40 replies to this topic

[Mind]

Ilia suggests new regional forums for Arabic/Middle Eastern, Russian, and Asian peoples. Good suggestions, in the least to appear more inclusive and non-discriminatory. I am generally in favor of these regional forums, although I am wondering if something more could come out of the regional forums. Maybe the Imminst "chapters" can link to the regional forums.

[A941]

Ilia suggests new regional forums for Arabic/Middle Eastern, Russian, and Asian peoples. Good suggestions, in the least to appear more inclusive and non-discriminatory. I am generally in favor of these regional forums, although I am wondering if something more could come out of the regional forums. Maybe the Imminst "chapters" can link to the regional forums.

Good Idea, do that!

[brokenportal]

We were thinking the same thing, and have already moved the Chapters project into the regional section.

Ive been chatting with Ilia about chapters, if he wants to come on board, what Im hoping is that he and captainbeefheart can work together with one or both as (co)leaders of the team to continue to develop and run the project.

What I suggested to him there is that if he wants to help push this along that he come up with a revised list of all the basic sections he thinks should be in the regional section for us to go over. From there then we'll get into details on how he can potentially take the reigns with captainbeefheart on developing and running the rest. Ilia is especially interested in Chapters, you all may remember an Israel Imminst chapter (the first Imminst chapter?) meeting he helped to organize a few years back, and on top of that he knows more than 5 languages, which would be a huge bonus in helping to coordinate the chapters topics that are in various languages.

[Mind]

With respect to creating a "middle eastern" forum instead of just an Israel forum with the laudable goal of "promoting peace and cooperation", we would have to be very careful and have a heavy moderating/NAV presence in that forum. We would need some cool-headed Navs who speak Arabic. I have noticed that past middle eastern discussions in the Imminst forums have turned rather heated, even between Israelis.

[ilia]

Brokenportal: What I suggested to him there is that if he wants to help push this along that he come up with a revised list of all the basic sections he thinks should be in the regional section for us to go over.

I think with the addition of regional sub-forums for 1) Russia & East Europe, 2) Asia Region, 3) Middle East, 4) Fórum Português (Portuguese), 5) Africa – most areas of the world will be represented.

Mind: With respect to creating a "middle eastern" forum instead of just an Israel forum with the laudable goal of "promoting peace and cooperation", we would have to be very careful and have a heavy moderating/NAV presence in that forum. We would need some cool-headed Navs who speak Arabic. I have noticed that past middle eastern discussions in the Imminst forums have turned rather heated, even between Israelis.

That is a fair concern. I personally don’t read Arabic, but I believe I can easily find someone who will tell me what it’s about (such as my Arabic-speaking next door neighbor). If there will be posts in Persian, they will be read too. I can definitely monitor posts in Hebrew, and there has never been a single hate post in Hebrew in the whole history of the forum. And posts in English can be monitored by the regular ImmInst Navigators team; ImmInst has a great record of kicking racists out. Honestly, at the initial stage, I don’t expect many posts in Arabic, Persian, or other Middle-Eastern languages to appear. In fact, one of the first motivations for suggesting this forum was to provide for some primary introductory passages on radical LE/H+ in Arabic, in the interests of fair inclusion. But when these posts appear, they will be monitored. Generally, I don’t believe there will be much trouble in this area. Just see for example the flourishing “Arab-Israeli Friendship” and “Israeli-Iranian Friendship” groups on facebook (of which I am a member). And if there are some critical (but polite) discussions (as related to health care and LE), that is valuable too.

Edited by ilia, 24 February 2010 - 08:34 AM.

[caliban]

Would you be willing to navigate these forums ilia?

[ilia]

Would you be willing to navigate these forums ilia?

Yes, I think I will be able to do this.

[Mind]

As far as Asian groups go, we might consider reaching out to Indian people a bit more, maybe with an Indian regional group/forum.

Here are the top 15 countries for unique visits (source: google analytics)

1. United States
2. United Kingdom
3. Canada
4. Australia
5. Germany
6. Netherlands
7. Sweden
8. India
9. France
10. Finland
11. Austria
12. Ireland
13. Belgium
14. Norway
15. Spain

I am also trying to think of new ways to reach out to specific regions of the world - how to use the regional forums better. Just having a forum for a specific language or country is a good first step. The visibility is good, but how can our outreach be made more effective?

[ilia]

As far as Asian groups go, we might consider reaching out to Indian people a bit more, maybe with an Indian regional group/forum.

Here are the top 15 countries for unique visits (source: google analytics)

1. United States
2. United Kingdom
3. Canada
4. Australia
5. Germany
6. Netherlands
7. Sweden
8. India
9. France
10. Finland
11. Austria
12. Ireland
13. Belgium
14. Norway
15. Spain

I am also trying to think of new ways to reach out to specific regions of the world - how to use the regional forums better. Just having a forum for a specific language or country is a good first step. The visibility is good, but how can our outreach be made more effective?

i) I have been thinking, to increase our outreach, regional transhumanist groups might be the first natural allies. There are such groups in all the regions listed, including China.
http://humanityplus....volved/chapters
There are definitely many transhumanists in India, though I am not aware of any registered groups. Creating such a special forum would be a great (and first time) step. After setting up the regional forums, perhaps an invite could be sent to such LE/H+ related groups and individuals.


ii) Also, when a person registers at ImmInst he identifies his country. I was wondering: Do we have the ability to retrieve this information and identify at once all the people from a particular country? Then a concerted e-mail/pm can be sent to such groups to invite them to join a particular country chapter/sub-forum?


iii) I think one of the important steps in increasing the international outreach may be to formulate an attractive call to join local chapters/forums. In this regard, I think we should somewhat revise the present “Chapters” announcement and preface to it some sort of brief explanation:

1) Why supporting life extension is important, 2) Why supporting ImmInst is important, and 3) Why local organizations are important. Do we have some drafts for such a call? Perhaps we could adapt some abridged, emphatic form of the present ImmInst Mission statement: http://imminst.org/about

Such a chapter announcement, with a prefacing motto, may be used even as a single hand-out to raise people’s interest in our cause (especially when translated to other languages!)

The present Chapter announcement reads as follows:

“If you wish you get involved in Imminst at a Grass roots level please sign up below, thanks.

Imminst Chapters is a section where we organize, build, and coordinate chapters from around the world. We use these chapters to facilitate real world action around the world.

…Country… Chapters

Joining requirements:
-must be an imminst member to apply. Rates range from $5 per month to $500 lifetime. Join here.

Chapters are eligible for chapter grants and resource packages.

What do chapters do?
-schedule chapter meetings
-schedule your own agendas or choose from suggested agendas

Copy and paste the following form and post it here, or send it to the Chapter Coordinator.

Name or Alias:

City or Town:

What is the most miles you can travel to meet? (suggest 50 max)

Biggest town with in 50 miles of you:

What got you interested in life extension:

Skype User I.D. (its free to download):

Would you be willing to host a meeting, or know of a suitable meeting place in your area, i.e. coffee shop, pub, etc:

How much time can you commit to working on this, going to meetings, putting up flyers, etc: “

I think it is very important to preface to it a brief summary of what we are about.

I also think we should remove the clause:
“Joining requirements: -must be an imminst member to apply. Rates range from $5 per month to $500 lifetime. Join here.”

I think this clause may scare away most potential applicants, not to mention that in many parts of the world paying $50 for membership is completely out of the question. I even think that with a removal of this clause we can attract more future full members than with it: People will be likely to get interested, join the local chapter, and then get involved in ImmInst as full members – rather than the other way around.

Such a revised “Chapter announcement” – prefaced by a concise statement of our cause and translated into other languages -- can be used as the main means of outreach: posting it to friendly LE/H+ local groups or interested individuals. The flyers are great too for catching the eye, but the “Chapter announcement” may be better suited for forum/e-mail formats.

[Mind]

I agree that the Chapter announcement should be modified a little depending on the outlet. I also don't think member payment should be a requirement for being involved. The only exception would be if there was a Chapter Leader/Organizer, it would be nice if that person was a member, indicating a little more commitment.

[brokenportal]

Alright, can you do these things:
-set it so that you have to be a member to lead the group but that you dont have to be to attend
-make a finalized regions list to be approved and set up, be sure to be thorough, seperate Canada and the US, try to break them down into smaller areas, unless we expect very few contributors from that area, like maybe Russia and Eastern Europe instead of together, be sure to include all areas, India like Mind says, and probably Asia also seperately as a whole.
-add some agenda suggestions if you have any, and we can all go through them and discuss them later.

Flyers that say "Join your local chapter at imminst.org/chapters" is just a starter outlet for spreading the word. Its also a way to fire up flyers distribution. However, we still need many more outlets and targets yes.

i)I would wait to advertise to the transhumanists other wise it might take the momentum away from starting pockets of focused imminst groups. We probably want a little time to get our feet on the ground, get agendas established and moving, etc... but, maybe inviting them sooner is better, we can discuss it further.

ii)If you get Navigator privileges then can you check into that? That could help a lot.

iii)Can you make a chapters pamphlet and informational flyer? You could modify the existing pamphlet, but that draft is just a temporary filler until we create something more pointed, it works though. Another thing you can do is help us complete an imminst past present and future essay that Paul and I, and a few others are working on, and a position peice a few others of us are working on, and then write abstracts off of those to use. Yet another thing you can do is come up with the introductory info yourself if you want to try it out and then propose it in a chapters topic.

For advertising on the net, we could use the internetworking team, other imminst tools like mass email, newsletter, etc.. Although Im wondering, do you think that as a main source we might be able to promote the imminst.org/chapters page itself with the "Share this" buttons? We brought Modelcadet on board the content management team and that is one of the things he wants to propose further and work on. Then what you do is go to the imminst.org/chapters page and click a share this button, they have things like digg, stumble, facebook, twitter, etc... It then, I beleive, sends a snap shot of our chapters drupal feed to those outlets.

We can then also keep brainstorming on crowds to reach out to.

I think it is very important to preface to it a brief summary of what we are about.

Maybe a little longer for those topics, but I would put your main summary info on the imminst.org/chatpers page. That page still needs to be beefed up (to be potentially spread through share this.)

[ilia]

Yes, I believe all these things are doable in time. But for some, as you said, I may need some kind of access.

In the meantime, I will try to come up with some brief chapter intro, based on the existing materials.

I think “share this” is a great idea.

As for the lists of forums and chapters, I don’t think it can ever be entirely finalized. New groups may emerge at any time. With the addition of the above listed 5 forums, most areas of the world will be covered. So, for now, I would suggest adding just them. And within each such sub-forum we can post several chapter announcements for particular countries. For example, in the “Asia region forum” we can post chapter announcements for India, China, Japan and Korea as the first steps. At the initial stage we may want to provide for some freedom of movement within the regional forums (e.g. within the general Russia/East Europe forum, we wouldn’t force countries such as Ukraine or Byelorussia into a special alliance And then we can see where it goes from there.

However, in the www.imminst.org/chapters we can provide a more complete list of countries right away. I would make the following subdivisions, each cluster linked to the specific regional sub-forum. Into this list, I was trying to incorporate Mind’s data regarding top visiting countries, as well as the existing ImmInst chapters list, the existing and proposed ImmInst regional sub-forums, and countries with known LE/H+ groups. I think both general subdivisions and specific countries should be listed on the chapters page and linked to the specific regional sub-forum. If a certain country, within a particular region, does not appear on the list, it can be linked to the regional sub-forum from the general heading (e.g. “Russia & East Europe”), I think this will appear less selective than adding a category “Others”.

1. Australia & New Zealand – Australia - New Zealand

2. USA & Canada – USA - Canada

3. Dutch Group – Netherlands - Belgium

4. German Group – Germany – Austria - Switzerland

5. Scandinavian Forum – Sweden – Norway – Finland - Denmark

6. UK & Ireland - United Kingdom - Ireland

7. Forum Francophone (French) - France

8. Forum Italiano - Italy

9. Foro Español – Spain – Central America – South America

[If further subdivided: Spain - Argentina – Mexico – Venezuela – Chile – Peru – Colombia – Costa Rica – Pepublica Dominicana – Ecuador – Uruguay. These are countries with known H+ groups http://www.transhumanismo.org/

10. Fórum Português (Portuguese) – Portugal - Brazil

11. Asia Region – India – China – Japan – Korea – Southeast Asia

12. Russia & East Europe – Russia – East Europe

[Or if subdivided: Russia - Ukraine – Byelorussia – Yugoslavia – Poland - Czechia-Slovakia – Hungary - Rumania-Moldova – Bulgaria – Greece – Baltica (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania). All these countries/regions have strong LE/H+ groups or supporters]

13. Middle East – Israel – Turkey – Arabic – Persian

[We could further subdivide Arabic into Egypt, Jordan, Dubai, etc, and Persian into Iran, Tajikistan, etc, but I think just listing the languages will be enough at this point]

14. Africa

[Perhaps at a later point, countries with known h+ groups/supporters can be added, such as: - Nigeria – Kenya – Ethiopia - South Africa]

[The Immortalist]

I have an idea to easily categorize all the regions in the world.
Why not just make it so that the regional forums has it's own section and not being in the community category. Then it could be broken down into each continent in the world, then in the forum for each certain continent make it so that each country in the certain continent is listed for it's own forum.

[ilia]

I have an idea to easily categorize all the regions in the world.
Why not just make it so that the regional forums has it's own section and not being in the community category. Then it could be broken down into each continent in the world, then in the forum for each certain continent make it so that each country in the certain continent is listed for it's own forum.

Under this proposal, there would be a single sub-forum for the continent of Eurasia, including about 100 countries occupied by 5 billion people

My proposal is more or less a slight extension of the regional groups that historically developed in ImmInst to include the other areas of the world.

The above list of countries is more for the front Chapters page to facilitate the location of particular regional groups and the establishment of local chapters.

But I agree with you that, in the list of regional forums, additional modifications can be made, such as the separate Canada and India forums. Why not? Why not indeed, as long as each area of the world is represented?

So the revised list of regional forums would be:
1) Australia & New Zealand. 2) USA. 3) Canada. 4) Dutch Group. 5) German Group. 6) Scandinavian Forum. 7) UK & Ireland. 8) Forum Francophone (French). 9) Forum Italiano.10) Foro Español. 11) Fórum Português (Portuguese). 12) Asia Region. 13) India. 14) Russia & East Europe. 15) Middle East. 16) Africa.

Edited by ilia, 02 March 2010 - 04:50 PM.

[ilia]

Looks like we have an easy way to find ImmInst members from any country in the world.

With “Toggle more options” here

http://www.imminst.o...10-posters.html

[brokenportal]

Those versions of modifications of the regional lists look good. You'll be able to tweak and update all the info at your leisure and beefheart and I at the least are here to help.

Can you, and anybody else interested, meet tomorrow in the general think tank, and teams meeting at 10pm gmt? The schedule and meeting room are here: http://imminst.org/meetings

Remember also, a large part of this is just preparing it so that when our membership increase rate picks up pace we will have more things in place to absorb member ambitions and give people more things to do to help the cause. We'll want to get as many groups as we can going as soon as possible, but we dont need to worry if we dont get a ton of them going in the next year or so.

[ilia]

10 PM gmt is 12 PM here. I am not sure I can. But we can always talk.

[Agent]

12. Russia & East Europe – Russia – East Europe

[Or if subdivided: Russia - Ukraine – Byelorussia – Yugoslavia – Poland - Czechia-Slovakia – Hungary - Rumania-Moldova – Bulgaria – Greece – Baltica (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania). All these countries/regions have strong LE/H+ groups or supporters]

Where are they?...

[brokenportal]

How about the Sunday meeting? That one is set for an earlier time to try to help accomodate more Easterners.

[The Immortalist]

I have an idea to easily categorize all the regions in the world.
Why not just make it so that the regional forums has it's own section and not being in the community category. Then it could be broken down into each continent in the world, then in the forum for each certain continent make it so that each country in the certain continent is listed for it's own forum.

Under this proposal, there would be a single sub-forum for the continent of Eurasia, including about 100 countries occupied by 5 billion people

I think you are mistaken, There would be a forum for the regional forums, it would be broken down into a sub forum called Europe for example, it would be further broken down for a sub-forum for each country in Europe.

Another example would be: North America would have it's own sub-forum, then USA Canada and Mexico would each have their own sub forum under the sub-forum of North America which is in the forum regional forum. Do you get it now? What do you guy's think about my idea? It may take a bit of work but it may be advantageous to implement.

[ilia]

Brokenportal: How about the Sunday meeting? That one is set for an earlier time to try to help accomodate more Easterners.

Next Sunday I won’t be home. But the Sunday after that I will be there for sure. And we can always set a special session.

Agent: Where are they?...

You got me there All I know is that there is a Polish Association of Gerontology. It’s not exactly radical life-extension, but still…

http://www.borgis.pl/ptg/

All the countries in the International Association of Gerontology:

http://www.sfu.ca/iag/links/member.htm

Immortalist: There would be a forum for the regional forums, it would be broken down into a sub forum called Europe for example, it would be further broken down for a sub-forum for each country in Europe.

Yes, I think I got it. Still, I think it will be entirely disproportionate. This would mean a separate sub-forum for Europe further broken down into 50 countries, and a sub-forum for Asia broken down into 55 countries, most of such countries with an empty forum. I think just the 16 regional sub-forums based on broad regions and languages might work best at this first stage.

[brokenportal]

1900 to 200 gmt any day of the week generally works for me. Name a time in there that works for you and we can set that up. Ill find out what time works for captainbeefheart too, and all others are welcome to join the discussion as well.

Break down by continent could work, but I think we will be better of with what Ilia is aiming for. When people view imminst.org/chapters they might as well jump right into a 20 or 30 regions long list there which is manageable to the eyes, rather than just continents which is underselling their ability to spot their region quicker through a slightly longer list. We'll want to decide on that for sure at the meeting though.

[The Immortalist]

Brokenportal: How about the Sunday meeting? That one is set for an earlier time to try to help accomodate more Easterners.

Next Sunday I won’t be home. But the Sunday after that I will be there for sure. And we can always set a special session.

Agent: Where are they?...

You got me there All I know is that there is a Polish Association of Gerontology. It’s not exactly radical life-extension, but still…

http://www.borgis.pl/ptg/

All the countries in the International Association of Gerontology:

http://www.sfu.ca/iag/links/member.htm

Immortalist: There would be a forum for the regional forums, it would be broken down into a sub forum called Europe for example, it would be further broken down for a sub-forum for each country in Europe.

Yes, I think I got it. Still, I think it will be entirely disproportionate. This would mean a separate sub-forum for Europe further broken down into 50 countries, and a sub-forum for Asia broken down into 55 countries, most of such countries with an empty forum. I think just the 16 regional sub-forums based on broad regions and languages might work best at this first stage.

Yes breaking it down into each individual country may cause low activity for each sub-forum, but what does it matter if some sub-forums don't have that much activity on them, is there a real reason why it's bad to break down each part of the world into "micro" sections? I mean is it hard to create new sections on a forum? Would my idea take up too much space or something? Please explain I don't know very much about how computer things work.

[ilia]

Following our discussion with Eric and David, I would like to suggest the following things to do to develop the regional forums/chapters project:

1) Set up a revised group of regional forums: 14 or 16 (depending on whether to create separate forums for Canada and India, there seems to be some controversy about the former):

1) Australia & New Zealand. 2) USA. 3) Canada. 4) Dutch Group. 5) German Group. 6) Scandinavian Forum. 7) UK & Ireland. 8) Forum Francophone (French). 9) Forum Italiano.10) Foro Español. 11) Fórum Português (Portuguese). 12) Asia Region. 13) India. 14) Russia & East Europe. 15) Middle East. 16) Africa.


2) Move to these new/revised forums all the scattered old posts that are now in the general “regions” sections.

3) Revise the “Chapter announcement” to include some brief Intro on why supporting life-extension, imminst and local chapters is important, based on existing promotional materials. I think it should be less than a page, or even half a page, so it could be used as a hand-out, more readily translated and posted.

4) Post such revised “Chapter announcements” in the regional forums, at least for the larger and top visiting countries, inviting people not only to register for the chapter, but also (perhaps even most importantly) to take part in the specific regional/country topics discussions.

5) Link from the ImmInst/chapters page
http://imminst.org/chapters
to the new regional forums. I think that the ImmInst/chapters page should list the new regional forums, followed by subcategories for at least the larger/top visiting countries (see a potential list of regional break-downs above).

Also set up a direct link from ImmInst home page to the “ImmInst.org/chapters”. Otherwise, the chapter page would be pretty much invisible.

6) After all this is set in place, find people in ImmInst from particular countries
With “Toggle more options” here
http://www.imminst.o...10-posters.html

And send them a pm/email inviting them to join the chapters and/or regional/country forums and topics, or perhaps ask them to translate the chapter announcement into their languages.

Edited by ilia, 05 March 2010 - 08:09 PM.

[Mind]

I agree with the sub-forums based on continents and languages. Listing every country takes up to much space in the forum listing. The regional forum would take up the space of an entire web page. If there is a strong contingent from one country then there will always be an option to create a separate forum.

[brokenportal]

Alright, the list looks great.

About continents and space, I was thinking in terms of what to list on the imminst.org/chapters page, I think Dave and Ilia were too. I cant speak for them, but I forgot about the listing that appears in the forum there. By continent probably would work best there, then the other regions with in. What do you all think? They will still have a broader selection to choose from up front then at the /chapters page.

If you guys feel comfortable with it, I recommend setting yourselves deadlines that work for you, say, March 14th to complete 1 through 3?

[ilia]

Following our discussion, I would like to suggest the following revised chapter announcement, based on the existing ImmInst promotional materials. David made the point that “chapters” may not be immediately understood by non-native speakers (indeed such as myself), so a more general term “regional groups/chapters” was used. This announcement consists of 2 parts: 1) An introduction to the cause of life-extension and ImmInst 2) Regional groups. Each part is less than one Word page. I think, with such a structure, this announcement can be used as an introductory gateway for those not yet familiar with the cause (especially when distributed for other countries/languages). This revision was made with the view of not just encouraging people to register for the local chapter (from which perhaps no further activity may follow), but also to encourage participation in the regional forums (where the real interaction may emerge), thus “killing two birds with one strike.” Also, no special requirements were imposed, in order to encourage people to join/participate at this very initial stage. So I submit this for your judgment:

Immortality Institute

http://imminst.org/

Humankind has made countless achievements and overcome endless obstacles since the beginning of its existence. There are many more incredibly gracious opportunities and grand challenges ahead of us. This movement works to defeat aging and achieve Unlimited Lifespans.

Much of the world still believes that nothing can be done about the traditional death that aging has imposed upon everyone that has ever been born. We can now combat aging, and are already successful in similar cases.

As we all know, these are rapidly advancing times. Science and biology have been continuing to perfect their abilities, working on our bodies, then within them, and now within our very cells themselves. Science has defeated many forms of damage that accumulate in a variety of cellular diseases. Now, science is working to defeat the types of damage that accumulate to cause aging.
Achieving Unlimited Lifespans is now only a matter of the speed at which the world works to accomplish this.

We all have a chance to benefit from Unlimited Lifespans. Join us at Imminst.org and help us get the word out. We need all new incoming support like there is no tomorrow.

What you can do:

-Register at Imminst.org

It’s as simple as that. By registering, you’ll find opportunities to get involved, participate and help keep the cause growing.

Imminst Projects:

Some notable past projects include the documentary, Exploring Life Extension – the book, The Scientific Conquest of Death – and hosting International Conferences.

Many of our present projects can be found in the Action section of our forum, and are too numerous to list.

Our future projects include the continued development of plans to inform the world, and help see this causes research through to fruition. Developing of local groups of enthusiasts and advocates for life-extension is essential for its success.


Regional Groups/Chapters

http://www.imminst.o...orums-f321.html

http://imminst.org/chapters

Imminst Regional Groups/Chapters are here to facilitate you with regular online and/or real time meetings for the purpose of helping to advance our cause of Advocacy & Research for Unlimited Lifespans. As this cause continues to grow toward a movement, and eventually a mainstream item on the world’s agenda, it is inevitable that we will not be able to maintain an almost wholly online presence alone.

Here is your chance to help pioneer some of the first Imminst regional groups/chapters and help us continue to grow into all that we can and will be. Click on your area and join your local regional group. Staff will be here to help guide you through anything you may need help with.

There are no commitments and we can coach on you getting going and becoming a successful regional group if you request such assistance. We can help by providing things such as sample agendas, project ideas, potential grant packages, and flexible scheduling that works for your group. We are also here to help you build these groups.

If you wish you get involved in Imminst at a Grass Roots level please sign up below, or just join the discussion at the Regional Imminst forums.

Through local groups we can facilitate real action around the world.

What do local groups/chapters do?
-schedule chapter meetings
-schedule your own agendas or choose from suggested agendas

To participate in a local group/chapter, copy and paste the following form and post it here, or send it to the Chapter Coordinators. Or just join the discussion at the ImmInst regional forums.

Name or Alias:
City or Town:
What is the most miles you can travel to meet? (suggest 50 max)
Biggest town with in 50 miles of you:
What got you interested in life extension:
Skype User I.D. (its free to download):
Would you be willing to host a meeting, or know of a suitable meeting place in your area, i.e. coffee shop, pub, etc:
How much time can you commit to working on this, going to meetings, putting up flyers, etc.

[Mind]

As for creating the new regional forums, I will wait one more day to hear any objections or suggestions. If there is no substantial disagreement, then I will create the new regional categories outlined by Ilia.

[brokenportal]

Alright, Mind will take care of adding that for you then, and you guys can sort topics out from there at your leisure.

The second part looks good, with the short description, and the town, name, etc... Have each one in its topic in english, and have each one translated. I would go line by line, other language, english, other, english, etc... Remember to link each spot that says "suggested agendas" up to the suggested agendas topic, and add in any other opportunities there may be to link.

As for the first part you have there, that looks alright. Ive been thinking about how all this info fits best, what do you think about proposing to include that in the form of an open letter in the http://imminst.org/about section, and then link to the about section at imminst.org/chapters?

Ok now, as to the word 'chapters'. I was thinking how imminst.org/regions might work in here instead of /chapters. But I dont think that either would cover for the other, and that if we went that way we should probably consider creating both. However at this time I suggest we stick with chapters, and think about possibly creating /regions later. Chapters may be all we need, because although some people may not know what it means, in advertisements for it people could write to go to whatever they want to call it, say, in spanish, "Find your local region or group discussion about unlimited lifespans at imminst.org/chapters" Even though its at /chapters, the description would include the word that the people that speak that language are more familiar with. Do you think that will work well enough?

All this though will still leave the /about and the /chapters page untranslated, because we can only really fit one translation on those pages. However, I think we can remedy this by making "Translate the about and the chapters page in pinned topics in your regional section," one of the first and most prominent agenda items that we suggest.

Let me know if this makes sense to you.

[caliban]

There should be name consistency -- maybe just leave the region names, take out the 'forum' and 'group'

We could also be clear about whether these are primarily regional or primarily language forums. Probably the former.

No forums should exist with fewer than ~7 posts except during a trial period.