[Rockhounds] Announce: New public mineral collecting page onning.com

[Julie Siebel]

Watch out, those Ning sites are addicting ;)

A client, these days my employer, turned me onto them about two years ago 
when Ning was just getting started (www.untourscafe.com). I have a family 
website for my family that's completely private (and it's used like crazy), 
one for John's family (that is used rarely), one for an online game that I 
like, plus I belong to several more. Two people in my family started 
websites for the other half of their families, and then some of THOSE people 
started Ning sites. Like I said, it's addicting.

I think it's great that you started one. I was really torn on whether or not 
to use the forum feature, but since it's main purpose is simply to subsidize 
what's available via the Drizzle mailing list, I chose not to.

For those of you who joined the rockhounds.ning.com network, you can just 
join Tom's, since you're already signed up for Ning; and once you've 
responded to a forum post (or chosen to follow it with a link at the bottom) 
you can get notifications via email when someone else posts there.

It also means that we now have 40gb of space over four sites, rather than 
just 10gb of space on our site ;)

Keep in mind that to a certain extent, you can *share slideshows* and share 
videos between these sites, at least for your personal page. So if you've 
uploaded a bunch of pictures to the rockhounds.ning.com site and you want to 
put them on your personal page on Tom's site, or vice versa, you can create 
an album (that includes your pictures, or anyone else's) and put a slideshow 
on your "My Page" that automatically links back to the hosting site. (If ya 
want to do this, and didn't understand that, drop me a private email.)

And Tom is using the Events calendar which I may add as well at some point. 
it lets any member add their shows/meetings/etc.

Julie



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Tom Corson" <corson at infodyn.com>
To: <rockhounds at lists.drizzle.com>
Sent: Monday, April 06, 2009 10:53 PM
Subject: [Rockhounds] Announce: New public mineral collecting page 
onning.com


> Hi all,
>
> I have created a new social network on ning called "Mineral Collectors".
>
> It's address is http://mineralcollectors.ning.com/
>
> It features all the usual goodies:
> Photos
> Video
> Events
> Blogs
> Forum
> Online Chat
> RSS Feeds
>
> I have intentionally made it open/public (no membership approval, or
> requirement to belong to any other list) in order to attract a wider
> audience and compliment our own rockhounds page on ning (which I will
> promote and link to).
>
> Here is the description from the site:
>
> This site is public and is open to all those interested in mineralogy and
> mineral collecting.
>
> It is intended to be a global meeting place for all persons interested in
> these topics. It is open to all. There is no requirement or approval
> required for membership other than an interest in in mineralogy and 
> mineral
> collecting.
>
> The only rules are that you keep your content focused on these topics - no
> politics, abuse, personal attacks, or flaming - and no spam!
>
> Postings of mineral specimens wanted or offered for sale or trade are
> allowed (jewelry is not), but please keep them to a reasonable length and 
> a
> reasonable frequency (no serial postings).
>
> Despite some misgivings, I'm going to try to run it as an open/public 
> site.
> If it gets out of hand or the signal to noise ratio degrades, I'll place
> appropriate restrictions.
>
> This should be an interesting "experiment" and I hope you will all
> participate.
>
> Enjoy,
> TC
> ________________________________
>
> Thomas W. Corson OBG Gems & Minerals
> corson at infodyn.com Green Valley, AZ 85614
>
> http://www.obgrocks.com
> World-Class Minerals For World-Class Collectors
> ________________________________
>
>
>
> -- 
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