Brief Summary of Our Group’s Purpose
This group will create transcripts of important progressive speeches and interviews which would otherwise not be transcribed. Our purpose is to support many individuals and groups. We crowd-source funds to pay our skilled transcriptionists more than a living wage. (Longer group introduction here.)
Schedule
We will post our stories at about 9:15 a.m. ET, about midway between the Cheers and Jeers story and the Connect! Unite! Act! story.
Why You Might Want an Anonymous Gmail Account
In building this community, we will avoid using group kosmail. If you have never used group kosmail, count yourself lucky. If you have used group kosmail, you are probably applauding but maybe also a little bit worried about how to get an anonymous account.
How to Create an Anonymous Gmail Account
First, think about what you want your anonymous name to be. Do you want it to be very similar in form to your Daily Kos name? For instance, I chose my gmail account to look like my Daily Kos name (2thanks.dkos@gmail.com). You could do that too with your Daily Kos name. I hope you will pick a name similar to your Daily Kos username, because that will make keeping track easier for me and every other Kossack you share it with. It just depends on how private you want to be.
Next, decide on a password that you will be able to remember. I recommend picking a password based on the first letters of an easy sentence, with slight alteration of letters. For instance, write a sentence like “I need a Gmail account because I want to support the Community Transcripts Project.” Write that down in your saving place. Select only the initial letters, to achieve the memorable-for-you combination InaGabIwtstCTP. Strong passwords consist of upper and lower case as well as numerals and special keyboard symbols. You already have upper and lower case letters, so you need a numeral and a symbol key. You could change the “to” to a “2” and change the second I to a capital 8 or “*” simply by moving your finger up one key from capital I to * (on the QWERTY keyboard). Now you have a strong password that is easy to remember. “InaGab*w2stCTP” — By the way, that is not my password. ;o)
Go to the Google sign-up page, but do not enter your real name, previous account names, cell phone numbers, or email addresses. Once back in time, I signed up for an anonymous Gmail account and gave them my self-named Gmail account as a backup email, and Google extracted my real name and included my real name in my so-called anonymous emails. (Ouch!)
The following method of getting an anonymous email account is probably not going to prevent certain institutions from finding out who you are and reading your messages, and you know what I am talking about, but this method will keep you anonymous for casual users.
The Google robot is not smart enough to figure out that you are using a made-up name. With this method, you must remember your password, write down your password, tattoo yourself with your password, or whatever, because you will not give Google an account-recovery email address. Therefore, Google will not be able to send you a rescue email.
Here are the steps I took to get my anonymous Gmail account:
I went to the gmail account sign-up page and found the frame on the right.
I duplicate the graphic here, for readers with visual issues:
Some of the following words represent labels associated with the fields, and some represent what I inserted in the boxes to get my username of 2thanks.dkos@gmail.com:
Name
First Last
2thanks dkos
Choose your username
@gmail.com
(Type)
2thanks.dkos
for
2thanks.dkos@gmail.com
(Google inserts @gmail.com automatically)
Create a password
Something2479memorable
Confirm your password
Something2479memorable
Birthday
Month Day Year
(whatever)
Gender
I am...
(Whatever)
Mobile phone
Leave Blank!
Your current email address
Leave blank!
Prove you are not a robot.
(Respond to the prompt, press Next Step, and continue the steps.)
DO NOT FORGET YOUR PASSWORD! Google will be unable to email you a password, since you did not give them an email address.
Send an email from this account to another of your email addresses to verify that your name is NOT included automatically by your friendly neighborhood Google.
If you have any problems, please let me know. I used this method about 5 years ago and then again recently for the communitytranscriptsproject.dk@gmail.com address. If it does not work, please let me know that too.
Note about Gmail from Avilyn in the Comments:
If you do specify a back-up email and they extract your name from that, you can change the name your anonymous GMail sends as: Go to Settings → “Accounts and Import”. On that screen is an option for “Send mail as” which shows your currently displayed info, and allows you to edit it. So the email I use for DK/Twitter, for example, is Avilyn238 at GMail, and while it originally pulled in my real name, I was able to change it so that my display name is just “Avilyn” when I send emails.
Political Note
I know some people do not want to use Gmail for political reasons. That’s fine, don’t. The process of obtaining an anonymous email address is probably quite similar to applications for emails from other providers.
Your Action Steps to Grow This Community
Wherein I say some audacious things, things that may not be PC at DK.
- Recommend this story.
- Recommend the Tip Jar.
- Post a comment. Pressed for time? A simple "Thank you," "Good idea," or "I agree" is quick.
- Drop a comment with content that others can respond to. Start a conversation. Ask a question.
- Make a comment that continues a conversation started in Cheers and Jeers. Link to Cheers and Jeers.
- Hang a community-building comment on the "Please post community announcements here" comment.
- Post this story on FaceBook.
- Tweet this story.
- Read the Introduction to the Community Transcripts Project.
- Cast your vote in the first Community Transcripts Project poll if you have not done so already.
- Return to this group's stories at least once a week at 9:15 a.m.
- Bookmark our list of all Community Transcripts Project stories so that you can find the current story quickly.
- Bookmark our list of transcripts and create content of text and images for comments and stories from those transcripts.
- Follow the group.
- Follow me.
- Check your stream regularly.
- Recommend all the comments in this story.
- Comment on who your favorite progressive speaker is.
- If someone asks a question in the comments, and you know the answer, please answer their question.
- Post a video of your favorite progressive speech or interview.
- Completely ignore disruptive commenters. (A good time to practice NOT posting when angry, perhaps?)
- Give yourself an anonymous email address, as described above.
- Send 2thanks your anonymous email address by kosmail me or by email.
- Make a PayPal "friends" donation to the Community Transcripts Project using the email communitytranscriptsproject.dk@gmail.com.
- Mention in a comment that you have taken one or more of the above action steps, not to brag but to lead and remind.
- Ramp up your participation: Take one more action step to support this CTP story than you took in your last CTP story.
- Remember what Wee Mama said: "Is it true? Is it kind? Is it necessary?"
- Bring your expertise to grow this community.
My Next Action Steps to Grow Our Community
- With TrueBlueMajority's permission, reformat and add her 3 transcripts of speeches to our Community Transcripts.
- Write tomorrow's story, a synoptic or at-a-glance comparison of the Daily Kos communities that support progressive members of Daily Kos.
How to Make a Donation to the Community Transcripts Project
PayPal’s instructions: “To send money to friends or family, log in to your PayPal account, click Send Money & Request at the top of the page, choose to Send money to friends or family and fill out the information. We'll send an email alerting them of the payment. When they log in to their PayPal account, they'll receive their money.” The email to use for donations to the Community Transcripts Project via PayPal is communitytranscriptsproject.dk@gmail.com.
Final Notes
I will eventually request your anonymous email address, so I put these instructions in a Daily Kos story for easy access.
If you are the type of person who likes to be reminded when Community Transcripts Project diaries are posted, please send me your anonymous email address. I will not share it with anyone or sell it. I will be sending all such reminders as blind copies. Ask me to put you on our eblast mailing.
If someone asks a question in the comments and you know the answer, please feel free to answer that question.
We will publish future stories of the Community Transcripts Project at 9:15 a.m. ET (barring unpredictable caregiving).
This is a community story, fun with a purpose, an open thread. If you have been afraid to comment, this is a great place to make a first comment.
I am sorry I am late today. I hope I have not inconvenienced you.
Power with, not power over,
2thanks
About Today’s Poll
To vote in this pole, you may refer to Introduction to the Community Transcripts Project.
[Edited on 06/07/2016: I copied Avilyn’s paragraph of instructions from the comments.]