Shared Ideas

shared_ideas is a place to share personal ideas, thoughts and essays. Your community moderators are carus_erus and emmalynne

We've all made "idea" posts from time to time. Little 300 word essays of our own creation, about philosophy, art, science, nature, politics. Posts about an some thought that you've been forming in your own head that you need to write down. The act of writing about ideas helps you shape your own thoughts. Sometimes others comment on the idea and add to it. It's these kinds of posts that I find the most fascinating on LJ.

So why have a seperate community? Why not just post post your ideas in your own journal? Journals are often a mix of interesting posts and the mundane of everyday life. Everyday life we share with our friends, but sometimes we want to disseminate ideas to a larger audience. Posting here allows you to share your thoughts with others without giving the dilema of friending someone they may not know very well. That's not to say that this forum won't be a good place to make friends. On the contrary, one of the ideas behind this community is to bring together interesting people. Be sure to read through the Community Members page to learn more about the people making these posts.

To post here, you'll need to join the community. But there's nothing wrong with lurking and simply friending the community. We enjoy it when ideas are shared, but there's no obligation to participate.

I'm a soft moderator. I'd prefer the community evolve they way it wants to, rather than keeping rigid ideas and driving people away. This isn't my community, it's ours. That being said, you do need a bit of structure to work around. Here are some rules that I'm asking everyone to read before they post.

1) Please post original content. If you see something interesting on the web, don't copy it verbatim. You can talk about something you've read, add to it, but don't plagarize the ideas of others. Create your own new ideas with your own insight. If you want to share something, link to it and then talk about it. Feel free to copy material you've posted before in other locations.

2) When posting about something that interests you, try to give a bit of context. We're interesting in hearing about a great variety of art, science, moral philosophy, literature, etc, but many of us don't have the background to jump into the conversation. Try to give a brief introduction to your field of interest before diving into your idea.

3) Please do crosspost to your own journal. The purpose here is not to take your ideas away from your own journal and move them somewhere else.

4) This isn't a forum for activism. You can try to persuade others with your thoughts, but I'm looking to foster a community with a diverse set of ideas where people can share ideas and gain a better understanding of each other. Debate is inevitable (and encouraged!), but try to keep the discussion civil. Don't turn it into a shouting match. Better yet, try to find the root source of the debate.. Why does the other person think this way? You should be able to articulate and understand opposing views by the time you're done, even if you don't agree with them.

5) Try to keep rants to a minimum. We all need time to rant, and we all have our own personal journals to do it in. This is a place to post thoughts after you've had time to reflect on them. If you like, rant in your own journal, take time to think about it, then post here after you've had time to collect your thoughts.

6) This isn't a forum to be arrogant. Talking about ideas with people who might not know anything about them is an opportunity to teach and to grow, not to look down upon others. Be kind to first time posters as well. Some people with great ideas are horrible spellers. Be nice to them!

7) You don't have to have all the answers or explanations to post your thoughts here. There's nothing wrong with asking large questions, or having deep thoughts that are uncertain.

8) Given the nature of the posts here, <lj-cut> tags are a must. Try to leave no more than 100 words outside of an <lj-cut>. To make a cut, simply put <lj-cut> in your post before the text you want cut. </lj-cut> ends the cut. If you want to get fancy, <lj-cut text="my cut text"> lets you change "Read More" into "my cut text", or whatever text you want to cut.

9) Given the length of both the posts and the comments, try to break your discussion up into paragraphs where appropriate. It makes your text easier to read.

Also, as the community grows I'll be collecting new interests for it. Interests allow us to define the community to the outside world, and the more we have the more people who will stumble across this community. As people post, I'll do my best to add the theme of that post to our interests on the userinfo page.