What can WiserEarth do for you?
What is the impact of WiserEarth?
Why join and contribute to WiserEarth?
How was WiserEarth created and what is the Natural Capital Institute?
Are there community norms and rules at WiserEarth?
Will WiserEarth be available in my language?
Can our organization partner with WiserEarth?
If you have further inquiries, please visit our Help Desk.
What is WiserEarth?
WiserEarth is a free-to-use online community space providing the many people and organizations from civil society, the private sector and governments the tools and resources to help them collaborate in defining, addressing and solving social and environmental problems around the world.Why was WiserEarth created?
WiserEarth is here to serve these people and organizations in increasing collective awareness, reducing duplication of efforts, and facilitating better connectivity with the end goal of increasing their effectiveness to prevent harm and institute positive change in their communities.
What can WiserEarth do for you?
WiserEarth make it easy for you to:
1) Find and connect with people and organizations working on issues you are passionate about, in your region, and beyond.
2) Gain greater visibility and credibility for your organization, initiative and expertise.
3) Discover potential funding opportunities and potential organizations to fund.
4) Join communities of action where you can get support for the work you do.
5) Grow your network and coordinate efforts with our group management tools.
6) Draw upon and contribute to a global knowledge base within the fields of social justice and sustainability
7) Post information on any events, jobs or volunteer opportunities free of cost.
What is the impact of WiserEarth?
WiserEarth is not here to encourage people to sit at their computers to create change. It allows them to quickly and efficiently access the information, connections and alliances they need to address the issues they face in their communities. Our members say it best with their testimonials and success stories. You can also see how the wider web think of us.
Why join and contribute to WiserEarth?
By joining and contributing to WiserEarth, you help in:
- Mapping, connecting and bringing more visibilty to the community of organizations and people who are working to address the most important issues of our time.
- Building a global knowledge commons that people all over the world can benefit from in their work to remake their part of the world.
- Facilitating cross-sectoral collaboration and alliance building as WiserEarth is open to people and organizations from civil society, government and business.
How was WiserEarth created and what is the Natural Capital Institute?
WiserEarth is a fiscally sponsored project of the Natural Capital Institute (NCI), an organization committed to the restoration of the earth and the healing of human culture.
WisereEarth was launched on Earth Day, April 2007. Since its release, WiserEarth's functionality and tools have co-evolved with its users. Starting out as a directory of non-governmental organizations, WiserEarth now offers the ability for people to connect and collaborate around their issues of interest.
Are there community norms and rules at WiserEarth?
Just like real, on-life communities, WiserEarth has community guidelines that govern the way community members interact with each other. This is necessary to ensure that WiserEarth can stay true to its goal of serving the people and organizations who are transforming the world. Please visit Help Desk to find out more.
Will WiserEarth be available in my language?
We are working on making it available in your language. In 2009, we will take WiserEarth into Spanish and French. We will also provide tools for the community to help translate the WiserEarth interface and key pages into their own languages. Stay tuned!
How is WiserEarth funded?
WiserEarth is funded by foundations and individual donors. Here is a list of those who have been supporting us to date. Perhaps you'd care to join them?
Can our organization partner with WiserEarth?
Yes. Here are some areas where we currently are looking for partners:
- Content : help us expand WiserEarth's content by porting yours here
- Internationalization: help us take WiserEarth into your language
- Features: help us speed up the process of expanding WiserEarth's features to better meet the needs of your organization and the greater WiserEarth community.
- Networks: if you think WiserEarth is the right place to host your network's activities, we will gladly facilitate your moving into and making best use of WiserEarth.
If you have further inquiries, please visit the Help Desk group.
Comments (1 - 20 of 26)
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Flag comment for removal angusparker 22 days ago
Thank you Bowo for a much easier to read FAQ.
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I'm a little biased, but given that I work on this page, and it seems to have answered quite a few questions in its day, I give this 5 stars!
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Hi Monika. In this FAQs article, there's a section called How do I delete my account? You can click on it to see how. |
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I want to remove my profile from WiserEarth. How do I do that?
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This comment was removed by a WiserEarth editor for the following reason:
Out of scope for this document. |
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No problem, I also have recieved spam lately also.
I had asked a few days ago to have the "Last Frontier Eco" group removed since I created another group called "Last Frontier Eco Group". It should be an obvious distinction since one is non- active, the other is brimming with a virtual conucopia of wonderful resources about Alaska and Climate Change etc.
It would be great if an Administrator could make that change sometime soon. JT |
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Hey Smitheringale,
I'll likely start posting a wikipage where we list known spammers and accounts de-activated for spamming. In the meantime, just send me the username of the account, and if you'd like, copy and paste the email and I can take a look. If it's confirmed to be spam, we'll take appropriate steps to de-activate the account and notify the community. JT, many thanks also for directing Smitherinagale to the spam forum! Thanks, Honore |
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I'm in dout about an email I've just recieved.I am sure its some sort of scam but I dont know what to do next.Could some one please help .
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Hi Paul,
Glad to hear that you've created a WiserEarth group around this important subject. As a fellow community member, allow me to respond to your Qs from what I know so far. 1. I once had a similar problem of entering a wikipedia URL (but mine was invalid because it contains the : symbol). I then mentioned this in the Help Desk where a WiserEarth admin promised to fix this "bug". Hope your problem will get fixed soon. I suggest reposting the error in the Help Desk, along with information on what browser and operating system (with version number) to help the admins/developers pinpoint the problem. 2. I think details (address, city, etc.) is meant for a group with physical real world location (such as groups for organizations), while the "scope" field is intended for the geographical scope of the group's activity. e.g. sometime a group (or organization) is based in a particular part of a city within a country, but is actively performing progressive work abroad (so, the "scope" would be international, while the details would be local), and there are also groups/organizations that works only in the vicinity of their physical location, thus the "scope" would be community. There are also groups that is virtual and formed based not on existing organization but more around a subject like zero waste. So, naturally, there's no headquarter or office or anything, and one would just leave the details (address, city, etc.) empty, and use the scope international. The Google map by the way will be useful to map the geographical positions of group members, events, jobs, and perhaps other geotaggable information in the group. I personally haven't find the need/value to include the map module in groups I administer, except for a few of them. You can by the way, remove unneeded modules by going to the Admin Tools >> Customize Layout link in your group homepage. 3. There's no section in a group to add only URLs at the moment. The "Create" link will create an entity (could be discussion, wikipage, resource, job, event), while the "Add" link will add existing entities in WiserEarth overall, public database into the group, and this is why you need to "Search" for existing entities to add to your group. My solution would be to "Create" in the "Resources" section, and fill in the title of the article, and the URL in appropriate field, as this will make the article an entity that can be used/repurposed by other groups as well (if you decide to make it "public"). Or, you can just simply create a wikipage then copy the URLs of articles you'd like to make available to the group. If however, you feel that the ability to easily add URLs is important for groups, I recommend putting it up as a suggestion in the WiserEarth Suggestions group. For further questions regarding groups, or to see how other users are using groups, I recommend visiting the WiserEarth Group Support group. Questions and critics leads to clarity and improvements. So, keep em coming :) Cheers, Bowo |
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This comment was removed by a WiserEarth editor for the following reason:
Duplicate of preceding comment. |
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This comment was removed by a WiserEarth editor for the following reason:
Duplicate of preceding comment. |
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I started a new group called Zero Waste - A third generation resource theory, and found several features baffling. Can you offer explanations?
1. I was asked for a website and offered a partial URL ending in a slash, to be completed. I put in "zerowaste.html" and was constantly told I could not include special punctuation, as listed. I thought I was putting in a plain vanilla URL. Ultimately I did remove the ".html" and it seemed to be accepted but I am perplexed as to what I did or set up. 2. There was a box entitled Geographic Scope with no explanation attached. I thought I was finished when I checked "International". I thought this meant that members could come from anywhere. But it wanted countries and states and cities. What is the purpose of this? Most important, is screen real estate so valuable that you can't include a more meaningful designation than simply "Geographical scope" with no referents? Now I see Google maps being shown to my home. What is the significance of this? Is the group still open to all countries? 3. There is a place to add in Resources. I have a Wikipedia page to put in so I retrieved the URL for the page and tried "Create" and "Add". Neither one gives me anything but a Search entry with very little suggestion of what kind of search is contemplated. I have no need of a search. I wanted to add a URL. No search that I could invent achieved anything. What does all this mean and why can't a document or a URL be added? There are more bafflements but those are a good start. Paul |
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Hey WorldPulse - you can click on the "Flag comment for removal" button to notify admins you want it removed, and we'll take a look. Or just contact us directly at support@wiserearth.org and let us know which comment on which page (a link is always appreciated) and we'll remove it accordingly.
Thanks, Honore |
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How do I delete the comment that I put on a page accidently.?
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Hey, all:
Hey, Lorna: Well, it's the night shift (just kidding). To modify a member's status, you need to 'hover the mouse' over the photo of the member in your group page--a small box appears with the name, status, and at the bottom, 'Edit Member Status'. Click this--a new page opens with the photo, member status, and a small dropdown menu with the choices will appear. Click on the appropriate choice, then "Finish", and then you should see the change in the same 'hover' box as before. This should work, but if it does not, there may be a bug, and we'll have to call the Cavalry! David Messages done with sustainable energy, with Wind and Sun! |
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Thanks for your very fast reply Peggy.
The FAQs say a group admistrator can change members' status to editors ... Group administrators create and manage a Group, similarly to WiserEarth administrators managing WiserEarth. They can perform a few restricted functions within the Groups feature, in addition to the functions of an editor. An administrator can change members to editors, change editors to administrators, determine Membership Settings, and determine Privacy Settings. I'm a group adminstrator but I can figure out how to do this. Can you help me? |
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Lorna, only editors and administrators can send internal messages.
We are about to change this logic as it has been confusing for users to understand the difference between editors and members. In around two weeks, we will merge those two roles so it is less confusing for everyone. meanwhile, I would recommend you put all your members as Editors. |
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Can "members" use the Group Messaging Feature or only "adminstrators" and "editors"?
I can't find an answer to this, and since I'm an "adminstrator" in my group, I can't test it out! Thanks for the site and all the great features - I'm really enjoying playing with it. |
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thanks doug, for some reason I'm having a hard time adding the tag, I'll try to address it tomm.
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