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 | From the Executive Director: Executive Update for March, 2005 Posted by Joseph Rowlands on 3/31, 10:53pm | |
| This month has seen progress on all fronts for SOLO. You can see some of the progress we've made in the numbers. Our membership is up by 114, we have 9 new authors, we've had 4600 posts on the forum, we've got 50 new articles, and we've got 4 new local clubs. We'll start this update with a salute to Luther Setzer, SOLO's Club Coordinator. He's brought an enormous amount of passion and energy to this position. He's worked to connect Ayn Rand Meetup groups across the country with SOLO local clubs. He's even managed to cause some controversy. He's placed SOLO Logo's all over. This month alone he's gotten volunteers to set up 4 new SOLO Local Clubs: Michigan, Illinois, Spain, and Georgia. And he's just getting started. Bravo, Luke! SOLOC4 is approaching rapidly. The beach house is full and the list of attendees is large. Registration prices increase after April 1st. The speakers list is as follows: -Lindsay Perigo: "So how are we doing then? Reflections on four years of SOLO." -Joseph Rowlands: "All or Nothing: Philosophy with Degrees" -Tibor Machan: "Liberty--My Own Universalist Journey" -Adam Reed: "Why Cloning Really Matters" -Barbara Branden and John Hospers: "What it was like to know Ayn Rand" plus informal Q&A -Philip Coates: "Turning Points in Life" -Lorie Bugby and July Ackerman: "Camp Indecon" March of last year was the exciting introduction of SOLOHQ 2.0! The new site was a substantial improvement on the previous site. To commemorate this, I've added links to older copies of the SOLO websites. Check them out to see how far we've come. 1.) The Original SOLO website, a section of the Free Radical. 2.) SOLOHQ 1.0, the first version of this website.  This month Importance Of Philosophy got a face-lift. Content hasn't changed, but the format has. The new site is data-driven, and has new editing functionality for future changes. The new site uses the sleeker SOLOHQ style, signalling it as a member of the SOLO community. It also has a SOLO banner on the front page to steer users to our main site. More importantly, this is a first use and proof of concept of a new website software system developed here at SOLOHQ to increase our ability to produce new sites, and collaborate with others on projects. I didn't mention from last month that we've also acquired the web domain www.vegetarianism-is-evil.com. It's a place holder right now, but content will be added soon. Last month I mentioned that our growth was so high, we were starting to make our server collapse under the weight. Over the last month I've made radical improvement to the software to speed things up, improving our efficiency about 3-fold. We had a few glitches along the way, but everything seems to be up and working. A few things may be noticeable. On the People page, the Members page and the Authors page are now pre-generated. On the club pages, the Members list is now pre-generated, so should be very fast to access (it used to be painful). Sanctioning posts and articles has seen a radical increase of speed (you wouldn't think it'd be that complicated, but it was). Posting on the forums (particularly the Articles forum) got significantly faster. The list of a User's recent posts and galleries is now faster, but different. We no longer show the Atlas points earned for a post, and the Galleries are in text form. It is a lot faster, though. New Staff1.) Liberty Dog - SOLO's new mascot. Learn more about this adorable puppy here.
2.) Dean Michael Gores is the new SOLO Michigan Coordinator 3.) Katdaddy is the new SOLO Illinois Coordinator 4.) David Bertelsen, currently SOLO Entrepreneurship Leader, has added SOLO Spain Coordinator to his portfolio 5.) Jason Dixon is the current SOLO Georgia Coordinator New SOLOHQ Features:I've already mentioned the software enhancements to increase efficiency. I've updated the Atlas FAQ to reflect changes that have happened awhile ago. There is no longer a no-sanction button. The Atlas Point Scale has change so you need more to go up to a new Atlas Icon. You no longer get an Atlas point for every gallery type. I've added a SoloMail icon to the forums so people can easily send each other personal notes. That should be very useful for the SOLO Romance group. I've also added it to the SOLO User pages, so you have easy access to write someone after viewing their pages. Jeff has added a ton of pictures for users. If you don't have a picture sent it, consider doing it. It improves the forum and makes SOLO more of a community. Send pictures to Admin. We have 4 new local clubs. SOLO Michigan SOLO Illinois SOLO Spain SOLO Georgia I've added a new SOLO Banner to the banner page, so people linking to use have a choice.  On the About page, I've added links to a few more SOLO articles about SOLO. On the Ayn Rand page, I've added links to the Ayn Rand Books and Quotes galleries here on SOLOHQ, as well as a few more article about her. SOLO Feature review:SOLO has a Favorite Galleries option. On any gallery (article, quote, book, etc.), you'll find an icon that looks like this:  . If you select that icon, it will register that gallery as your "favorite", and display it on your user page.What happens if you click the wrong one? Easy. You just have to find another gallery of the same type, and click that one as the favorite. It will replace your current selection. What if you can't find one you like? Well, that's what the "contribute content" button is for on the front page! Activists Wanted:1.) Public Relations Director – Someone to present SOLO to the outside world. Part advertising, part communication, total passion. 2.) SOLO NZ Coordinator – someone to decorate the portal page, possibly coordinate conferences/meetings Activism:Want to help take over the world? Here are some simple ideas you can do to help. 1.) Take this time to contribute money and help pay for SOLOHQ. We take credit card.  2.) Write articles.  3.) Bookmark our Amazon referral page http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect-home/importanceofp-20 so that we get a percent of Amazon's profits from your purchases. Lots of people use Amazon, and if you use our associate program, we benefit at no cost to you. You can right click on this link and "Add to Favorites" or "Bookmark this link". 4.) Put www.solohq.com in your email signature file. It's an easy way to spread the word about the best Objectivist website on the planet. 5.) Do you have a webpage? Add a link to SoloHQ.com. Also, add a link to our Ayn Rand page at http://www.solohq.com/ayn_rand/ayn_rand.shtml and our Objectivism page at http://www.solohq.com/Objectivism/. These improve our Google ranking and make it easier for young minds to find passionate reason and rational passion on the web. Statistics:Articles on SOLOHQ: 1101 (50 this month) Forum posts on SOLOHQ: 34,200 (4600 this month) Author Count: 136 (9 new authors this month – David Stanley Baker, Michael Stuart Kelly, John Newnham, Rod Merrill, Tom Blackstone, Kelly Reynolds, Michael E. Marotta, Jomana M. Papillo, Hong Zhang ) SOLOHQ Members: 1164 (114 new members this month) Page Hits: ??? (With the server changes we made, we don't have an accurate report of this) | ||
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