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Streamlining the GASM

Started by Cramulus, May 30, 2008, 05:55:05 AM

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Cramulus

Can you think of ways which we can "program" accelerated forward motion into the GASM meme?

For example - to encourage a culture / etiquette where
If someone suggests a GASM and you'd be willing to help, you should say so. (thereby encouraging them to move forward)

Be willing to lead projects even if they're not originally your idea. Once a GASM is launched, it belongs to the community.




a page on the wiki could explain the etiquette more specifically


Dysfunctional Cunt

The potential is bigger than all of us, which is the point right...

Other than a site strictly for GASM participants and the various one(s) they are working on, I'm not sure what you can do.  It tends to get swallowed on a board like PD because there is so much else going on.

I had a blast with the EGGGASM.  I'd do others, no problem!

Triple Zero

oh sweet synchronicity :)

i was just discussing this particular topic with Ratatosk yesterday.

i personally have the feeling that the GASM-Feed kind of outlived its usefulness. it's a nice piece of web2.0 style ducttape work, but that's about it :)

what can we do to facilitate a GASM?

spread the word

a GASM-call is basically a couple of paragraphs of text describing the project. it also requires at least one image, for visual anchoring.
this text should be presented in easily-copypastable ways, including multiple formats for posting on livejournal, myspace, facebook, orkut, blogs, forums, etc etc, in a similar fashion as imageshack and photobucket include several formats for copypasting images/imagelinks/thumbs.

this way the original GASMeteer can easily create an initial propaganda/buzz onslaught across the GASM-o-sphere.

the first step, the second step and the third step: DIY-MF-S!

if you're not willing to do the first and second steps all by yourself and pull the third step out of the ground with barely a minimum of help, your GASM is simply not going to come off the ground.

this is actually a really bad thing for all the other GASM projects because it will make it look like starting a GASM is just like an excuse for calling out "we (=not me) should really do X and Y" and "discordians should really prank Z in P and Q improbable ways" or "hey everybody let's all K and L" -- which is not only just useless pollution of the GASM-o-sphere, but are also usually unrealistic and badly thought out half-ideas that can't even start to get off the ground because the person hasn't even considered how he would get from step one to step two if he had to do it all on his own.

so be prepared to do the first step yourself, and be sure to express the idea that this project will get off the ground whether anybody joins in or not! but, of course they'll be totally missing out on ALL THE FUN if they don't participate!

example of a first step you want to take yourself: if you want some kind of letterwriting GASM, be prepared to write at least three sample letters that people can simply copypaste, print and post to some addresses that you provide them.
do not expect people to figure this out by themselves.
example of a second step: yes, you are also going to post at least three of those letters yourself :)
example of a third step where you might expect some help: second wave of letter-writing, but only after you transmitted the tangible results you got so far over the network you're infecting.

transparent activity / broadcast the happening / keep 'em posted!

tagged flickr feeds have proven tremendously useful in getting people exciting and showing proof that things are actually happening in meatspace. having played a bit more with web2.0 over the past few months, i have some ideas how to empower this in a better way than the GASM feed, but it needs some refining.
the idea is basically to have a way to include the partial flickr feed in all the blog/network/buzz articles, instead of just viewing it on flickr and the GASM feed alone.

tagged del.icio.us links can possibly also be employed better. they can be used to collect buzz on a certain GASM (possibly tagged as gasm samplegasm buzz), tl;dr background info (gasm samplegasm tldr info) and tie-wrap+centralize discussion on forums and blog comments and whatnot (gasm samplegasm talk) and of course matieral such as pre-written letters (gasm samplegasm material)

so what now?

well i dunno about you, but I am going to design, brainstorm and implement some kind of simple PHP code to facilitate the more technical ideas i've thrown up in this post. if you wanna help, some feedback on this would be great, especially if it's of the form "well tripzip, that's all very nice, but i don't really see myself using it", because coding this kind of stuff isn't really worth the effort if nobody will use it but me :) also ideas of the form "it would be really awesome if we could have X" are appreciated, but please keep in mind that I'm aiming for lightweight stuff that keeps a very decentralized organisation of things. any other thoughts and ideas are more than welcome of course :)

(another thing, that i don't really expect anyone to do, but would be nice to have is if "someone" ( = me) could throw this on the Wiki ;-) )
Ex-Soviet Bloc Sexual Attack Swede of Tomorrow™
e-prime disclaimer: let it seem fairly unclear I understand the apparent subjectivity of the above statements. maybe.

INFORMATION SO POWERFUL, YOU ACTUALLY NEED LESS.

Triple Zero

note to self: torrents are also decentralized. can they be used? first thing that comes to mind is for distributing material that is several tens of megabytes in size (sound, video, hi res graphics, complete material packs etc)
Ex-Soviet Bloc Sexual Attack Swede of Tomorrow™
e-prime disclaimer: let it seem fairly unclear I understand the apparent subjectivity of the above statements. maybe.

INFORMATION SO POWERFUL, YOU ACTUALLY NEED LESS.

Cramulus

#4
Quote from: triple zero on May 31, 2008, 02:15:58 PM
oh sweet synchronicity :)

i was just discussing this particular topic with Ratatosk yesterday.

I love it when we're all on the same wavelength even though we haven't spoken about it.

Quotespread the word

a GASM-call is basically a couple of paragraphs of text describing the project. it also requires at least one image, for visual anchoring.
this text should be presented in easily-copypastable ways, including multiple formats for posting on livejournal, myspace, facebook, orkut, blogs, forums, etc etc, in a similar fashion as imageshack and photobucket include several formats for copypasting images/imagelinks/thumbs.

this way the original GASMeteer can easily create an initial propaganda/buzz onslaught across the GASM-o-sphere.

Good call. I like the idea of formalizing this step of it, as it's really where a lot of GASMs die. It might be helpful to have a list of sites for output. This might be exactly the sort of thing the folks at the Masquerade can come up with.

Quotethe first step, the second step and the third step: DIY-MF-S!

if you're not willing to do the first and second steps all by yourself and pull the third step out of the ground with barely a minimum of help, your GASM is simply not going to come off the ground.

this is actually a really bad thing for all the other GASM projects because it will make it look like starting a GASM is just like an excuse for calling out "we (=not me) should really do X and Y" and "discordians should really prank Z in P and Q improbable ways" or "hey everybody let's all K and L" -- which is not only just useless pollution of the GASM-o-sphere, but are also usually unrealistic and badly thought out half-ideas that can't even start to get off the ground because the person hasn't even considered how he would get from step one to step two if he had to do it all on his own.

Good energy here. If we're going to put this section on the wiki, I have one suggestion-
a lot of Golden Apple energy comes from brainstorming and throwing out batshit ideas. Some of them end up sounding plausible. I know that you're talking about people publicizing GASMs that just won't work. But this paragraph sounds like it discourages the "hey let's all write to the president" sort of discussions.

Quoteexample of a first step you want to take yourself: if you want some kind of letterwriting GASM, be prepared to write at least three sample letters that people can simply copypaste, print and post to some addresses that you provide them.

that's some solid advice right there.

Quotewell i dunno about you, but I am going to design, brainstorm and implement some kind of simple PHP code to facilitate the more technical ideas i've thrown up in this post.

I salute that as well. I also posit that however this works, it needs a really dumbed-down "user manual" or tutorial. We've had marginal success in getting people to register del.icio.us accounts and tag their articles for the GASM feed. I think that you and I are doing 90% of the tagging though. I suspect this may be because people are intimidated by using a novel system where if they screw up, it's really visible. Probably a number of reasons actually. Even an idiot should be able to use these tools to screw up everything.  :p

Golden Applesauce

I like the idea of a central website/forum, where people of all different discordian flavors could congregate.  There wouldn't be that "Man, I don't really need to join another online community" vibe that people would get if we just asked them to join PD.com.

Idea: to weed out all the poorly thought-out, unrealistic GASMs, set up a tiered system.  If it were a forum, have a couple different sections, a brainstorming subforum, where people just post ideas, and a refining subforum, were the promising ones get hashed out and improved.  The ones that make it out of that section go active, and get posted to the main blog, sent out as a mass email alert, etc.  After that, the GASMs go to the Tales of Epic Win subforum, where people congratulate each other on getting Colbert to make weekly references to Discordian in-jokes, et cetera, generally serving as a inspiration to other people.  Maybe a MetaGASM section, where people discuss what sorts of things make GASMs successful (or not) and how to improve things?

The general idea scales; we could use a similar system for the One-Sentence Memebombs or for individual PosterGASM posters.  A lot of the posters and one-liners are good but could use some tweaking, or are just lame and make thread-digging for the good ones a chore.
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Triple Zero

Quote from: Golden Applesauce on May 31, 2008, 11:18:30 PMI like the idea of a central website/forum, where people of all different discordian flavors could congregate.  There wouldn't be that "Man, I don't really need to join another online community" vibe that people would get if we just asked them to join PD.com.

this is actually exactly why i don't want a centralized forum. but rather some simple pieces of websoftware that host some data, redirects and allows one to "set up shop" anywhere, but connects those "anywhere" to eachother.

why would they all come to the same place?

also, it only taps people that have decided beforehand they want in on GASMs, instead of just anyone (not even necessarily discordians) you hit with a propaganda offensive.

QuoteIdea: to weed out all the poorly thought-out, unrealistic GASMs, set up a tiered system.  If it were a forum, have a couple different sections, a brainstorming subforum, where people just post ideas, and a refining subforum, were the promising ones get hashed out and improved.  The ones that make it out of that section go active, and get posted to the main blog, sent out as a mass email alert, etc.

the idea is not bad, but to get it off the ground, it makes me think "who will set up the tiered system", "who will post the ideas", "who will do the refining", "who will do the hashing out", and the ones that "go active" don't just magically do that, but are actively pushed out by active people.

it's a nice idea, but as long as nobody gets paid with money or even just "scene cred" (like in warez groups etc), what will hold the tiered system together, apart from the general goodwill of the people?

our advantage is that, as discordians, we know it will stick and fall apart sooner or later, or we are doing it wrong :)

and i dunno if i would subscribe to a mass mailinglist like that, but maybe that's just me. could be there's animo for it.

QuoteAfter that, the GASMs go to the Tales of Epic Win subforum, where people congratulate each other on getting Colbert to make weekly references to Discordian in-jokes, et cetera, generally serving as a inspiration to other people.  Maybe a MetaGASM section, where people discuss what sorts of things make GASMs successful (or not) and how to improve things?

so far this subforum has low activity with the brainstorming, refining, hashing out, going active, tales of epic win and metaGASM combined.

QuoteThe general idea scales; we could use a similar system for the One-Sentence Memebombs or for individual PosterGASM posters.  A lot of the posters and one-liners are good but could use some tweaking, or are just lame and make thread-digging for the good ones a chore.

what do you mean chore? i already did that for you! ---> http://www.shorttext.com/ep45b

i made a wonderful selection of my personal favourites, at least. the past two months aren't in there yet, but i'll add them in due time. if you don't like my selection, you can of course make your own :)

also what do you mean it scales? because it doesn't, for the tiered GASM idea you described above, you need a group of dedicated people to keep it in the aether.
if you wanna scale this idea to other ares, you're either going to need more dedicated people, or more dedication from the same people. i don't see that scaling very well tbh, because people like that don't just randomly grow on trees, they get involved by a plan, by having coming up with it themselves, refining, hashing it out themselves.

sorry for being a tad negative, but if there's one thing i learned from:

- several attempts at creating discordian group projects (BIP pamphlet, Lollercaust)
- general attempts to get (non discordian) groups of people active
- getting a GASM off the ground
- watching these things happen

is, if you want to get something done. do it yourself. if you want help with something, approach people individually, do not post into the open air "hey anybody wanna help me do this", "hey guys i can't host the party next week, anybody else wanna donate their place?", "maybe we should ...", "somebody ought to ..."

not going to work, you need to involve people emotionally, individually.

like "will YOU help me", "i'm doing X, can YOU make me a Y?"
Ex-Soviet Bloc Sexual Attack Swede of Tomorrow™
e-prime disclaimer: let it seem fairly unclear I understand the apparent subjectivity of the above statements. maybe.

INFORMATION SO POWERFUL, YOU ACTUALLY NEED LESS.