DRAFT COPY  01/05/2013

Seattle Community Network 'SCNwiki-plus'

Project Description

An internet source for Seattleites (individuals and groups) to ask the community (when they run out of other options) for help with questions, issues, and problems, in an accessible online collaborative manner.

Have you ever...

●    Become frustrated trying to figure out how to simply fix something, or find a product or service to meet a simple need ?

●    Get tired of being bounced around from one agency (or person) to another, when trying to get help with questions and/or concerns from local government agencies and/or organizations ?

●    Had any local community/neighborhood problems with seemingly no way of addressing them in a collective/collaborative  manner ?

●    Become frustrated by customer service runarounds and seemingly conflicting information from local businesses ?

●    Felt lack of finances and/or technical know-how may be prohibiting internet accessibility, for individuals and/or non-profit organizations ?   

●   Become frustrated by the lack of single source independent information on the internet, for making informed decisions ?

Any of the above questions sound familiar ?

SCNwiki-plus is intended to help with such needs, as a means of communication, source for information, and follow-up action that may not be available from other intended sources of help.
 

Some SCNwiki-plus which may be considered, to address the above questions (in same order), are...

●    Local help and information sharing (do-it-yourself tips, product and service information, etc).

●    Community ombudsman functions (concerns to local government agencies and non-profit organizations, follow-up contact and action with those participating agencies and organizations to take responsibility and accountability.

●    Local community/neighborhood collaboration tools (forum discussion groups with simple interfaces and inter-community discussion capabilities, consensus polling, etc).

●    Local business feedback tools (a voice for concerns about local products and services, a place for customer questions, follow-up contact and action with participating businesses, etc.

●    Accessibility to the internet  (free dial-up internet, free computers, phone help, classes, shared domain hosting for 501(c)(3) non-profit organizations, etc).

●    A wiki type site for gathering/discussing 'facts' about topics of interest above and beyond (simple access interfaces, integration with social media tools such as 'Facebook', etc).

SCNwiki-plus is intended to be a 'simple', yet comprehensive, web based means of enabling as many people as possible (regardless of age, disabilities, education, income, etc), to use the internet for voicing concerns to, and getting needed information from, other citizens, local community associations, experts, government agencies, business, etc.  It could also serve as a connection between various community associations and social networks for sharing communications about common concerns and goals.

The 1st goal would be to find volunteers who, with the resources of SCNA, can make SCNwiki-plus work. 
Volunteers are  needed for project development, IT development, content creation, discussion monitoring, helpdesk support, user classes, administration, financial and legal services, etc. 

SCN, as an all volunteer organization, has provided free web services, and a computer give-a-way program since 1994, and hopefully may move forward with new community services, in accordance with Seattle Community Network (SCN) Principles.

Below is a preliminary conceptual flow chart to help describe how the SCNwiki-plus idea may work.  Currently it is thought that the software may involve at least forum software and wiki software.

If you are interested in volunteering with SCN to develop this project, or you have questions, suggestions, ideas, please phone SCN at 206-365-4528 or email volunteer-info@scn.org.  Thank you.