CAMsoc Help Wanted Page

CAMsoc exists to help Christians using computers in the service of Christ. All of the resources on the CAMsoc web site and associated projects such as the Christian Telecommunications Toolkit and the Computer Re-use Optimisation Project are available free of charge, with no membership or subscription fees. However, the sheer number of resources available means that it's a huge amount of work trying to keep up with cataloguing and coding everything. You may be able to help make CAMsoc a more useful resource to other people. Currently, CAMsoc needs:

Reviewers: There are a growing number of books related to computing and Christianity, and CAMsoc should be helping users to choose the best ones available. (That is the motivation for creating the Christian Computing Bibliography.) If you have the skills necessary to provide helpful and relevant book reviews, please submit them. (Any reviewer has the right to put their own associate or affiliate IDs on the links from such book reviews, so that any commissions from sales prompted by those reviews will go to them.) In the same way, there is a huge volume of Church-related software out there, and the Church Related Software Index is intended to help ministries find the software they need, with descriptions, reviews, and links to the hundreds of packages available. That means that hundreds of software reviews are needed as well.
Programmers: Some of the resources on the CAMsoc site (such as the Christian Computing Bibliography and the appendices of the Christian Telecommunications Toolkit) should be online databases, rather than static web pages. Therefore, CAMsoc needs one or more programmers familiar with MySQL and PHP to rework these resources and make them more useful.
Researchers: In order to get the facts correct for things like the Church Related Software Index, the "Christian Computing Industry Stockwatch" in CAMsoc Update, and the appendices of the Christian Telecommunications Toolkit, a huge amount of research needs to be done. This ranges from surfing software developers' web sites looking for those companies which are listed on assorted stock exchanges (and surfing to financial web sites to get current stock quotes) to calling up the telephone numbers of Christian Bulletin Board Systems (BBSs) to see if they are still operating.
Landlords: It is becoming increasingly clear that there is a crying need for a computer refurbishing ministry in the Vancouver area. It is not enough to point people to the resources in the Computer Re-use Optimisation Project, because people have computers to give away now, and other people need computers now. So, if you have warehouse/workshop space in the Lower Mainland which you can donate to the cause, please contact me.
Refurbishers: Assuming that we can find a place to work, if you have – or want to learn – computer repair and upgrade skills, and live in Greater Vancouver, please let me know. In the same way, there is a need to establish computer refurbishing ministry sites in many other cities around the world, so if you are located elsewhere, and want to get into this kind of ministry, let me know, and if somebody starts up a work in your area and I hear about it, I'll put you in touch with them.
Developers: If the CAMsoc web sites are to be useful to people, then people need to know that they are available. At the same time, if CAMsoc is going to expand into new areas of ministry like computer refurbishing, then there are bound to be expenses, such as utilities, even if the work space is donated. Therefore, CAMsoc needs people who are gifted in raising awareness and funds.
Artists: It only takes a brief look at the CAMsoc web sites to know that I am not a graphic designer, nor the son of a graphic designer. The CAMsoc web sites are designed to be "browser neutral", so that they will be navigable, quick loading, and easy to read, no matter what computer or web browser a visitor is using. But within those parameters, there is no particular reason that the sites need to be ugly. If you are a graphic designer, and can help to make the CAMsoc web sites look more attractive without burdening users with graphic intensive pages or animations, please contact me.

CAMsoc is a purely voluntary effort. There is no pay or reward (in this life) for helping out. But if you can offer some help, please contact me.

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