Any Ideas For Updated Site FAQs and Other Information?

I've just been updating some of the FAQs and was hoping to get some feedback and help from other readers. 

The most important page may be the About page. This page get's loads of traffic. Many people want to know just what in the world this site is About. The first writing was more of an idea of what the site should become. Now it should describe what the site is as well as what we hope it to become. With that in mind, I would very much appreciate your feedback regarding what this site is, whether what I wrote fits it, and even what you hope the site might become. Here's what I've got so far:

faithCommons is a non-commercial, non-denominational, all religions welcomed (and non-religions too), community portal for postmoderns and outside-the-box thinkers. It is a common ground for those with differing religious backgrounds. It is a crossing point, a way station, a shared resource—a Commons.

As Jesus did, we welcome religion's outsiders and outcasts, unchurched, unconnected and uninvited. For these have little invested in systems that must be maintained and are therefore able to travel light on a journey over both old paths that have been abandoned for centuries and over new paths yet to be traveled.

And, while those who first began this journey here came mostly from a Christian background, we do not consider it a Christian endeavor. Indeed, there are members here from Eastern religions and yes, even Atheists. One might say that we seek truth and understanding through our religious traditions as well as in spite of them. True seekers of knowledge know that they need balance from those who see the world differently.

This site also syndicates content from other sites, for two reasons. The second and less important reason is to provide excerpts of current content from like thinkers around the 'net. But the first and more important reason is to build connections between like thinkers around the 'net. Like Thinker does not mean in agreement. It means others who similarly seek understanding through old and new ways unchained from heavily invested systems, systems that focus increasingly on maintaining what was, rather than seeking what could be.

The last paragraph is a new problem. It's a problem because I've never formally discussed this with more than two or three of the sites that are currently syndicated here. There are two things that need to happen. One is that the sites whose content is syndicated here should get to decide whether they agree, disagree or are indifferent to the ideals that We are About. There is no litmus test of course, and no need to be in or out. However, if the purpose is to connect people, then those indifferent should be allowed to be so, and those in disagreement should be allowed out. The other issue is that some bloggers have enjoyed traffic from FC for one or two years while remaining apparently aloof. And that's ok. Some may have to watch who they associate with to protect their paychecks. But quite frankly, if they're ashamed or afraid to associate with us, then they aren't likely to have anything helpful to say that we'd want to read. Or maybe I'm just overreacting?

Anyway, the paragraph is badly written as it is and needs tuning anyway. But the greater problem is that I don't really know what it should say. Perhaps it should just be left out—saved for another post.

Still, somewhere waiting to be put into words  is an idea that describes the emergence of a social nertwork—actually a network of social networks—whose purpose is to help ideas find each other. It doesn't take anything, other than it's dinner, and it doesn't really get noticed when it's doing its job well. It isn't a web ring, nor blogroll. Although it is a syndication scheme, it is more than that because there is also a trade in ideas that goes on amongst and between the networks and nodes in the networks. Perhaps a Wikipedia of ideas is one word picture with some promise. But it's not static. Ideas emerge, submerge and reemerge as something else, somewhere else, with nobody knowing who to credit, although the credit flows with the links because context is important. It's a think-tank on the web, oozing here and there with thought. Religious philosophy in real time, where the right ideas can get to the right minds at the right time to ignite a new idea which will start the cycle anew. It's the Hellenistic Heterodoxy of Classical Antiquity, spread across the known world, reborn in a new age, merging old with new, and east with west.

Oh well. Back to reality and zoological categorization of data into trees and matrices and university departments.

Bookmark/Search this post with: