Re: Re: what is it that LiteStep does for the non-programmer?

All right. If I understand you correctly, you are saying that there are
"scripts, modules, graphics and groups of module settings" that will
allow me to perform some task(s) better than I could without LiteStep?

My keyboard has a number of user-defined keys along the side and top 
that can be assigned to scripts, URLs, or "gadgets" that many other 
people have written and which are conveniently gathered together for me 
on some secret MS site somewhere.

I also use Firefox. I have several toolbars I can display or not that are
composed entirely of icons for gadgets from Google--most of which is
simple drag-and-drop of the application icon to the toolbar.

I understand that many of LiteStep's themes use Windowblinds to control
the "look and feel" of windows, so it should be safe to say that making
these sorts of changes are not what drives LiteStep.

Now the gadgets from MSN and from Google are exceptionally easy to
install and use, especially after you sift out the poorly
designed/executed ones. My LiteStep experience is obviously limited (no
snickering in the back, there!) yet so far I would say that the LiteStep
gadgets are on the whole neither better nor worse than those emerging
from the "search-engine wars."

So what is it that LiteStep can do for me that Windowblinds,
configurable keyboards, and gadgets from Google or MSN (or others, I
suspect) can not do?

If I am new to this community and have not yet met the wonderful people
who now are doing the work around LiteStep I obviously don't see any
benefit in throwing my lot in with those already "here". Once I know
them I am pleased (and somewhat humbled for some of my own online
behaviors in other communities), but I can't know them until I get here.
Therefore if I am going to make the move to join (another) online
community, I really need a different reason than "the people are wonderful."

Please do not imagine that I am anything but completely sincere in that
adjective.

My experience, even in the roll of the newcomer who asks lots of
questions, many of which end up being in substantial, is that the level
of community-feel and "we expect each other to be civil" cultural
elements around LiteStep is higher than I have seen in most other places
online.

So this (wonderful and supportive community) is a tricky benefit to rest
on: The small community feel tautologically will only continue as long
as efforts to attract many new users are unsuccessful.

*Any community's culture or climate of general good will and
gentility/civility can be maintained only as long as the people who
value those features are in the great majority.
*This goodwill feel will not allow the community to take forceful
measures against newcomers who do not (perhaps, yet) share those values
and expectations.
*Yet, if the number of these new people rises dramatically (with the
success in attracting many new people to LiteStep) then that majority of
people "who get it" becomes a distinct minority.
*With the "almost-new" participants in the majority, the culture of the
"old folks" will be diluted to the point of un-recognizability, lost in
the sea of new voices within the community.
*In that the new majority have not been acculturated, their own
sensibilities and scripts for behaving in online communities will
reflect those from which they came--the very aspects/feel that is most
prized by the LiteStep community.

Brian, in particular you mentioned doing some tasks with greater
ease/effectiveness. Would you say that LiteStep's learning
curve/efficiency-efficacy ratio is longer and broader than that of
others? Why is that?

Thank you yet again for your patience.


Brian Wolven wrote:
> Roy Gathercoal wrote:
>>
>> What would you folks say is the biggest reason someone who isn't a 
>> programmer should download and install LiteStep?
>>
>> For someone who was not able to "take complete control of everything" 
>> by writing their own scripts, why LiteStep?
> 
> Because you can use all the other bits and pieces (scripts, modules, 
> graphics, groups of module settings) that *other* people have come up 
> with to perform a certain task faster/better/easier. And in the process, 
> probably come up with a few ideas of your own. LS shows you the 
> possibiLitieS.
> 
> 
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