Avanoo Announcements project

• You may now add a description to uploaded media. The description field is also be a good place to give proper attribution for photographs (provided it is proper to use them in the first place).
• The HTML/embed tips on the create post/poll/reply pages have been made a little clearer.

• We need to de-clutter. There's too much text now. There should be a feeling of spaciousness.
• Two columns instead of three columns
• Focus the message. Currently, we present too many different ideas of what Avanoo is.
• Instead of showing the Noostream (there's a whole page for that, with lots of functionality), what can we show that will invite new users to explore?
• Do we want to keep featured people/places/collaborations?
• The footer is confusing, with lots of different stuff, so maybe we can clean that up too.

Thanks in advance!

1. Avanoo enables collaboration online and offline, in virtual spaces and real-world spaces. For the two to come together, we need to ability to "get real" with each other.
2. Considering the enormous task before us in this decisive decade, we need to build trust relationships so that we can work together at all levels (heart, mind, spirit). Using our real names fosters trust.

It's not required that you choose to use your real name. It's not a "should thing." The choice is simply yours to make.

Go to account settings to see what I spent nearly all of yesterday working on. :)

I am being told my multiple compatriots that it's time for Avanoo to become the go-to place for the consciousness movement. It is time for the millions of people in the world who care about living in balance with others and with the whole earth to have a place where they can connect, share, and enact the healing that is needed in the world.

No doubt this sounds ambitious. However, Avanoo has the right energy, and people who can help spread the word on a global scale are emerging faster and faster.

I feel a growing alignment. And I feel that the years of gestation and the past few months of intensive software revisions (there's still a bit more to do) are coming to fruition. 

It may seem as if we've been at this point before, but we didn't have it quite right back in 2007 and 2008. In speaking for myself I can say that I had a lot of opening up to do. My own rough edges were holding Avanoo back.

Now, this time is for real. This is the way forward. We have important work to do. And connecting the global heart - as I sometimes put it - will be fun.

In the next one to two weeks, I'd like to explore with you how we can, as Gandhi said, be the change that we would see in the world.

1. Invite people on other social platforms. (This is new.)
2. Invite Avanites who are listening to you.

1. Email digests are only sent out once per day.
2. Emailed notifications only include items created in the past 24 hours that you haven't already marked as hidden via the Web interface.

1. If your username contains spaces, then you'll need to change your username to contain no spaces. Usernames are no longer allowed to contain spaces for this and other reasons. Perhaps very soon I will update the few that do by removing the spaces.
2. If you change your username, it may take up to five minutes for the URL scheme to "catch up." In the future, I will make it so that there is no delay.

1. Questions are back! You may once again easily create and browse questions.
2. The random function is back as a colorful link on the Noostream page.
3. If you click to view your own creations via the "my avanoo" pulldown, or if you search for your own creations via the Noostream page, you will see that the page is called "My Noostream".
   • My Noostream shows you only your own creations.
   • My Noostream shows you both your listed and unlisted creations.
4. When others look at your creations, the page is called "[Your username] Noostream".
   • [Your username] Noostream shows only your listed creations. Your unlisted creations can only be viewed "in context". I.e., unlisted comments will have to be viewed via the commented-on item, unlisted posts will have to be viewed via the people/places/things they are part of, etc.

1. The stream on the home page now includes comments, thus making the overheard box that was in the middle column obsolete. What had been "Stream of Consciousness" on the home page was renamed to "Overheard" because the concept of being overheard is still really cool.
2. The Noostream page is much less cluttered. For similar reasons, the dense overheard text was removed. The filters are collected together in the right column, with the addition of a country filter.
3. Since the Noostream now has a country filter, the links in the site footer that used to point to "Avanites by Country" now point to the Noostream page with filters set to Type=People and Country=<whatever>. So what had been two different pages with various functional and visual inconsistencies are now one!
4. User profile pages once again show stewardships and "My Noostream".
5. The about page now includes a nifty graphic that Katie made, which we're calling the "noostring". Farewell, fair amoeba, you served us well!
6. The text that describes Avanoo on the home page has been further improved. What had been multiple metaphors (Living Library, Global Hometown, etc.) have been brought more or less into alignment.

This is probably just about all I can do today as I am feeling a little fried.

I invite your suggestions for anything that can be improved. My next coding sprint is likely to be next weekend.

Love,

Wilford