it - is picking an audience (or audiences) and speaking to it...
• Potential writing pieces
  • Governance
    • In a local activity...
    • how do we assemble our selves, and collaboratively navigate and manage collective action...
    • Write down a story - here are the questions...
      • Here is a first stab at the major questions of governance...
• Write a charter...
• Decide prose fusion wiki or Lionsberg wiki

Jordan: meta-crisis; people differ; ???

The project title: "Governance - what the heck is that, anyway?"

Alternate title: Governace as a Practice - Navigating Towards Goals and Values (or something)...

• would force us to be pragmatic

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