We have thus far organized site activity around the notion of "contests," but this is not a hard technical constraint. What other kinds of activities would you like to see on the CoLab, given the features that we already have? Would you be interested in helping to organize/moderate such an activity?

I think these are all pretty good suggestions, but the first two are features, to my mind, rather than activities. So, I'd like to move those into another discussion (because it's one I think we want to have!) but also elaborate on the other two if we can. And of course, continue to brainstorm... - Member-generated map: Great idea. My feeling is that insightmaker is more tech than we want at this juncture, both from a backend perspective and a UI perspective. So, instead of going at it from the tech side, can we go at it from an organizational / outreach side? How do we invite participation in such an activity? Is it a bounded engagement, or an ongoing thing? Bearing in mind that ambitious interfaces present a hurdle both to the user and the developer (that's me!), what is the lowest tech way a user could approach the endeavor and contribute? - Art, photos, exhibition. This is great - could you drill further? Who would sponsor? Who would judge? What exactly would we be soliciting? I worry a little about contests & prizes & art in this venue. Seems to me we should be open to all contributors, regardless of aesthetic judgments. I sort of like a mosaic more, but the same questions apply. Perhaps we could use voting not for a prize, but rather to increase someone's reputation as an artist? And this would make them more attractive as a contributor to a proposal that needs visual support... I'm really hoping others can weigh in here. Let's generate ideas and see where it goes.

Hey - sorry if this is a non-sequitur, but I was reading this article (email me for a copy) http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/amp/66/4/315/, and came across this quote: "The distinction between learning from experience versus learning from description needs to be explored more in the context of learning about future possible common as well as rare consequences of climate change. Given the long time horizons with which such experiential feedback would be provided by the “real world,” psychology could collaborate with designers of virtual realities to design test beds for its theories and to design learning environments that can significantly shorten the feedback cycle as well as provide members of the public with means to experience the consequences of uncertainty, including climate futures that include catastrophic events that may be quite unlikely but that deserve consideration in long-term planning." Ok - so, that led to an idea. We've talked about inviting stories or narratives about climate change, but have never really explained what that meant. I think it would be great if we could start inviting people to create stories about specific things - "a day in the life" stories, following: - catastrophic events - a more sustainable future - mass exodus from coastal regions - etc. But the key is that the narrative should be grounded in known scientific understanding - heavily researched and referenced. It should be a collaborative engagement in which people can poke holes in unlikely envisionings, or lend support by linking to existing research. I'm thinking something like an "exquisite corpse" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exquisite_corpse ) approach to collective story creation. The point, as has been pointed out elsewhere, is that people have a hard time understanding the consequences of climate change. Virtual realities and immersive games are beyond us technically (for now) but creating science fiction (the plausible kind) is not. We could do something like this with minimal tech, but it would be really nice if we could embed references / conversation within an evolving story.