discussions


 * GENERAL DISCUSSION

hi, I've added all my comments so far, CV and fotos will follow soon

Sabine: Dear ladies, ** thanks first for your excellent work on the homepage, and sorry that I did not manage to come back on this until now. I had a look and as always, I have many questions, comments and proposals. Definitely, we need to agree the next skypemeeting, communication was quite difficult on this recently. Sorry, I know that it was as well because I did not come backto you on the homepage. first question: Where would you like me to contribute (in terms of texts, etc.). I can search for some pictures for the three groups.I can also see and try to write some basic texts for section activities, e.g. Feedback on structure, style and contents: CONTENTS

Title : UP-PS Research Network does not carry a particular meaning. I would subsitute it for: "AESOP thematic group 'Public spaces and urban cultures' Subtitle: Again, to wide! I would specify some areas "in the field of architecture, planning" or "in the field of critical urban studies", otherwise, it is to broad.  **  "design and governance of place-making" I would substitute for " process design, governance and critical study of place-making"  **
 * Chiara CV: your link to university of Vienna should be called "Vienna University of Technology" because University of Viennais a different institution **
 * calls ** would be happy to announce two related issues (see  http://skuor.tuwien.ac.at/?page_id=12&lang=en soon)
 * adds: ** can't we use AESOP funding to get rid of ads?

 advisory board ** [UC-PS] Network ** is currently constitutiong its advisory board with members from the planning, sociology, architecture and geography academic communities, and with expert practitioners from local administrations and citizen's associations

(invited) ** Advisory board members ** :  I think Ali should stand first as we invited him to be our official chair. Would like to reduce this to some chosen names (max. 4), in order to avoid some sort of academic name dropping.  We do not need to protect us with the plumes of other scholars when our proposal at that moment is at the   height of the debate. Please I beg you a favor: Let's forget about (see my mail for this part)  - Prof. Serena Vicari, Dept. of Sociology and Social Research, University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy - Prof. Ali Madanipour, School of architecture, planning and landscape, University of Newcastle, UK - Prof. Frank Moulaert, University of Leuven - Prof. Rob Shields - Prof. Matthew Carmona - Prof. Vincent Nadin - Prof. Emeritus Guido Martinotti (Milan) - Prof. Emeritus Thomas Sieverts (Bonn) - ??? (from a public administration) - ??? (from a citizen's association/NGO organisation)

 Finally: For me, the section "Members" is far more important than that one of "Advisory Board". We are reproducing academic hierarchies and should have a debate, if this is necessary and how  this contributes to let others participate. On how to join us:  Here should ideally be an encouraging text to invite and pursuade people why it is worth to join us   and no information about membership fees. I do not know whether we can predefine that people  have to join at least two membership meetings. Again, we exclude those people that cannot travel  to due various reasons. The issue of "membership fees": I think we should discuss this in Helsinki with further members. I am not in favour in general, I always liked e.g. that AESOP YA were offering membership for free  via a login! I think, if we sharpen the profile of the network and give it a deeper underlying meaning,  it is clearer to people if they want to join in. I do not understand the message behind " ** please note this membership is NOT open only to young people". **  I do not want to have too much "control" from "above" and I am not sure, if this helps us develop. We   should discuss this. I see the role of the board maybe in one point:   1) (optional) Peer review research proposals and publications 2) (optional) Consultancy as regards further prospects and future core areas selection for the network ** formal structure: ** - if this is possible in the backend system, we should provide wider white margins left and right (give more clarity to the text)  ** orthography **   phsycial (physical)     Deltf University (Delft)     constitutiong (constituting) I like the short info units! criticism: too abstract-scientific, lots of abbreviations, very ridig language ("at least", "have to",...)  domain name like uc-ps.org looks more professional: I do not agree at all! It is a "clauselification"...you develop your   own abbreviation language, but you could just use words and people would link it with affect...i think these abbreviation (SKuOR   inclusive) do not help a lot because they result still from a technocratic way of public relations communications within the academia --- Sabine KnierbeinDr. phil. European Urban StudiesDipl.-Ing. (FH) Open Space Planning/Landscape Architecture Assistant Professor (PostDoc)Interdisciplinary Centre for "Urban Culture and Public Space" (SKuOR)Faculty of Architecture and Spatial PlanningVienna University of Technology Karlsgasse 13/2A-1040 WienAustria Email. sabine.knierbein@skuor.tuwien.ac.atTel. +43-1-58801-26816 Web. [] DVR: 0005886
 * Role and modes of engagement of the advisory board **
 * FORMAL STRUCTURE **
 * STYLE **

ceren: I also would like to have a logo - I'm gonna work on it when I have time. The 'plant logo' on the top left is misleading, as if we are an environmentalist organization. can we get rid of that one as well??? chiara: i think so. other wiki don't have it. so i guess is just a matter of adding our logo.

(I'd like to add three pictures here, each one emphasizing the core of our interests. do you have one you would like to use?)

ceren: same here, I was also thinking so. I think text part really should be short. We should communicate with short text + images, icons, etc. I have to check for photos. pls you also have a look. pls also see this one / image - text propotion is good. and i also would like to get rid off these adds on the right - but they are asking for money !!!!

chiara: with 5 dollar a month also Wiki let us use our own template file, have a dominio without wikispaces in the name, and get rid of adverts! so, i don't think we have necessarily to buy another dominio to have a professional-like website. i think that until we don't have money to pay someone to make (and to regularly update) a website, we should use this. otherwise we cannot update it ourselve, and even paying someone the first time, we will not be able to update it easily. unless someone of us knows how to do it!
 * if we charge 20 dollars each (10 euro?), we can have the website free from adverts for a year!** possible, I was thinking : to make the website more professional, we can pay more or less same amount to buy a templete file, rather than using wikispaces. for me, domain name like uc-ps.org looks more professional. but three of us should talk about this.
 * did you look at the tool with the arrow? we can easily write there to make a template page!! (we can ask someone to send us the code page from a nice one!)**

pls see this one - it is from a friend of mine. []. we have to investigate whether we can manage everything that we want with this kind of template. the price is like 60 euros in the companies like swishzone.com. I ve checked it already. to buy a domain name, network solutions might be an option. i've seen the website. it is nice, but not very easy to read. i think we should also think to color blind people, and making things easy. for instance, i like Project for Public Space, but I find their website too complicated, with too many things.

I also would like to check how many people (and from which destinations) are visiting the website, then we can use links like: [] **Action POINTS**:

- design a logo - find a template file that we like - choose a name (although i quite like **[UC-PS] Research Network** written like this) - find three pictures we like to put in the first page. (and maybe one for each page). I'd like the black and white, for instance! or maybe on a background color (orange?)


 * ABOUT THE cvS**

**ceren: each of these cv s and further information should be adjusted according to each other. some of us have birth year and location, i didnt write when i graduated, this and that. we need to decide about a general format. chiara: we can try to agree althogh a CV is always very personal! i don't want to put my age, for instance. maybe we could agree to add some minimal info and then add the rest in the individual pages I have created? (click on" read more" in my page, for example). personal pages could be different in content, but possibly similar in editing style) ceren: I was also thinking, after who we are, there must be another title like "advisory board', what do you think? we need to talk about possible names, like ali, quentin maybe, my director i can ask him, someone from government of amsterdam, any other ideas?

ACTIVITIES** **about "consultancy"** <span style="color: #ff0000; display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%; text-align: left; vertical-align: sub;">Ceren: I think this part should come later. Later on when we made some common projects together and able to add some list of activities here, we will change this part and call it as "services" for example. and within this section, we should clearly explain what kind of services we can offer, e.g. research, advisory on policy making this particular subject, or neighborhood development, etc. I think, we are not there yet. step by step...


 * ADVISORY BOARD**

__Senior academic members__ (planners, architects, sociologist, geographers) - Prof. Serena Vicari, University of Milano-Bicocca - Prof. Ali Madanipour, University of Newcastle - Prof. Frank Moulaert, University of Leuven - Prof. Rob Shields - Prof. Matthew Carmona - Prof. Vincent Nadin __Junior academic members__ ceren: I think, we dont need juniors - in total 6 - 8 names from academy and practice will be enough. __Consultants/professional organisations__ - Prof. Emeritus Guido Martinotti (Milan) - Prof. Emeritus Thomas Sieverts (Bonn) __Public administrations__ - - __Citizens organisations__ - - __Compulsory activity__: -Read and feedback on our annual short report of activities (to be written by the coordinating team) __Optional activities__: -Give feedback on any activity we promote -take part in the annual meeting -peer review research proposals or publications
 * Role and modes of engagement of the advisory board**