Consumerium:FAQ

Revision as of 15:45, 26 May 2003 by 62.78.185.163 (talk) (typo)

FAQ

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Q: Why should I think this project will work?
A: Because many global NGOs with long experience in moral purchasing have proposed or launched similar efforts, usually as shorter-term boycott efforts. Such projects were instrumental in ending the apartheid regime in South Africa, for instance. More recently, Greenpeace activists discussed 'personal moral purchasing rules' and systems to support them including collecting Universal Product Codes of offending products. Given the experience of the organizations that support and organize such efforts, it may be more appropriate to ask "what makes you think this project would not work?"

Q: What on earth is the Consumerium project?
A: The goal of the Consumerium project, in a nutshell, is to increase power of the consumer in market economy. This goal is achieved by developing an information gathering, storage and transporting infrastructure that delievers all available information to support consumer decisions - with just a touch of a button, and gives to the consumer the ability to give feedback, even to the other side of the world - with just a few touches of buttons. All this must be offered to the consumer free of charge. Ideally it would invoke criteria from trusted mediators, e.g. Non-Governmental Organizations, e.g. Greenpeace, where a suggestion of how to do this was debated extensively in June of 2002.

Q: That's not saying much. Can you be more concrete?
A: Sure, go check out the planned Features

Q: What is Wiki?
A: Wiki is an hypertext system where anyone can edit any page easily.You can learn how to edit articles in less then 10 minutes at http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:How_to_edit_a_page

Q: What is GFDL?
A: GFDL stands for GNU Free Documentation License. All material here is Lisenced under GFDL, so it's free and will stay that way forever.

Q: Why Consumerium?
A: The Motivation.

Q: I want to contribute. How do I do that?
A: If you're not coming here from Wikipedia you should go and see w:How to edit a page to learn how to edit pages in under 10 minutes. Please do come back though, and add interesting Wikipedia articles you find to Research. You can of course edit any page you want here, or even create a new one. We are not so crowded as Wikipedia, and so we can be more relaxed.

Q: This seems a little poorly organised?
A: That's true, we pretty much make it up as we go along. There are different Stages charted out though. We are currently somewhere between stages I and II. There's also a glossary which might help you see how things fit together. Like most moral purchasing we are growing from "bottom up".

Q: Who's the founder of this project?
A: The founder is Juxo

Q: Who are the other people writing?
A: Some elves and some trolls, who are people too. Chimps are now also people too (in Genus Homo)! Don't be too concerned about "who" here, if you see something you disagree with, just change it. We don't need credentials for research, though we might need them to certify things said about companies.