There were a bunch of spammy users who had registered over the last weeks.  I just deleted about 200 users and put a CAPTCHA on the account registration form.  Hopefully that will slow or stop the creation of unused accounts.

Brandon joined us Tuesday afternoon, so we're really down to the uber-geeky design conversations and work. And a lot of cake eating.

Here's our view this morning. The weather has been so refreshing - very cool temperatures, with thunderstorms almost daily.

Phil Cubeta wrote an article on his Gift Hub blog that mentioned Gerry and SourceTree Commons. I appreciate his characterization of open source folks, including this:

"They have no clue about how to write a grant request. They are not nonprofits. It is just them, doing what they can do with their talents in small self-funded projects, to create online networks and offline collaboratives to protect the common good."

When I stop puttering around the kitchen (I'm obsessed with feeding people) and look around at what's happening at the Tao of Pow, I'm deeply moved. A diverse group of people, coming together to give our time and ideas to create something.

In defining the gift economy of SourceTree Commons, the conversation is focused on social contracts, contribution and participation. Any discussions about revenue are had in a context of giving, of ensuring that any commercial activites do not corrupt the foundation of giving which defines open source.

Here's all of us, before David and Kachina leave us.

Pizza Night 

Mike and David treated us to some awesome pizza dough - enough for everyone to make their own custom pizza.

Today's conversations focused on identifying the flows of participation for SourceTree Commons, identifying what things we want to track about projects and the participation of users, and how to implement reputation metrics to shape those flows.

It's also been fun to look at successful open source communities like Drupal to see how they're managing development and participation, and scheme about something even better.

I'm not sure I can give a complete report of the activities of the day, since I wasn't in all of the conversations, but I'd love to share some highlights from the day:

After many hours of shopping for food, packing the RV, and unpacking everything, we're finally settled in. Everyone is yawning, so I think we'll probably retire early.

So far, it's Jim R, Art B, Mike B, Gerry G, Michael M, Aaron S and me. The house is very cool, and it's exciting to finally be here.

Some photos:

Jim and Arthur chillin' on the couch 

This afternoon is the start of our Treehouse Build. Right now I should be continuing to pack the fairly massive amounts of food, clothing and stuff I'm taking up to Breckenridge. I just heard Mike stumble through the door (wow, it's early!) and so I should stop reviewing the web site one time, and get back to work.

We're very excited about the Build, and I....am just nervous about whether we'll have enough food. Tends to happen with me in charge of food - and then we have too much.

Yesterday, I returned from a week-long road trip to Oklahoma for my tribe's yearly festival and powwow. After washing off all the red mud, I'm back to preparing for our Tree House Build, which is now less than a week away.

And I'm beginning to get very excited.