The Fountain
From Utopia
This is a place to catch up on some of the latest Utopian news, and the ideas, musings, and ravings of me, the "founder" of Utopia. You can also post messages to me at my User talk page, post your own ideas at The Forum or some of the places you create or visit, including your own User page and talk pages. ~ Ananke
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[edit] November 1
- We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.- ~ T. S. Eliot ~
[edit] April 17
I am still plodding along, juggling various ideas...
It is said that Rome wasn't built in a day, and it is certain that neither shall Utopia be...though when I finally get around to doing so, I hope to lay down much foundation material very swiftly. I confess that I have actually spent more time composing new material that I am still working on, than I have on most of the Wikipedia articles that I have been adapting for this site. The creation and development of things very often takes longer than one thinks it will. One exception to that rule was the actual creation of this site, but I am still gathering up and sorting out different ideas on how to initially arrange things here, to allow for optimal development in the future.
Even when the contributions that I have made have become a very small part of the whole, I am hoping that certain ideas that I had at the start of things will be acknowledged as good arrangements, that permit large areas of well organized and well categorized growth in areas of harmonious group activity, as well as many spots of more chaotic "untamed wilderness" and personal "sanctuaries" where all users are free to express and expose their own ideas in various ways. I am still not fully satisfied with, or have not yet decided between some of the options that I have been considering on the initial "layout" of site. I have actually run out of time today to even post much that was derived from Wikipedia, and will probably not even try to do any of that at this time. This is simply a note of apology for not being so rapid a worker as I might wish to be. I hope that the results of my efforts, when I finally do post them will be something capable of pleasing most of those who encounter them, and will be considered worth the wait for anyone who might be impatient with the pace of my apparent progress. I would rather disappoint a very small audience now, than hastily initiate specific layout designs that might be less than optimum for a large group of participants later, and yet retained by the force of habit and custom, as many things often are.
- We ourselves shall be loved for a while and forgotten. But the love will have been enough; all those impulses of love return to the love that made them. Even memory is not necessary for love. There is a land of the living and a land of the dead and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning. ~ Thornton Wilder (Quote of the Day at Wikiquote)
[edit] April 15
- A beginning is the time for taking the most delicate care that the balances are correct. This every sister of the Bene Gesserit knows. ~ "Princess Irulan" in the novel Dune by Frank Herbert
Am doing a few minor revisions, including a one of the intended function of The Fountain... most of the work is still occurring offline. ~ Ananke 19:28, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Many ideas are still incubating in my mind and many ideas are being typed out upon my computer. Despite the lack of apparent progress here, I am in a flurry of activity, and as it is plain that not many people have as yet noticed the site, and therefore I'm not really disappointing many people by my delays, I would prefer to spend another day or two trying to perfect some of my ideas and designs before posting things here that I might rapidly revise. I prefer to make extensive edits and what experiments I can on my own computer rather than on the database here.
I confess that I already have a few significant ideas that I might hold back for months and even years, but very many others that I believe will excite and intrigue people that I will be posting in the coming days and weeks.
I am typing up many entirely new pages, and working out a few ideas of how to fit many of them together in relation to the others. Again, as this is as yet a relatively small and unnoticed place I can feel more comfortable taking a little more time in preparations. I think people will agree that the results of even my own initial efforts will be impressive, and an indication of very good prospects of more to come, as more people are attracted to the potentials of "Utopia".
There have been a few other tasks I have needed to attend to than those I am working on here, but I remain mostly free until Sunday night, when four days of a bit more hectic activity will occur. After that I am anticipating at least a month ahead where I will usually have almost all of four days a week free to work on ideas for this site.
My plans at this point are thus:
- Complete work on all the preliminary "seed" articles and arrangements that I am preparing, based largely on WIkipedia articles, but also quite a few of my own creations, over the next day or two.
- Post many of these pages in the next day or two.
- Begin creating some artwork for pages, and especially some ideas I have for a logo, and for a favicon over the next week or so.
- Study other wikis and the materials available to learn a bit more about how the software works, and how to do things around here.
- Continue developing ideas and articles as my primary personal activity for at least the next month, and probably much of the next year.
To the "benevolent sovereign authorities" of "Wikia" in which Utopia is being permitted to develop, I can declare my honest expectations in quoting an obscure statement that I believe has relevance here:
- The city will gain beauty worthy of its name and to you it will be useful by its revenues, and the eternal fame of its aggrandizement. ~ Leonardo da Vinci
Signing out for now... ~ Ananke 09:14, 15 Apr 2005 (EDT)
[edit] April 14
I have been roaming around some wikicities, the Wikimedia projects and a few other places, developing some ideas. I am very excited and inspired by some of the potentials that are in my mind, and despite the lack of posts as yet, am working on many different pages.
Apart from the articles that I will be using from Wikipedia, I have begun a few compositions of my own (which will of course take more time to develop, and perhaps begin posting in the coming days).
When using articles from Wikipedia, it should be remembered that Utopia is not an encyclopedia Wiki, and I feel we should not retain all the Wiki-links of the articles, but only retain or create such links as are appropriate to develop within Utopia, or to places in other wikicities projects that have value to the ideas being developed here. There are quite a few of these. I now will get back to work, and hope to have at least some of the material ready to post within a few hours. ~ Ananke 08:27, 14 Apr 2005 (EDT)
- The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true. ~ James Branch Cabell (Wikiquote of the Day for today).
[edit] April 13
I finally have a bit of time, over the next few days, to spend quite a bit of time here. I fully expect that many pages that I begin will become extremely revised, modified, adapted, and improved by others, as time goes by. I also expect that there will sometimes be changes that I, or others, don't like, and then discussions can ensue, about what options or expressions that are available are best. I certainly consider Utopia to be forever, and always a collaborative endeavor among people interested in both appreciating and improving the world as it is, and speculating upon what things are, have been, and could yet be... and also an inquiry into the "WHY?", and the "WHY NOT?" of many actual and potential ways of life. To many people I could definitely reiterate what George Bernard Shaw declared; You see things; and you say, ‘Why?’ But I dream things that never were; and I say, “Why not?".
Now that I have the time to do so, for the first time since my proposal the other day, I am initially going to spend at least a few hours looking at other projects, and gathering up a few ideas as to how to proceed. I then intend to import many pages from WIkipedia, with only slight modifications at first, to plant the seeds of inspiration which can later be nurtured and grown, by myself and others.
To begin things I have created this community discussion page, which I have at this point named "The Fountain", in the hopes that it will become a beautiful fountain of ideas which people can drink in, and then proceed about within both Utopia and the real world with a greater sense of appreciation of both the actualities and the potentialities that they encounter. ~ Ananke 12:09, 13 Apr 2005 (EDT)
- If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them. ~ Henry David Thoreau
[edit] 2005 April 11
Utopia was first proposed, swiftly supported, accepted and founded upon this day. ~ Ananke
