October 02, 2004

• The comments seem to be broken at the moment (onlt th first comment is shown, and then a database error message). I've signed up. Hopefully it'll be interesting (and free of posts about George Bush...)
• that really is a great idea. and a lovely design, kudos to taz.
• Taz is a freakin' genius. *points at MoFi logo*
• I think I just broke it. mb_convert_case() in /usr/www/users/dodgy/b2view/blogs/skins/evofilter/_main.php on line 74 *Goes back to bed*
• Good job, Fullerine.>: ( ; ) But it didn't stop me from joining either! Yay for me!:>
• Dashie, over at Viewropa, wants this posted to MoFi:

  Hello, monkey poo flingers1 Dashie here. I'm thrilled that you guys are our first link - news spreads real quick, eh jb. (",) We're not really ready for signups yet - we still refer to the site as 'the testblog'. We will make an announcement when we are ready to launch, in a little while - and there will be signups all round (for all who adhere to our still evolving guidelines...) If you read them and still are interested, come on back in a short while: we'd love to have al you Europhiles aboard. Cheers m'dears!

  I signed up, though, and can post (snarky) comments.
• Okay, I was premature - sorry dash! (I was just having fun watching it be created, and wanted to share.) So we all have to treat it delicately, watching nicely until they are ready (i.e. no useless comments, if you've managed to join). It's fascinating really - I didn't get to watch the initial creation of mofi, but this blog is combining a more ambitious goal (different languages, narrower guidelines) with a consensus based decision making process - difficult at all times, but above all in correspondance, as on the internet. I've been really impressed by it all. There have been some debates about the scope - some people thought that they might have to limit membership to Europeans only, just to stop it from becoming another US politics focussed blog (since it was created to be explicitly not that). Then there were people pointing out that there are non-Europeans living in Europe, Europeans elsewhere, and people who are interested in Europe everywhere (I'm a Canadian who lives in the States, but I also study European history and have spent the last two summers in Britain.) Languages are probably the biggest challenge - so far, most of the moderators seem to be anglophones (as would be expected from budding off from an anglophone site), but they really do hope to be able to support multiple languages. It's logistically difficult, but really, really cool. I really hope that they do manage to make that work, since I would be happy to stumble through French posts (probably no commenting, but at least trying to improve my readings), and look at the rest, seeing if I can get any sense (probably not, but fun to try, and better with short things like posts). Anyone know what the official languages of the EU are?
• There seem to be twenty: Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, (modern) Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese, Polish, Portuguese, Slovak, Sovenian, Spnaish, and Swedish.
• = S;ovenian, Spanish
• I wonder if anyone's tried to get EU funding for this ;)
• *utters imprecations* = Slovenian
• I have created a mailing list for Viewropa, to try to keep everyone in the loop: Yahoo Groups Viewropa.
• Fullerine, I found this:

  The eContent programme, which has been allocated EUR 100 million for the period 2001-2005, focuses on commercial use of European digital content. It aims to promote the production, use and dissemination of European digital products and services by supporting cooperation between companies in the field and the public and private sectors. The key actions in receipt of funding relate, inter alia, to public-sector services which use the information and the development of digital databases and the necessary software tools. The key actions may involve subjects such as art, cultural heritage, archives, libraries and tourism. The programme is also concerned with multilingual access to multimedia products and services distributed via digital networks and adapting them to local cultural requirements. [...] The TEN-Telecom programme, which has been allocated EUR 276 million for the period 2000-2006, promotes the marketing of European digital goods and services in the cultural field in areas of common interest, such as education and culture. By providing funding of up to 50% for feasibility studies and 10% of the necessary investment, TEN-Telecom helps European companies through the critical phase of launching these services.

  Perhaps we need a lawyer to read that properly.
• I've been banned (at least, my password has been changed). Oh well. I guess it may not be a cooperative effort after all.
• That seems strange, Skrik - have you tried emailing dash_slot, or commenting on the Wiki? If you don't have dash_slot's email, I will forward for you. (I never know how private these things are, otherwise I would just send it to you.) I was premature with the posting - I think the project may be overwhelming them, and they are definately not ready for people to be signing up yet. But it would be a bad idea to turn away people interested in helping.
• I received an email from taz, so I will sort it out with him rather than filling this thread with off topic stuff. Suffice it to say, I wasn't banned from Viewtopa
• Hi guys, Thank you for your interest in the project, which han't yet got a launch date. There's an awful lot ofwork going on behind the scenes by the technical wizard, The wiki has a whole load of pages which invite suggestions and input: start here. Collaboration is a tricky thing to pull off, and that means we are attempting to co-ordinate things before implementation. No-one has been banned from Viewropa - it hasn't launched yet. (",)