Tag Frappr

By Janine Kahn in Main
Our Minneapolis sister paper City Pages has an eyebrow-raising story today about regular folks from cities across the nation who truly believe they are superheroes – and dress the part. We checked out web editor Jeff Shaw’s Google Map of heroes and found two from our neck of the woods:
Ragensi (top photo) is a “paranormal investigator and masked adventurer” from Huntington Beach. His interests include “lock picking, martial arts, drawing, sculpting, money making schemes, video games, occult studies, masked adventuring, zines, banishing evil back to whence it came from, radio, traveling through space and time, etc.”
He also runs an eBay store. Check out Ragensi’s Frappr profile.
Wolf Spider is a “masked adventurer in training” from Orange County (no specific area noted). His interests: “truth, justice, charity, helping others, setting a good example, building a strong community, becoming an icon that inspires change, protecting the innocent, and rehabilitating the troubled.”
Wolf Spider wants to meet people that are “sick of corruption among those who should be incorruptible. People who are tired of laws that protect the guilty and punish the everyday citizen.” So probably not a certain ex-sheriff, eh?
See a slideshow of more “real” heroes here.
http://blogs.ocweekly.com/navelgazing/main/real-life-oc-superheroes/

Tothian and many other RLS are stepping up to try and help with more sophisticated communication tools and I think this is great.  I have some expereince with this and see this as a growing interest in the community.  Be that as it is, I’d like everyone interested in this to ask themselves two things.  One, who in the rls community has experience running boards or websites like this?  And two, if we are suffering from lack of experience in this, would we want some seasoned guidance?
If ‘no one’ and ‘yes’ are the overall answers to the questions above, please take the initiative and contact me.  I can and will help get something ‘real’ going.  Blitz, Tothian and others are are scrambling to make a difference here and I have some unique experience that can contribute.
Its important to say, I’m not trying to create another brand of something others have been working on.  If I could caution everyone on one thing and one thing only, it would be running off in different directions.  The last thing we need is everyone proposing something new.  I’m trying to help unify the many people who see a need.  Hopefully, a combined effort will lead us to a quality platform and a connected community.
Why even create a tool?  Don’t we have MySpace and Frappr?  First, I feel its important to create a virtual Hall of Superheroes where we control access.  I want someone (or a council of someones) to have some control over who gets to read what.  Forums are great for this as are rl chat systems like TeamSpeak.  I believe this would lead to better communication and better trust over allowing us to put things out there and ask for help without feeling like we are being watched or monitored.  If this was not already obvious, I’m sure there are least a few law enforcement folks watching the super hero movement on MySpace.
Like Tothian, I’m not so much concerned about leading this effort as much as contributing.  I can offer my significant experience in this and hopefully that can make a difference.  My experience?  I led one of the top City of Heroes portals for over a year (forums, roster, news, live chat, all that junk) and, as my secret identity, I have created and managed a business website that maintains a forum (for three years) as well as host and present at conferences (7 years).
So if you would like, coordinate through me, or if there is a solid movement, I’ll give input if invited.  I’ll gladly do whatever I can to get something ‘quality’ up and and running if this is something people want to see.
I realize not everyone in our community is a team player (and thats just fine).  We do need to unite on this, however, and get behind a process that has us coming together – not leading off in different directions.