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

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

[syntaxofthings]

I like (c) and am going to do some research on setting it up to do that.

Re: where to toss ideas

[syntaxofthings]

I've been highly advocating a members-only DW community for planning. Because it's easier to put actual planning-related stuff there and see what people think. You can also toss ideas there and people can take their time to read it over and debate about it. I think a real-time chat would take too many of my spoons, personally.

[syntaxofthings]

A wiki system might work, too. I'm not sure what you're asking re: porting a Wordpress system. Bitesized would need a theme set up within Wordpress (or whatever CMS) then we'd write content pages and not have to fiddle with the layout when working on content.

Re: where to toss ideas

[alexseanchai]

That's also a good idea. I like the realtime chat format too, though—maybe do both, and volunteers could copy any insights from the chat to the comm for the benefit of people not present in the chat at that time? Or just the comm, because that would work too.

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

[syntaxofthings]

I object to the brain weasels. :) I think you'll be a great help for accessibility needs for a web site.

[syntaxofthings]

That is a super useful skill. I also really like hearing from people that they're also interested in this idea, but not able to commit to anything beyond reading it.

[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?

[syntaxofthings]

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)

Heh. I'm the current volunteer who is interested enough in the legal/finance stuff to research what we need to know. (I spent the last two weeks obsessing over the details of starting a sole proprietorship. I need to put that obsessive energy elsewhere for the moment.) I'm going to agree with you that getting a professional is easier, buuuuut we'd need some capital first, so I'm gonna think about ways to organize such a site/organization in the meantime...

Re: where to toss ideas

[syntaxofthings]

I think I would like that combination, eventually, when I'm done being excited about legal research and logistics. :)

Re: where to toss ideas

[worlds_of_smoke]

Oh, I think that having a formal DW community is pretty critical, for record-keeping purposes. But I think having a real time chat might be useful for when people get blocked or need cheerleading.

[worlds_of_smoke]

I have a feeling that most people will think "Vulcan" and think Star Trek.

[worlds_of_smoke]

YES. 100000x yes! I love poking at the latest science on disabilities.

[worlds_of_smoke]

Reviews of microwork/work-from-home opportunities, maybe?

Yeah, we need this. Especially since the state vocational rehab department, in my experience, has no fucking idea how to help people work from home or that there's other work-from-home stuff beside customer support.

[worlds_of_smoke]

I would LOVE stuff related to invisible disabilities. Funny stuff and more serious representation-related stuff. (i.e. stuff that says "not all disabilities are visible" and such.)

[worlds_of_smoke]

I'm kind of eh on the idea of "Bite-sized". I don't think we should be using something that requires a subtitle to explain. Plus Bite-sized sounds like something that's mainly a food blog, which isn't our thing. I'd like to have it absolutely clear that we're a disability blog.

Sadly, my only ideas are along the lines of "exploding barriers" or "Able, not disabled".

[worlds_of_smoke]

I would 9000% love all the ideas related to pain management. And "What to do when pain meds are off the table and you need another strategy" should also cover interventional pain treatment, like radiofrequency ablation and steroid shots. I can totally write about those two things, since I have them done on the regular.

[ironed_orchid]

She can be our patron saint of getting stuff done.

[jazzyjj]

Something on pro vs. anti-institution would be awesome as far as this user is concerned. My state cannot, for the love of God, figure out a way to put that debate to rest. It has honestly gotten so out of hand that it's interfering with other important issues such as ADA paratransit and other advocacy issues. But I'll get off my soap box now, perhaps even before I've gotten on it lol!

[finch]

Honestly this is another thing I probably won't be able to do by myself, because I've worked for some and can apply for others but there are only so many hours in a day. XD

[worlds_of_smoke]

yeah, it's definitely a group project! But it would be SO USEFUL.

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

[jesse_the_k]

Thank you. The weasels, OTOH, are offended.

Re: where to toss ideas

[syntaxofthings]

Sounds good to me. :) Figuring out the details... later.

[dirty_diana]

Also love this idea, and am always happy to write rants, I mean essays, about disability in media/culture/history. Special diet food and recipe stuff as well. She/her, as far as spoons go I just need time to plan and get stuff done.

[erika]

i support this message

YES PLZ Erika she/her

[erika]

so loving this idea. Will be involved in whatever capacity you want me -- essays, copy-editing, managerial stuff. Am hopelessly behind in reading everything but you know how to get my attention <3

I could likely commit to at least 10 hours of work, at spaces of up to 3 hours at a time.