This may be premature to rush in guns blazing like this, but prior to finding this reddit, I had been involved in several projects that may be of interest to zoos. Most of them privacy related.
One was a DNS overlay on i2p that basically set up a zoo darknet indistinguishable from the normal one. Another was a chat client, but it didn't get too far (it had bindings into said darknet). I did work on bitcoin multisig support, but I can't tell you under which name because it's non-zoo in that profile.
Before tonight, I was about to can and destroy most of these. Then I found reddit.
You see, I had a total of 3 zoos who both talked to me and had technical knowhow. Of these, only 1 agreed to actually help in any sort of way, and that wasn't enough to vouch for the legitimacy of the projects. In anonymity type projects, you really need someone knowledgable to look through your efforts and audit them, or they are not going to be trusted. My reputation outside of here with the zoos I was hanging with was also quite awful.
Anyhow, the end result of all that is not much. I canned most of my efforts already and was even dumb enough to trash some of them outright (one of my SSDs full of beta software got the cryptoerase treatment and was resold), but I still have a lot of handy source code snippets. I do have one I2P darknet accessible dedicated server as well, but it's due to be shutdown at the end of the month if I don't find a good use for it (it costs $100 from my bitcoin account monthly to keep operational, but is in a zoo friendly, content legal country and registered to a fictitious person).
tl;dr
My main goal with this thread is asking what sort of technology/programming project type things you guys would like to see? For the advancement of the condition of zoos in general mind you, not just freebie anything. It doesn't HAVE to be directly related to zoophilia, but useful to it. Example: A encrypted relay chat comes to mind (providing both anonymity and encryption, ideally). I have some ideas on that, but really, I need feedback first.
I'm available for such work probono. I won't charge and the work will be open source and probably MIT or some other permissive license. What kind of "zoo-friendly" development projects would be helpful for the community in general? What would you like to see? It can be anything from an advocacy type video game RPG (though I'd need heh, people who can draw) to a full fledged overlay on the internet, I don't care. Just shoot some ideas out there and maybe I can help. I may not be able to acomplish all this but ideas never hurt. I'm kinda stuck in a state of "what do I do next?" and I could use input!
I know pretty much every language around, but am partial to the .net series of languages (and java in a pinch) for quick jobs. In that context, any ideas?
edited-in "internet ready" tl;dr
I has campooter and can programz. Pleese tellz me wat a zoofile cud use?
Your TL;DR was almost as long as your Main story. Thats not how this works.
I can't disagree with a factual statement, but that WAS supposed to be shorter. These sort of things happen for me past midnight.
It's not just being late of course: I'm a very verbose person by nature (one non-zoo friend of mine once told me I should be british because the way I speak. She even drew me a deer with a monacle to go with the theme. Shame I lost it).
Ahem. Anyways, there wasn't an acronym for "start here if you only want the point of the essay" so I went with "tl;dr"
Maybe it would be more appropriate to make it "backstory" and "point of post" but then I'm just sounding silly...
I'd edit it down, but I feel silly doing that after the fact. Especially since half the reason it's that long is it's super-late here, and if I edit it now I'll probably end up with it LONGER.
I'm just leaving it for now. It's still a good goal, is it not?
Let me try this again:
tl;dr
Don't tell me what to do, I'm my own deer damnit! (this is written in jest)
EDIT: I broke down and fixed it. I'm quite pleased with the outcome.
You're all over the place bro. Haha. First of all, I have no idea what technical jargon you are using. My only advice for someone skilled like you who wants to set up a website is:
1 - Don't use it for porn, there are enough sites for that.
2- I'm not personally into games, I like the real thing when it comes to animal interaction.
Would you consider setting up a nonprofit site that promotes the positive side of zoosexuals? I think combating the negative stereotypes should be everyone's focus. Maybe a site that allows anons to donate to select animal welfare groups (like sanctuaries). What about a site that facilitates the creation of pro-zoosexual internet ads?
Not a website necessarily. I have many skills. And yes, that post was far more scatterbrained than even usual for me... lol
Bottom line, I could do a few things. But mostly I was asking it from a development perspective. I suppose I'm asking if there are any programs I could make that a zoophile would find handy. I was thinking along the lines of perhaps a "zoochat" client (of course it could be used for more than just zoo), or maybe zoo friendly messageboard system that ran distributed across all the clients running it, requiring no hosting (one of my other ideas). There are all sorts of solutions to problems I can acomplish... pretty much anything is a possibility. (the video game was just an example, it's not very practical).
I do like the prozoo charity idea. I thought of running one earlier to be honest. "bitcoin multisig" is something I mentioned. It's basically bitcoin (a semi-anonymous currency in it's own right, you'll have to google that) set up as a donation account that a select few individuals have to approve spending on with digital "signatures" (think a lockbox with multiple unique keys). Sounds like a great idea and I could definently set that up and give a guide on how to donate real world money to it, but there are some diffilculties:
We'll need a website to facilitate such efforts. I can set one up... I DO possess the dedicated server to do so, but I'm WAY uncomfortable with doing it in clearweb (standard internet). I'd have to do it on one of the various darknets... and then you run into the problem of people not wanting to set up the various darknets on their computer in the first place. It is very frustrating because it's a good idea!
EDIT: Thought after the fact: We could just post the fund address somewhere like Reddit and facilitate the discussion of how to spend the money/votes and such on there. Is that doable?
I like the idea of a Zoo Video Game RPG.
I do too... though since it would be in the concept of advocacy, it would have to be handled tastefully in a way that nonzoos would play it!
And I would need artists... I can't draw anything. :(
Cool idea... but how do you make a zoo game for non-zoos?! Seems mutually exclusive to me.
I had ideas. You don't make the main character zoo, you make a plotline in which you find one of the major characters to be zoo, and make him highly respectable or someone you can empathize with. This places the main char in a moral quandary.
One of my earlier ideas was a space trading firefly-esqeue adventure RPG, in which two races of humanity are battling for the galaxy. One of the main warring races was referred to as the "Zeta Empire" and it had more than one zooish impilcation (they had an extreme emphasis on the preservation of natural habitat, and each governor had to "partner" with an animal to get an idea of what they were trying to protect)
This story got more developed with time, but I couldn't push it too hard in the zoo direction without changing dev teams. Yes, a game was produced at one point but with very little zoo stuff beyond just hints and I had to keep it that way because I had nonzoos on my highschooler dev team (we did it as an educational project).
The engine was pretty impressive, but I can't use it because I don't possess full rights to it. There's actually a thread about this at knotty.me:
https://forum.knotty.me/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=916
I get you. Introducing elements of nontraditional sexuality. Subversion. I like it!
I like it too... enough I am considering starting a kickstarter effort for it. I could use a fund source like bitcoin and do the development for free, use the fund to hire artists.
I'd even be willing to let a vetted community member act as a fund overseer, and chip in myself for that matter.
Hell, it might actually work.
See people? Scatterbrained threads sometimes CAN lead to good ideas!
I have a LITTLE technical experience. Most of my work has been in mathematics, but some of that has included programming models in MATLAB, and later using C# and Silverlight for solving a cost optimization problem with a simple interface. Sadly, I haven't even taken Computer Science III, so no l33t h4x0r skills here.
Since then, I've been more focused on database management, and even then just as a hobby. The biggest real programming thing I've done myself has been the beginnings of a random RPG character background generator, a project long since abandoned. So I'm willing to help, but I don't really know how I can be of service technically.
I don't really need help outside of art for a game (that will probably never happen), but I do appreciate the offer.
This is more about what I can do for you! :)
Oh... in that case, did I mention I can do voiceovers? I'm pretty damn good with voices. The art should come first, of course (and I can't help in any way with the visual arts), but I could assist creatively in other ways, if needed.
Sure! The game I had in mind is on the backburner until I get artists but I DO need a voiceover guy too. Thanks for the offer! I'll write your name down for a rainy day. :)