Inspirations and Guidance[edit | edit source]

  • Pieces should be short - 500 words is ideal, 800 max. Pieces will be hypertext objects, with links to more information on every page. Pick one thing and make a little jewel box that describes it. Remember you can do more than one piece.
  • We will group pieces into patterns together. The brief is loose to see what is out there, what great wonders people have to show. Order and sense will be made in the sequencing, and possibly additional pieces used to frame sets of pieces.
  • seven thousand einsteins is about the right length (500 words) and nicely illustrates one central idea, but it's more chatty than I would have written it for the book. (you can be as chatty as you like) @leashless
  • Hexayurt Project in a Nutshell is too long and doesn't get down to the core fast enough. @leashless
  • With enough eyes: On Criticism Gives a philosophy of criticism to help make this project far more than the sum of its parts. @gelada

Collaborators[edit | edit source]

See TheFWD submissions to see this section with the pieces. Formatting will be rough.

(hit "Edit" and add yourself to the list - just copy the line at the bottom and add your details!)

When you are ready to submit your piece, click on the link below your name and paste your piece into the edit window that appears.

(hit "Edit" and add yourself to the list)

Navigation[edit | edit source]

The Shape of the Book[edit | edit source]

  • Idea One: 100 short essays (< 1000 words?, 500-800 words)
  • Idea Two: 99 short essays, and one long piece about 1/3 of the length of the whole pulling together a coherent vision from the parts - I like this one!

Features[edit | edit source]

  • GFDL or similar license
  • POD or short print run demanding on shape of demand
  • Could be the first of a series
  • Web site which has each essay in the book, and some kind of network for navigating between the essays, as well as (critically) connecting with the authors to Make Things Happen
  • Openness to projects documenting themselves as book entries
  • Translation of as much content and into as many languages as the internet smartcrowd allows

FAQ[edit | edit source]

The unapproved FAQ can be found on the discussions page. Eventually the official FAQ will be moved here.

List of articles[edit | edit source]

Discussion[View | Edit]

We should probably use the discussions page for some (or all) of the answers to the questions which come up.


FAQ[edit source]

How long should the essays be? Short about 500-800 words

When should the essays be completed? In 100 days Thursday, 7 October 2010.

Editorial[edit source]

For what audience is this book intended? Academics? Politicians? Thinkers? Doers? The proverbial 'general public'? – impacts the tone and style of the writing.

Approach: are the essays presenting a narrative vision of how the future could be; setting out an argument for how it should be; or something else?

The book[edit source]

If more than 99 (or 100) articles are proposed or written, 74(?) articles proposed as of 8 7 10, how will the 99 be chosen? Will this be done by consensus of those taking part? What will happen to those not chosen? These question still apply even if a sequence of books envisaged. Will there be any sort of 'quality' filtering, if so how and by whom? FAQ: to be approved by whom?, 'official' means what exactly? Abstracts: "we'll do some more work on...", who is the 'we'? Is some sort of 'specialized' sub-group (and so hierarchy?) implied? (Suggest best if as much openness and 'up-front'ness about these sorts of questions as possible Philralph 08:30, 1 July 2010 (UTC))


Philralph, I wrote the bit about the FAQ. I didn't want to presume I had the answers so I put in "approved" and "official", maybe I should have used other words. It was late. ;)

Bjelkeman 15.05, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Hi Bjelkeman, thanks for reply. I guess With enough eyes: On Criticism partly answers the 'quality' filtering question, but might there be more if and when publishers are approached? Philralph 08:40, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Okay to add wikilinks?[edit source]

I run a bot (User:ChriswaterguyBot) which does various fixes, including searching for key phrases (such as solar power or community participation).

I normally exclude it from editing user pages, and student pages marked with one of the "inprogress" templates. Now, for the pages in The future we deserve project, they're still a part of the main wiki and it's good for key phrases to be wikilinked. But I want to check before I do it. --Chriswaterguy 05:46, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Chris, I would recommend not doing this. The essays are very short and each word and link carefully selected. I think it would interfere with the work of the author to have automatic links inserted. Bjelkeman

Catergory and navigation[edit source]

Congratulations on the excellent project! Let me know if you would like help adding a category for the articles and/or a sidebar that helps navigate the submissions. Thanks, --Lonny 20:43, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

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