One hope I have for Integral blogs, and other people's integral practices in general, is to use these tools to enhance virtual communities, and evaluations of various TYPES of practices, thoughts, etc..
A perfect example of this is the site Daily Kos.
Daily Kos is a perfect site to emulate for integrals, in many ways, as this site has hundreds of users, commentors, which bring the "news of the day", not only for national political news, but also for regional issues (various specialized posting authors).
One of the services I use from both Yahoo and Amazon, is their review service. In the Yahoo case, it is for movies. At Amazon, of course, it is for books.
In the spirit of The Wisdom of Crowds, I deeply value various reviewers, for their insight, their perspectives, and ultimately, their thumbs up/down.
So, in keeping with this, check out local yahoo. Now you can "review" your local meditation chapter! Or your local gym, or your local diet practice, etc.
Here's an example:
The keyword search is "meditation" for San Francisco, and these are the results.
Notice that there aren't many reviews yet. (Also notice that the Shambala Center doesn't let you review. What's up with that?? Are they SCARED?
)I'll attempt to post more on this in the future, as I think this is a very valuable discriminative function that anyone who is connected to the internet can perform. I want to hear about the Shambala Center! Is it good? Is it bad? What's the feedback?
People have tried to do this on a individual basis (thanks Sarlo), but the tools that are now available are just so much more powerful, and more important easy.
So, this is the second time I have asked any readers here strongly for something. The first was for KISI. This time, please propagate information to all people you know (and they'll two friends, and they'll tell two friends, and so on, and so on..) about local yahoo. Start rating and describing both teachers, practices and organizations. (Also, if someone knows the same type of functionality on a "universal" level, let me know.)
Who are some incredible teachers? Why? What is an incredible practice? Who's a teacher that you should "stay the hell away from?".
Let's get these party (reviews and descriptions) started, right? Let's get this party started QUICKLY - right?
