Call for ideas & help : a collective blog-zine-thing about disability & brain weasel repellent &tc

[untonuggan]

I have been brainstorming with partner and some other dw folks about a potentially very cool and exciting project. Also it is one that I cannot do alone (even if I had the spoons I did in high school, which was a LOT of spoons). So I'm going to talk about the idea and then see if anyone else is interested, and what they might want to do possibly.

~Idea~

A blog-zine-website type thing a la The Toast or Autostraddle, but aimed at disability-type issues or interests. Potential posts or sections or topics could include (but are by no means limited to):

• a section of things to look at when you have brain weasels
• "how to do X when your body/brain does Y" (kind of like bitesizedcleaning tips, but not limited to cleaning)
• cross-promoting people who have their own writing sites (fiction or non) or tarot readings
• "why austerity is terribad" and other political topics related to disability
• disability and history
• science!
• recipes for when your body thinks food is the enemy
• fandom reviews and recommendations that deal with disability
• terminology and ableist language
• Artwork/comics
• Poetry!
• Podcasts of written works and other accessible features (like being accessible to screen readers)
• Other things I may not have thought of yet!

Also, some kind of online store to support the site and possibly a collective fund that could be used for (a) monthly charity donations; (b) "oh crap my car died" type hat passes; (c) upkeep; (d) possibly a paid position at some point if someone is doing a lot of upkeep or web-dev or editing or whatever. TBD in the course of "how is this run?"

Kinds of things to maybe have in the store (Zazzle? Cafepress?):

• Coping cards for people with chronic illnesses (as opposed to "get well" cards)
• T-shirts or buttons or whatever (maybe ones that warn readers not to touch you today because your body hurts, or perhaps say things like "not your inspirational crip")
• A print zine of things on the site
• Funny shit to look at when you feel like crap
• Other possibilities!

Plus probably some sort of advertising but hopefully not terribad advertising.

~Kinds of tasks I can think of atm (but we can totally bitesize it and share srsly folks)~

• Organizing system/emotional labor of "how does this work, how do we make decisions, how do we handle conflict, etc"
• Legal side of "how do we do banking, setting up non-profit or whatever kind of corporation status, etc"
• Web development (accessibility important)
• Web maintenance (moderation, posting, etc)
• Content creation!
• Content decision making (when to post certain things, how often to post, etc)
• Are there things we decide *not* to post? How do we handle conflict about that?
• Networking (social media promotion, finding new creators, outreach to other sites, etc)
• The store - content creation for that, legal side, banking! homg

OK now that *I* am kind of overwhelmed...I still think this is allllll kinds of awesome and can start slow and steady and build, bc I know that is how I operate these days.
~In the comments or via PM~

• Your preferred username (dw, tumblr, whatevs) and pronouns
• What you might be interested in helping with, if anything. Any mad skillz?
• Some sort of ranking of how realistic helping is right now or in the future? ("I am finishing my degree right now, but later..." or "This sounds amazing and also I have a couple of spoons I could use for this while I lay on my recovery sofa" or "I would totally read this but I can't commit to anything new right now" or "I have ideas but I can't help implement them right now")
• name ideas?

Note: not helpful right now, anything along the lines of, "This is cool but totally unrealistic." My brain weasels can rain on the parade on their own without contributions so it would help if you did not feed them.

If there is a lot of interest I would be up for starting a dreamwidth comm about this, but would need a name.

Signal boosting appreciated

Comments

[the_rck]

I would be interested in such a website! I might even manage to write stuff for it.

[untonuggan]

yay! :)

So many ideas (syntaxofthings/xe/xem probably would use Witchling in Flight pseud for this)

[syntaxofthings]

* Part of the section of "cute things for bad days": I'd like to see easy internet text-based or clicky games for when you have low spoons and have to rest
* I am very pro-paying-people-for-their-work, so I'd encourage that once it's running - even just $25 for an article contribution. Also, I'd be willing to pass ideas around of how to raise those funds. (i.e. Kickstarter for start-up costs?)
* Articles about working around capitalism (there was a great quote in my local newspaper yesterday about someone who started a business around here because he kept getting fired for taking care of his chronic illnesses, so now his business gives lots of sick time)
* Once this gets started, I have leads of people who are great writers and understand living with chronic illness to tap into to see if they're interested in writing

I'mma probably add more ideas later.

Things I have skills for:
* Accounting and legal research
** Figuring out how to structure such a web site and organization
* Writing articles once it's going

Re: So many ideas

[syntaxofthings]

Also, I can definitely help with web development and maintenance after a theme is set up. You probably don't want me designing things. *sigh*

Another thing I think important to keep in mind: we can put a timeline on this of something like 6 months to get ideas together and a group of people interested in implementing it and organized.

Also, I can make spreadsheets for you of people who express interest. >_>

Fellow commenters: would be great to hear interest in reading such a site.

[anke]

* Anke, she

* I could probably provide funny/cute art for looking at when one feels down. I also did a 4 panel comic on brainweasels I could offer.

* I've been planning to put together a "short reading for when I feel down" list, which might fall in a similar category as funny/cute art, only, well, recommendations rather than my own work.

* If someone else helps out with ideas, I could illustrate/design cope cards. (Not a continuous stream, but every once in a while.)

Bottom line: contributing content every couple of months or so.

(I'm sorry, but I don't think I can help with the web development side even though I have some skills there. First thing that came to my mind for a theme was "tutorial starting at the basics how to make a website accessible" and I have several projects I'm neglecting already and yeah.)

[untonuggan]

thank you for being clear about boundaries! that is a helpful and wonderful thing.

i am happy that you have arting skills! :) i have ideas but my implementation of them needs work (unless it's with yarn or something...)

[worlds_of_smoke]

* Rachel, she/her

* I don't know that I could actually help. :/ I'm not sure I have any needed skills, but I'm definitely interested in trying. I can do fannish writing (I mostly read fantasy and YA), general writing, or forum moderation. I can also do betaing articles or being a sounding board for people. I'm good at cheerleading!

* Ideas: There definitely needs to be a "benefits advice" column. Obviously, there's a lot of difference in benefits, but I've found it difficult to find answers to plain language questions about things like going back to school or work while on benefits and getting married on benefits. At the very least, we need a list of contacts for companies/NPOs that do benefits analysis.

Also, policy discussion! We obviously can't cover the entire world, but maybe we can keep track of some of the more important policy stuff. And we should be discussing lesser-known policies. There's stuff that people don't actually know about, like the penalty that disabled people in American get hit with if they get married.

[anke]

Tangent: I would like to request that anything that is specific to one country say so and name the country near the beginning of the article.

[kaberett]

(this is a placeholder comment in a desperate attempt to get me to come back to this tomorrow when I will hopefully have more executive function)

[the_rck]

It occurs to me-- When I do my personal website, I use SeaMonkey which is both a webbrowser and a WYSIWYG webpage composer. It's also free. I have no idea if it could do the things you'll want (I have almost never used graphics, for example), but I think it's worth looking into as an alternative to hand coding.

We would need to test how SeaMonkey pages look in different browsers, of course, and find out whether or not they work with, for example, screen readers.

[syntaxofthings]

I feel like for a zine though you'd want to use a content management system (like Wordpress) rather than a WYSIWYG composer. Because you'd want it to be easy to create new pages within categories and such and have everything auto-update. There's a lot more work to do before the site is launched, but afterward it's a lot easier.

[indywind]

Neat idea. I hope enough people with enough spoons/skills/resources can get together the energy it needs to take off.

I am swamped just now (doing 1.75 people's worth of work at the day job and coping with seasonal mood/energy stuff and new physical issues) but if you make a comm I will follow, and offer what I can to help when I have more bandwidth.

Part of my day job is formative and copy editing, and I haven't made anyone cry yet. Editing text-based content submissions for publication may be something I can do. I'm also pretty good (or at least, It seems to stress me out less than many other people report it does them?) at prioritizing and setting clear limits, like "of these 6 awesome submissions, we will use these 3 now, keep these 2 for sometime soon, and this other one will save for a special occasion where it can really shine. And this other thing is great but doesn't fit our guideline X; it can be changed like so to sort-of fit, maybe at the cost of some of its awesomeness, or the creator can do something else with it: here are some suggestions."

One suggestion for generating funding to pay people for their contributions, once content submissions begin to be accepted from people not on the startup team: have a (tiny! like $.25 - $1 per content unit: item, page, 1k words, whatevs) submission fee. Maybe only for kinds of content where many more submissions are received than can be used, and not for the kinds of content that are under-represented.

Oh almost forgot (Indywind. I prefer no 3rd-person pronouns where it can be managed gracefully)

[untonuggan]

thanks for knowing your boundaries and also your ideas! will be jotting them down and keeping them in mind.

also we will definitely need editors around (like, not one editor, that is too much for one person methinks.)

good luck with your 1.75 person job. i hope they get more persons soon!

[delight]

Hi! I was referred by forests_of_fire and this entire idea excites me so much. My preferred username is this one. :)

Here's some stuff I can do:
* Front-end web design/CSS etc. (The Tropospherical Purple theme on DW is my work, and still the one I show off to people the most when it comes to color stuff because I'm still really proud of it, but I can show you other more complex things I've done) especially using Wordpress, which is my CMS of choice

* Maintenance of the above

* Blog-style "living with multiple comorbidities"/"here is how I did X thing" writing if you're interested in that kind of material

* Disabled People in Academia stuff (I'm currently in the process of applying to graduate programs)

* Copy editing

Here's a thing my partner can do:

* ADHD-friendly recipes. He is a professional food person who has a very, very severe case.

I'm terrible at names, so you don't really want my help on that. :) I also won't be much use until my graduation in December, but after that my time that isn't dedicated to job hunting is totally available. I can also possibly assist with some level of marketing.

ETA: Uh, I forgot my actual name is Rue (that's my legal name as well) and I use she/her pronouns!

[worlds_of_smoke]

Blog-style "living with multiple comorbidities"/"here is how I did X thing" writing if you're interested in that kind of material!

Yes! I think we need to definitely have people talking about comorbidities, especially physical ones. It seems (to me) that a lot of disability stuff mentions that you may have comorbidities, but there's not a lot of stuff talking about how comorbidities interact and other specifics seems to be a bit rare, unless it's related to mental health.

Jesse the K, she/her/hers, see icon for confounding conditions

[jesse_the_k]

Sounds fascinating! I'm intrigued, I'm excited, I want to talk more! (I moderate access_fandom, and will signal boost there.)

Your opening list is impressive!

There are free responsive, customizable CSS templates here.
http://html5up.net

People have tried pieces of this, and I could summarize history of where, what they did, what was good and what was hard.

In the morning, brain weasels disapproved: (skip) I'm an assistive technology and barrier removal geek. I had the good fortune to present at a conference on XML-like languages in 1989 to the geeks who later made HTML happen. I stressed the importance of assuming the variety of possible output in print, audio, braille, flashing lasers on the moon. They listened. ••• I'm also a process geek, have taught workshops on cooperative decision making, stumbled through DW comm creation, lit the fire under WisCon's recent access improvements. I've been part of collectives for the past 35 years, so I have some useful experience (and probably some hard-coded old-fart ideas). I'm willing to learn new stuff, but am baffled by how we could discuss this in the Tumblr interface. Slack? ••• I like writing. I've written 7 software manuals, innumerable tech articles, and many many blog posts. I get super-anxious when I'm working alone, but doing things with other people is great, and that's why this is particularly exciting. ••• I'm a savage editor (great for turning 3 graph PRs into 40 words). I'm an outstanding proofreader (who can't proof her own work, so don't judge by my horribly spelled posts). ••• I'm particularly clever with headlines, naming, and metaphors. ••• I write all my DW posts in a text editor, so I'm conversant with basic HTML. I use large print on my computers, so can provide feedback on that element of access issues. ••• I have excellent skills in the emotional labor of managing people outside the "zine"s circle. When needed, I can be decisive. I can tell annoying people to get lost. I can write groveling letters to soothe when that's useful. Summary: Not a job interview, inappropriate. ••• I am particularly skilled at getting excited about things, and then plunging into deep depression and doing nothing.

Re: Jesse the K, she/her/hers, see icon for confounding conditions

[untonuggan]

my brain weasels have been playing up all week. *sympathies* I am also really excited to have people with institutional knowledge/historical knowledge of "what's been done before" interested, because at least we know what kinds of mistakes or hardships are likely to come up.

(apparently the pride alliance at my university has a cyclical argument about respectability politics vis a vis the annual dance and what it should be named every 2-3 years. with tears and fighting and people not speaking. i have been a part of it and OMG. i don't know how the advisor deals with the same damn crap.)

many more thoughts but am trying to manage spoons.

[ironed_orchid]

Gretchen, she/her or they/their.

I'm not sure how I could contribute, maybe could do some recipes, put together linkspams of stuff posted elsewhere (I would want to share this with others), and cute pictures, also proofreading and comment moderation (depending on my free time and spoons).

BUT I wanted to comment to say I love this idea.

One thing I have noticed about successful new sites like this is that often key contributors wrote for other established sites/zines before launching something, e.g. Mallory Ortberg and Nicole Cliffe were both writing for The Hairpin before launching The Toast. So maybe it would be worth approach people with their own blogs (and strong following) to submit articles. Alternatively, if there are writers who are interested in this being their main venue/soapbox/etc., they could submit articles to bigger, more established places (or even post somewhere like Medium) before this project gets launched.

Also, I wonder if "Bitesized" might work as a name, with some tagline explaining how it relates to disability.

[alexseanchai]

Ooo I like your name idea better than mine.

[alexseanchai]

* alexseanchai, they/them
* I would love to contribute content.
* I have epic lots going on right now, so I can't commit beyond "maybe I could do an article or poem or something once a month or so and possibly throw a few dollars in the pot for expenses at intervals".

For names, "Hephaistos's Forge"? Hephaistos being the most prominent physically disabled Greek god. (But if someone has a better idea, ignore me.)

[untonuggan]

I love the mythology tie in! I would say that because of brain fog any name has to be one that I can remember how to spell, so maybe going with Vulcan instead of Hephaistos? (although I see a lot of support for "bitesized" floating around)

So something like "Vulcan's Forge", unless that's already been taken by an rpg or pagan community ;)

(I have always appreciated that he was a cranky, non-inspirational god)

[vass]

- vass, they.

- would definitely love to read this, and might write for it

- suggest you talk to the people who did Feminists With Disabilities/FWD back in the day about what worked and didn't work for them and whether any of them would like to come aboard (I know what you're suggesting isn't identical, but it sounds like there's some overlap and that they'd have valuable experience)

- maybe look at other disability zines like Ragged Edge or Ouch or Starecase for ideas/a sense of what's already being done/potential contributors

[untonuggan]

awesome ideas! do you have any contact info for FWD? (PM is obviously a good communication message here)

mathemagicalschema, he

[mathemagicalschema]

First off, I fucking love this idea and I would love to contribute in the ways I can.

I am very busy at the moment (school + personal projects) and I don't think I can promise any ongoing commitment. However, I bet I could make time to cover one-off tasks if I'm in the loop about what needs to be done, and I would love to contribute more actively (in content, editing, maintenance, and possibly other realms) when I'm on break from school.

I wish I could promise more; it would be so awesome to see this happen!

Re: mathemagicalschema, he

[untonuggan]

hey, knowing your limits is part of good spoon management. :)

i'm very excited that you're excited! it's good to have a cheerleading team. :)

[sqbr]

Hi! This sounds amazing! I would definitely subscribe, and will help if I can.

Name: Sophie/sqbr, she/her

I can draw cute cartoony art as well as pretty illustrations, especially given instructions. I've never illustrated an article but I think I could do it. I can do technical writing and simple research, especially if it involves just listing things eg here's some movies with disabled protagonists (my main experience is in scientific writing but I think I could stretch it). I can intermittently write blog posts and reviews. I'm happy for some of my previous backlog of disability related art, fiction, and posts to be crossposted if you need content. I have a free game with a disabled protagonist I could talk about. I have disability themed tshirts for sale if you're looking to populate a "buy things from our members!" section.

I am as able to help now as I will ever be. I can do the odd piece of art fairly quickly without a lot of notice, and obviously the backlog stuff I can do whenever, everything else is reliant on spoons and will require discussion. I have random periods of a week or so when I am utterly useless that may pop up unexpectedly.

name ideas? ....names are hard, sorry! I will think about it.

[pipisafoat]

oh speaking of scientific writing! as soon as I saw that in your comment, I thought of maybe we could include sciencey articles like "here is some cool research happening on this disorder" and such. thoughts?

[justice_turtle]

JT, zie.

I can't commit to help with the thing (busy + brainweasels), but I love the idea and I would flail around pointing people in its general direction. Also, I love the "Bitesized" name suggestion.

Also, I'm kind of wondering "but what if invisible disability merch." I don't know what form that would take - all I'm coming up with is a t-shirt/coffee mug design saying something like "YES, I'm still sick (stop asking)" - but I'd be super excited to see it. *is probably unhelpful* ;P

[untonuggan]

i have a bunch of half-baked invisibility merch ideas floating around and so your flailing is helping :)

(also I love your idea)

I also yarn-bombed my walker, which is great because when people get the awkward "why is a young person using a walker" the words of awkward out of their mouth are "oh that is interesting...yarn?" and then we talk about knitting and not yet another conversation "why yes, I *do* use a walker, and no I don't want to talk about it."

I can definitely see writing up some crafty "how to decorate your accessibility device so the crafting becomes a conversation piece instead of how sick you are" kind of how-to's.

[cadenzamuse]

You know my RL name; if I were to contribute I'd probably use it or the username more associated with it.

Pronouns: she/her

I have zero time whatsoever for this for likely the next three years, but when there is a concrete plan for launch and upkeep, I am happy to throw small but regular amounts of money at the problem, which I understand to be a useful skill in and of itself.

[untonuggan]

that is indeed a useful skill!

i also totally understand and respect your lack of time <3

[pipisafoat]

• Your preferred username (dw, tumblr, whatevs) and pronouns: pip; sa, sa, sy, sys, syself (happy to provide pronoun instruction as needed/desired)
  
• What you might be interested in helping with, if anything. Any mad skillz?: uh content, editing of content?, maybe some web stuff depending on Life and Brain and Body and what sort of web stuff is needed. web stuff has gotten harder for me over the last year or two than it used to be, and I'm not sure how much of that is cognitive decline and how much is that I'm out of practice. out of practice is easily remedied but if it's cognitive decline, that's one of those skills that I'd rather let go than struggle with and go very slowly with. if that makes any sense.
  
• Some sort of ranking of how realistic helping is right now or in the future? ("I am finishing my degree right now, but later..." or "This sounds amazing and also I have a couple of spoons I could use for this while I lay on my recovery sofa" or "I would totally read this but I can't commit to anything new right now" or "I have ideas but I can't help implement them right now"): honestly my present and future are in so much flux that idk how much I can commit to but I can definitely provide thoughts and comments (most of which I will keep from being smartass and sarcastic but you know me, I can't actually live without sarcasm) in this planning phase and then have a better idea in a couple months or something what I'm capable of committing?
  
• name ideas?: uhhh I got nothing right now but I'll try to keep thinking on it

[untonuggan]

thanks for commenting! and knowing your limits!

totally understand the $#!& of living in flux and wtf bodies etc. will take into account.

[jazzyjj]

I love this idea, and am willing to contribute something so long as it's not programming or website development or anything advanced like that. But there's absolutely no reason for an inaccessible site. I realize I just used a double-negative but there you go. I like the idea of personal experiences of living with disabilities. I would also like to point everybody to http://www.jjslist.com . This is a review website that went live in 2009, along the same lines as http://www.yelp.com but with a focus on disability and only US-based at least for now. Full disclosure: I began volunteering at and for JJ's List shortly before our website went live, and have been doing stuff ever since for the organization. I'd also like to request there to be a link to the JJ's List site on the one that is created. As far as pronouns and the like, I'm pretty much open to anything so long as I'm not referred to as a woman or as she, ma'am etc. This has happened to me before. I'm not a woman, nor have I ever been a woman, nor will I ever be a woman. I might dress up in woman's clothing, for a Halloween costume or whatever, but I am a man.

[untonuggan]

ooo thanks for the reference! also yay for cheerleading!

(and thanks for clarification on identity/pronouns/etc.)

[finch]

ID: Jack/he-him

Things I can possibly do:

*Wordpress site maintenance (keeping things running smoothly, updating widgets, posting articles, sourcing stock photos, making sure pictures have alt text, etc)

*Writing articles, possibly even regularly

*Reviews of convenience foods

*Rounding up/trying low-spoon recipes

*Reviews of microwork/work-from-home opportunities, maybe? This is less obviously related but obviously non-traditional income sources are relevant for a sizable percentage of disabled people.

*Link roundups on high profile disability topics-of-the-moment, maybe?

*Copy editing

Things I would like to see that I can't do by myself:

*Book/media reviews of disabled characters by people who share those disabilities (like I could review things about OCD and things I deal with but obviously not things I don't deal with)

[untonuggan]

i am a big fan of all of your ideas! especially the work from home and food stuff...and the media review idea-for-many-people...yes all of it really.

\o/

[jadelennox]

I am in like Flynn!


Your preferred username: This one (jadelennox) dor now, but if I do my professional stuff (see below) probably wallet name. She/her.
What you might be interested in helping with, if anything. Any mad skillz?

So, most important fact about me in this context:

I'm a web developer professionally and web accessibility expert. I don't want to commit to being the sole code monkey or accessibility remediator because see above re: you can't trust me consistently to follow through. But this is my profession, and I'm passionate about WCAG testing and remediation, so please call on me for it. Hmm, if it comes to coding work I'd probably wallet name it.


Some sort of ranking of how realistic helping is right now or in the future?
My grief issues this year are combining with my natural mega flakiness, so before you call on me to do a part of this, remind me to ask myself if I really think I can fulfill the commitment I'm making. If not, I'm worse than useless. After January would be best for me: let me get through my first year anniversary and have a misery breakdown and then pull my shit together.

name ideas? I am literally the worst. I just started looking for terrible string matches:

"FleetinGIMPulse"
"ManusCRIPs"
"Gimperator Furiosa"
"Protected By A Silver Spoon"

For what it's worth I am aware these are all appalling.

Although spoon titles aren't so bad: Runcible Spoon; Silver Spoon; etc. Or just "Runcible".

Things I'd like to see for sale:

• licensed Allie-Brosh-gets-some-money Hyperbole and a Half painscale products http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/02/boyfriend-doesnt-have-ebola-probably.html -- I admit I've adapted her far superior text into my own pain diary.
• Maybe some spoon based chatckes
• cute "I can do [___________] for you [_________] often" cards to give to sick friends, who get sick of "let me know if there's anything I can do tl help" and would actually like to know who is willing to do the grocery shopping or call Medicaid in a pinch.
• Comfort food snacks for a variety of food limitations, maybe packed with cute // funny cards. I don't know how hard that kind of thing is to create.

Resources I'd love to see (articles or forums):

• Funny shit!
• How to discuss issues about your pain management without being labelled a drug seeker
• What to do when pain meds are off the table and you need another strategy.
• How to talk to your doctors about your meds and their possible interactions.
• How to manage a team of specialists who don't talk to each other.
• How to manage emotional / physical / cognitive illness/disability interactions: the shared soon drawers.
• How to manage your friends and acquaintances: the different types of "have you tried" and "why don't you just" and "let me grab that from you" and "that wheelchair is making you lazy".
• Oh, how to manage employers in the US, and navigate the ADA -- I could contribute to that one. Though I an Not A Lawyer.
• How to make your online resources accesible, which I could just write for you off the copy I've already got. Subsections: being a good citizen of: Tumblr; Twitter; DW; a Wordpress blog; HTML you write; Facebook; Youtube; anything with Javascript.
• Accessibility tools you might not know about which may be useful to the reader, which I could also just write for you. (eg free screen readers, free speech-to-text; web browsing mouselessly; magnifying on demand; no-distraction mode on the web; etc).
• I second SCIENCE.
• Also politics: general and region specific, with activist options where they exist.
• Also, intersectionality within the big tent umbrella. eg. Things I want as a physically disabled crip can often get in the way for people with cognitive limitations. Autistic and Deaf and CP communities are often ones which have a very anti-cure rhetoric (100% social model); I'm in the chronic pain camp so I am social model but sure as hell want a cure and wish to hell I could gain back lost function (bikes. cars. fencing.), my sister would have wanted a 100% cure and now that the goddamn disease has killed her that's a case where I am 100% CURE HELL YES. And that's just one very loaded topic! Or the pro and anti institutions camp is another. I'd love a place where we as gimp and sick folks can talk about these issues productively among ourselves, without performing politics for the implied healthy reader.

I love your ideas of food and cooking -- both when your body can only eat some food / demands foods, and how to cook with limited function. I'd add housework to that, and negotioating with living partners. I feel like you and I are at opposite extremes of helpful housemates, and could both have ideas for that one. Also I wish I could share some of my housemate awesomeness with you. D:

Also, fandom reviews, both of canon and fanworks, would be totally awesome!

[syntaxofthings]

*snorts* I'm trying to put together a spreadsheet of all the offered ideas and such, and I just am going to paste a link to your comment instead of all of them individually. So THANK YOU! Such great ideas.

Also, as for coding, I think there are a lot of not-professional people willing to do the grunt work (I'm one of them, learning bits and pieces of web development), but it will be EXCELLENT to have your expertise in polishing stages or if there's a quick question we just can't figure out. Would that work for you?

[zellieh]

Content:
Psychology & scientific self-help, stuff that might actually work, but not just self-hepl - also stuff about protective factors, like socialising & making friends & being creative? SO not just the 'here's how to get better' articles, but wider and morre positive than that. Like, supporting you as a whole person?

Recipes: low spoons versions, like 10mins, 1 pot, microwave - but still healthy if possible!

Art: with transcripts, alt text, to let everyone join in with the memes.

And sign language comedy vids, that shit's hilarious.

Shop:
I've also seen people use redbubble, which seems cool.

For kinds of things to have in it: stickers, magnets & postcards of the art?

I think it's important to remember many pwd are on a budget, so cheap things are better.

Name: zellieh, everywhere.

I can't help b/c I just signed up to volunteer for another thing and training for that's going to take all my spoons for a while, but I would like to contribute content later.

In the US, some kind of 501-3 non-profit? Different states have slightly different rules for that, so check state by state.

The biggest hurdle, beleive it or not, is accounts. Get a professional in and budget for paying someone to do accounts, payroll and taxes, and someone else to periodically do audit on the accounts person/the org.

It's a legal requirement to have a public statement of accounts, which don't have to be detailed, but you have to have something. And your accounts needs to be done right, because the IRS are vicious.

It is really really hard to get volunteers with the time, the spoons, and the right bookkeeping/accounts skills and local licences; getting a professional is just easier! (See: OTW wank for details)

[jadelennox]

Agreed re: certain jobs need paid professionals once you are past the volunteer rush of shiny and new: legal, finance, and any IT work beyond the basics (though this project wouldn't read that hump of needing-paid-IT unless it was quite successful).

Huh. I wonder if approaching an existing site and asking to be a section might be a good way to get this project going. People have different levels of trust for the Toast, Jezebel, xojane, etc, but if any of them have the right attitude, lizcommotion, that might be a way to concentrate on content over logistics.

[zellieh]

Realised I forgot to say it, but I love this whole idea!

Also, pronouns for me are she, her.

I can give you (sad and depressing) anti-austerity stuff form the UK. (I have an endless supply of vitriol & tears.)

And for the art, I can't draw, but I'd love it if we could have cute cartoon and baby animals dealing with disability issues and just being cute. Cute cartoon animals make everything better, and are less depressing than cartoon people, for me.

Also, some PWD relate better to animals than people, and it helps get around issues of representation: everyone can relate to a cute baby animal without feeling left out so much.

Sorry for the spamming, but I really do like this idea!

[zellieh]

UK advice & support, for future reference:

General advice: Citizen's Advice Bureau (national charity)

Benefits: Benefits & Work (good site; good advice; independent of all government funding & control)

Suicide & Mental Health: Samaritans (national charity; also good for linking you to specialist support)

Children, Teens, & Adult Survivors: Childline (not just abuse, but all kinds of issues affecting young people)

Housing: Shelter (national charity)

Food Banks: Trussell Trust (national charity; can also link you to other foodbank charities)

And campaigns & advocacy:
Black Triangle and Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC)

[hitokage]

Lise, she/her, plenty happy to be known by name, DW handle (hitokage), or Tumblr/Twitter/other handle (yuuana)

I'm totally interested in both reading and contributing, though I would probably need someone to actually assign me topics (current health status has my brain firing in fifty directions at once when left to its own devices, to the point where I end up writing nothing). My strong areas of interest are: creative writing (mostly science fiction, urban fantasy, and poetry), music (lately, mostly Visual Kei), Japan (history and culture), paganism (with a strong lean towards Mesoamerican deities), cooking, and a whole host of fandoms (from Doctor Who and Star Trek to BONES and Supernatural to Death Note and BL manga). Also have Strong Thoughts on feminism, social justice, cultural appropriation, and racism. And probably more, but flighty brain is flighty.

I've been a writer for a long time and I have some (albeit now dated) experience running a print zine - I can definitely do copy editing and offer input/help with layout and minor design elements.

My current health status is a bit wobbly - my in-home support system is off taking care of our grandkids for the next month-ish, so my cognitive spoons have been a bit wonky as the cat and I are still adapting to it being just the two of us in the space (he doesn't understand why I don't like him sitting on my head at 4-5am). XD I can probably commit to an average of an hour or two a day? I'm going to be attempting something like NaNo next month, so that's going to get priority spoons for November, but after that I'll be more free.

[alee_grrl]

Let's see. I'm alee_grrl aka Manda. Pronouns: they/them/their. Don't really have the spoons to help with anything right now (glares in the general direction of February and the Vermont Bar Exam), but maybe, hopefully, will have spoons in future to help.

Ways I could maybe help in future: legal research or drafting of documents, editing/copyediting/proofreading, content creation, conflict mediation (this is very tentative as it requires way more spoons than I've had recently, but should I develop the spoons it is a skill set I have and am comfortable using). There may be other ways I can help too, but those are the ones that come to mind.