The goal of this website (CampusActivism.org) and ActivismNetwork.org is to serve both students and non-students.

However, if you look at our list of upcoming events you will see that around 80% of them are student related. Here are several reasons for this:

1. This site is better plugged into student networks. You might think this is the major reason, but I hypothesize that a key reason is that there are a lot more student grassroots activisty conferences than non-student ones.

Yesterday I uploaded the latest changes to the software. Now when you log in it will remember you as the default. Logging in will take you to a personalized home page where you can see:

-Events targetted to your location (includes local events that would otherwise not show up on the website, though you would get them by email)

-Nearby new people and groups

-New resources (same as on the site's homepage)

-Updates from your friends

-A list of your friends

-A control panel

-A status update - "Aaron is..."

According to a recent poll Canadians prefer the Democrats to Republicans by a ratio of 4 to 1. Even Canadian Conservative Party supporters prefer the Democrats by a ratio of 2 to 1. So even the most conservative third of Canadians would still go with the Democrats (the Conservative party has roughly 33% support).

The Globe and Mail story

I invite you to participate in shaping the future direction of CampusActivism.org by taking several minutes to fill out this survey.

We are striving to create new forms of online activism that are based on democracy, empowerment, and decentralization. When we come together in networks our power is multiplied and we can build strong movements for social change.

In this process, your feedback is ESSENTIAL.

Survey results will be made public (while preserving the privacy of survey respondents).




The Survey

I upgraded the blog from Drupal 4.6.5 to 5.5. It was relatively easy.

ZNet has launched their new website: Z Communications.

They're moving from a community of commentators, to a much larger and dynamic community that includes any of their members who want to join. It's possible that tens of thousands of members could start to use the new system.

They did a complete redesign of their site - which looks very good.

The latest version (3.3) of the software is now up and running on CampusActivism.org and ActivismNetwork.org.

So far, I've noticed very few bugs. Users are uploading pictures and filling out parts of the longer profile. So far I haven't noticed as many comments or resource ratings.

As always, you can see a list of features that I'm considering implementing.

Currently I'm on a community kick. So I want to create a better landing page for people when they log in. A page that includes a customized events calendar (including local events), links to their friends, and other info.

Several of the leading nonprofit email service providers sponsored a study on
Email Messaging, Online Fundraising, and Internet Advocacy Metrics

Among many useful bits of information, I notice they found a 0.3% mean conversion rate for an email donations appeal.

Today I mistakenly typed in ufpj.org - to get to the United for Peace and Justice (aka UFPJ) website.

It's redirected to democrats.org!!! Appalling, but unfortunately not all that uncommon on the web.

Presumably some unethical person bought up the domain and redirected it to the democrats. It's on the fringes of legality.

If you do a Whois look up on it, you find "Domains by Proxy" which is a service owned by the owner of GoDaddy which keeps your information private (making it harder for people to find out who is behind this, though the general function is to reduce spam).

The r

Activism Network 3.3 is currently online at www.campusactivism.org.

I'll upgrade activismnetwork.org soon and do a release in a week or so (once I iron out some of the bugs).

Start writing comments, filling out your personal profile, adding friends, inviting friends to join, uploading photos, and rating the resources!