 January/February 2001 (XXXIX 1) |
In addition to PYM's primary web site, http://www.pym.org, which is for postings by our committees, working groups and local Meetings, we have another web site, http://philapeace.org. Philapeace.org is oriented to the peace, justice and social concerns of individual Friends and local Meetings. It was established by the Peace and Concerns Standing Committee and is administered by Laurence Sigmond, the Meetings' Initiatives Coordinator for Peace and Concerns.
Anyone in our Yearly Meeting community may directly post to this web site. Posting a message, question or announcement to philapeace.org is no more difficult than writing an e-mail message. The difference is that others whom you may not even know can read and reply to your posting at their convenience. As philapeace.org reaches a critical mass of readers and postings, it can help to build community in our Yearly Meeting.
Registration
The first time you connect to philapeace.org we ask that you "register". We do this for two reasons. First, registration allows the system to remember which postings you have already seen and which are "new" to you. Each time you visit, you are by default only shown those postings that you have not previously seen. Another reason for registration is that it discourages the general purpose search engines, such as Altavista, Google, and Excite, from indexing our individual messages. Registering is simple and painless. Using a web browser, go to http://philapeace.org and choose "Register." Then enter your first and last name, a made-up password, and your e-mail address and again choose "Register." From then on, when you enter, simply give your name and password. If you forget your password, click on "Lost Password" and a message will be addressed to site administrator Laurence Sigmond.
Topics
When you enter the site you can look at the "Topic List" which are subject headings created by PYM Friends. These include: "Notices, Alerts and News: A Peaceworkers' Toolbox", "What's happening at your Meeting or School?", "Why Do We Have Wars?", "Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgendered issues", "Homeless and poor people", "Public Health", "Criminal Justice", "Transportation Reform", "Earth's Environment", and others. You can take a look at any of these subjects or create a new one of your own.
How to Post
There are two ways to post a message. In the topic of your choice you can select "Reply" to a particular message or "Post Message". In both cases the method is the same, the only difference being that a "Reply" stays next to the original message to help the reader understand the context. The next step is to enter an optional short title for the message (like the "Subject" in an e-mail) and then type in the message itself. There is also the option of adding an attachment, such as a photo, a text, an html document, etc. You can enter the filename or use the "Browse" feature in much the same way as making an attachment in e-mail. When you are done, choose, "Post My Message", and that is it.
Other Features
Philapeace.org allows you to do many other things, including subscribing to sections of the system, showing your photo with your messages, changing how messages are displayed, etc., and we are adding new features as time goes on. The Search feature allows you to find all the messages that contain a word or phrase. Just choose "Search" and then type in a word or phrase. The Recent Message feature allows you to see recent messages by a particular author. Just click on the picture next to the person's name and you will get a list of recent messages as well as the option to e-mail a private message to him or her. Please explore any of these features and feel free to contact me with questions or suggestions.
Laurence Sigmond
Germantown Meeting (PA)
Meetings' Initiatives Coordinator for Peace and Concerns
215-843-8747
laurence@philapeace.org
Last modified: Wednesday, February 18, 2004 at 08:18 AM