WSF  Common Space is open in www.wsfprocess.net . Welcome!.

Contents

1. What is WSF Common Space?
2. Why a Common Space site?
3. Who is invited to participate? Who supports it?
4. What can it be used for?
5. How to find information in WSFCommon Space?
6. How to find information in the consultation workspace?
7. How to input information and create documents in WSF Common Space?
8. How to propose an activity for the WSF 2007 event in Nairobi?
9. Where, when and what to register?
10. Quick overview of WSF Common Space menus
11. New possibilities for networking and publishing in WSF Common Space
    

1. What is the WSF Common Space?

A collaborative website operating with consideration of WSF Charter of Principles.

It has been developed progressively by an international team since april 2005.

A first prototype was used for organisation and activity registration in WSF2006 polycentric. A consolidated version is being used for consultation on actions, campaigns, and struggles for WSF20007 and will be further developed. Another consolidated version will be online early October for WSF2007 activity registration. That is the version that is presented herebelow.

2. Why a Common Space?

To create a permanent cyberspace where each organization that participates in the WSF process can have itz own dedicated space, and at the same time can participate in groups with other organisations.

This Common space can be used for contacts and discussions, to propose or initiate online activities, alone or collaboratively in groups of partner organizations, and draft and publish documents about them.

This Common space can also be used to propose activities for the Nairobi WSF 2007 and is the place where to "register" them to be taken into account by Nairobi event Program Group.

3. Who is invited to participate in the Common Space? Who gives support to help use it?

Participants in WSF process and their organizations committed to WSF Charter of Principles are all invited to subscribe and participate in the Common Space.

A specific effort will be made so that those organizations that have difficult access, and communicate by phone or mail with WSF offices in Nairobi, Sao Paulo, and Delhi, will be visible in the Common Space with their telephone or mail coordinates.

WSF Common Space users will find guidance about the use of the site in WSF offices in Nairobi, Sao Paulo, and Delhi and in a "helpdesk" Group visible in the Common Space itself, with which it is easy to communicate online in the common space, as with any other group.

4. What can the Common Space be used for?

Participation to the Common Space is a way to get involved in the WSF process, even without participating in a WSF event like Nairobi 2007.

After you become a member of the Common Space in www.wsfprocess.net site you can do the following:

• Get involved as volunteer in volunteer groups acting to prepare WSF2007 in Nairobi, that can be present in the Common Space see call for volunteers.
• Get involved as participant to organizations.
• Get involved, in the name of one organization, as participant to Groups of partners organizations, cooperating on online activities or on preparation online of activities they have registered “in” Nairobi event.
• Cooperate with other entities (organizations and groups of organizations) that have their own mailing list and their own dedicated space in this Common Space site.
• Initiate and perform on line activities, or prepare Nairobi activities, or prepare "proposals of alternatives and transformative actions.

All this can be done in collaborative mode, inside and between dedicated spaces of Organisations and Groups of partner organizations, using following possibilities.

• Create or store documents in the dedicated space of one’s organizations or groups.
• Edit them in collaboration, or post comments on a bulletin board associated to each document.
• Communicate with other organizations through messages or comments of each other documents.
• Discuss ideas of interconnection between activities or possible merge of activities, whether general activities on line, or activities to be held in WSF2007 Nairobi program.
• Implement, if so decided, the Merge of two activities into one : an activity promoted by an organization or a Group with an activity promoted by another organization or another Group.
• Register in Nairobi WSF2007 event some of the online activities initiated in the Common Space, so they are listed as self-organized activities suggested for Nairobi program and taken into account politically and logistically by Nairobi Program Group.
• Get involved with your organization in online "facilitating groups" suggesting possible contacts between organizations participating in WSF process and suggestion links or merging between their respective Nairobi activities.
• Publicize your documents so they are visible by internet users visiting the wsf2007.org site.

5. How to find information in the Common Space

Practical indications can be found in the "starting Guide" document, accessible in the Common space by pressing "help"  ,  and in  the  space of "Common space helpdesk" group  (once logged in   www.wsfprocess.net  access this group by pressing " help"  or search for  this group in " groups" menu

The Common Space site gives access to :

For technical reasons it was not possible to include at the day of launch of the site  all  organisations having registered in WSF2006 workspace, or in WSF2007 consultation workspace before August 30th. They will have to register again

Some of these activities may just be performed online, without intending to session in Nairobi 2007, or intending to session in a future event.

Many other activities will also be "Nairobi 2007 activities", held in Nairobi Social Territory in January 2007, appearing in the Nairobi program with name of their promoting partner organisations.

6. How to use the consultation workspace to make contacts

On this other workspace one can find organization contacts based on the proximity felt with "actions, campaigns, struggles" that these organizations declare they are involved in.

To visit this site, click here or on consultation in the right part of WSF2007 website.

7. How to input information and create documents in WSF Common Space

One can become producer of content and actor of networking in the name of one organisation or group of partner organisations following three steps inside WSF Common Space:

1. Register as a person in the Common Space with you own name and password.
2. Get included by cooptation  "inside" an entity (an "Organisation", or a "Group of Organisations") (or create it if it does not exist yet) and act online in the name of this entity, together with your fellow participants in the same entity.

   Please note: One is co-opted into an Organisation as a person , whereas one is co-opted into a Group of partner organisations as a participant to a specific organisation.

3. Input information under various forms (messages, documents , text, photos, files, comments) while participating to "online internal life" of this entity, or to "online networking life" in the name of this entity.

8. How to propose an activity for the WSF 2007 event in Nairobi

1. First you need to be able to act in the Common Space (see point 7 above).
2. Then you initiate an online activity in the Common Space, promoted by an Organisation or by a Group of Organisations, that your organisation participates in.
3. Start registering this online activity as having a face to face session in Nairobi and fill out the Nairobi logistical form about "needs and wishes" answering to some questions :
   • What is the title that you suggest for your activity for the Nairobi program – what is the type of activity (cultural, celebrative, dialogic, practical, etc.).
   • Who is going to be shown in the Nairobi program as promoting this activity.

   Two possibilities:

   • If the activity is initiated by one organisation, partners are one promoting organisation and other partners declared by this organisation.
   • If the activity is promoted by a group, partners are the list partner organisations in Common space and other partners declared by this group.
   • When it will be held (what day – what time of day).
   • Where it will happen (kind of space, size of audience).
   • In which language it will be accessible to WSF participants, needs for translation, and intention to make audio recording.
   • In which Terrain, or neighborhood, or thematic space of Social Forum Territory it will be located.

   After saving this 'logistics wish and need form', you will find your online activity listed as "Nairobi activity" on the work in progress programs visible in the Common Space and on event site.

   After this, you can - if you want to - discuss with other organisations and agree on "merging" this activity with some other activity focused on similar or related topics.

   • Please note: You can at any time "withdraw" your activity from Nairobi tentative program, and it will not be taken into account by the Nairobi Program Group and will stay in the Common Space as an online activity (that you may cancel or keep for further online operation).
4. Finalize the registration of the activity by paying the activity fee by bank transfer or possibly credit card.
5. Exchange about final allocation of date, room, translation, etc… with Nairobi logistics and program group.

9. Where, when and what to register

• For individuals (linked or not linked to organisations), volunteers, media: => Registration and payment will be on the event site http://wsf2007.org.

• For food stalls, commercial stalls: => Registration and payment in WSF office in Nairobi.

• For organizations participating to Nairobi event: => Registration in Common Space and then participation fee payment on event site http://wsf2007.org.

• For Nairobi activities: => Registration data in workspace ( two forms one about content for Common space and oen for logistics for Nairobi Program group, both in www.wsfprocess.net, and then payment of activity fee on event site http://wsf2007.org. This will be after november 30 

• Last minute registrations: => On the spot in January 2007, according to possibilities.

10. Quick overview of the Common Space menus

when accessing www.wsfprocess.net site you will see 5 menu zones having different focus 

Here you access in list - search - and register the main elements of the site -

•2 Location Line (below top menu) : this is the  line with little arrows under the top menu

home >> Group Y >> folder F >> activity
this means : you are at activity level, viewing or editing the profile and content of an activity that Group Y has registered in the common space has put inside folder F-  you can click on any of the element and access it

 it changes according to your navigation and indicates “in” which organization or group workspace you currently are , and "where" in that space ( each organisation and group has its own workspace in WSF common space)

•3 Central menu( below location line) : this menu is visible when you are inside the space of an organization or a group (it is not visible from the homepage )

 There are three such central menus at three levels :
at organisation or group level : when you are viewing; or editing profile or contents
at folder level : when you are visiting or editing activities proposals and standard folders
at document level: when you are reading , commenting, editing documents , pages, links, files

•4 Left side / identity menu -“ my orgs and my groups “ for identity selection : select here an organisation or group your are participant to and  access to its own workspace, its content and to operations performed there through central menus

•5 Right side / action menu for main actions selection – you can perform directly the most frequent actions ( that can be also performed through central menus and top menu)  such as register organisations  - groups - acitivities - proposals  - some more action will appear later on in this menu

11. New possibilities for networking and publishing in the Common Space

You can Find a comprehensive description of "who can do what in Common space" in the "reference guide" document , accessible in  "helpdesk" group. (search for this group in the "Groups" menu , once you are logged in www.wsfprocess.net

Comparing to WSF2006 workspace that was available for WSF2006 polycentrics of Bamako, Caracas, and Karachi, the main new possibities are:

• Possibility to create "Groups" of Organisations cooperating for performing specific online activities or preparing online face to face activities to be held in Nairobi WSF2007 event.
• Possibility to use a dedicated internal Mailing list for each Organisation or Group in the Common Space: All participants in the entity are automatically subscribed to this list, and all participants in the Common Space can send messages to this list for networking.
• Possibility to edit or import many documents, texts, photos, and files and display them in relation with an activity or a proposal.
• Possibility to associate a Bulletin board/Forum to any of those documents and open it for comments to all Common Space participants, or just to participants in the entity in order to have an internal discussion.
• Possibility to interlink the translations in various languages of the same document.

These new possibilities may allow organisations participating in Nairobi to prepare joint activities more efficiently remotely and to display after the WSF2007 event the memory and outcomes of those activities.