The original conference call has been rescheduled for Thursday, 28 August 2008 at 15:00 UTC. For reference, that’s 8:00 a.m. in Los Angeles and 11:00 a.m. in New York.

Again, please email me if you would like to participate. I will soon contact all of the original participants to inform them of the update.

I want to install a wiki for Outquisition collaboration. I have noticed that MediaWiki is popular, but PhpWiki is easier to install and update on my server. Any recommendations?

Seth Woodworth of the One Laptop Per Child project has graciously offered to host a conference call for Outquisition brainstorming. The purposes of the call are

1. to discuss the actual needs, both social and technical, which the Outquisition may address (and probably not solve),
2. to share information about people and groups which share intellectual space with the Outquisition and which deserve more support and partnerships, and
3. to learn about what One Laptop Per Child is already doing in the area of data extensibility and copyright licensing (for those of us who don’t already know). This is a potential area in which the Outquisition could light a fire.

Interested in participating? First, email me. Second, mark your calendar for Thursday, 7 August 2008 at 18:00 UTC. (For reference, that’s 11:00 a.m. in Los Angeles and 7:00 p.m. in London.) Third, in case we need to reschedule the call, check back here for updates.

Update: The call has been postponed. I am now driving home from the San Francisco Bay Area (where I spent a total of ten hours in Outquisition-related meetings). Sorry for any inconvenience. Stay tuned for further updates and information pertaining to the future conference call.

I have already received a logo proposal. (Thanks, Pete!) So I thought I should lay out some specific criteria for our logo. Since I believe in thematic consistency, and our name evokes the Inquisition, I feel that we should restrict the imagery to something European, something circa 12th century to 16th century. Read the rest of this entry »

Judging by some of the email I have received, I need to clear up a little confusion. This web site has no formal ties to Alex Steffen nor Cory Doctorow, though I have conversed briefly with each of them. In Alex’s case, it was about two years ago in Santa Monica. No one should think that either of them endorses anything going on here, until either of them cares to express his opinion. Of course, if and when they provide any input, I will welcome it.

The Inquisition has a bad rap, and for good reason. I like the name, “Outquisition”, because it indicates an awareness of everything wrong, everything undemocratic, and everything arrogant about a certain kind of proselytizing. The name also implies a motivation to learn from the past and to do better. Read the rest of this entry »

I will be heading up to Palo Alto, California on Sunday, 3 August 2008. That evening afternoon might be a good time to hang out with any potential Outquisitioners Outquisitors in the Bay Area. If anyone wants to talk about some ideas over coffee or beer, send me an email.

Update: We now have a time and place. If you want to come, please email me and I will give you the info!

Who am I?

My name is Jonathan Pfeiffer. I will be starting the graduate program in global and international studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara in the Fall. I blog at Multivoiced.

Why did I reserve this domain name? Read the rest of this entry »

Alex Steffen writes:

What would it be like, we wondered, if folks who knew tools and innovation left the comfy bright green cities and traveled to the dead mall suburban slums, rustbelt browntowns and climate-smacked farm communities and started helping the locals get the tools they needed. We imagined that it would need an almost missionary fervor, something like the Inquisition (which largely destroyed knowledge) in reverse, a crusade of open sharing, or as Cory promptly dubbed it, the Outquisition.