For technical questions, please see http://help.cowbird.com.

• What is Cowbird?

  Cowbird is a simple tool for telling stories, and a public library of human experience.

  We are a small community of storytellers, sharing heartfelt, personal stories.

  You can use Cowbird to keep a diary of your life, and to help us document the major sagas taking place in the world.

  You can also explore the many beautiful stories in the library using a number of novel browsing techniques.

  How does it work?

  Cowbird makes it easy for anyone to author beautiful multimedia stories, incorporating text, photos, sound, subtitles, roles, relationships, maps, tags, timelines, dedications, and characters — mixing elements of traditional storytelling with elements of technology.

  Cowbird automatically finds similarities and connections between your stories and the stories of others, weaving them together into a single collective story in which we all take part, and which is simply the human story.

  Why are you doing this?

  We’re trying to preserve and evolve the dying art of storytelling, using technology as friend instead of foe.

  We believe all people deserve equal access to the best storytelling tools, so the communication of ideas cannot be monopolized.

  We support the broad empowerment of individuals to voice their honest ideas about life, and we believe they deserve a clean, ad-free, uncluttered environment for sharing personal experience.

  By encouraging self-reflection and deeper connection, we hope to foster a feeling of empathy among people all over the world, so we can start to see our species — and indeed our planet — as a single living organism.

  Who's behind this?

  Cowbird was conceived and created by Jonathan Harris over the course of 2+ years, starting in early 2009.

  Who uses Cowbird?

  We are a loosely-organized but tightly-knit community of storytellers from all over the world. We are journalists, photographers, writers, artists, filmmakers, designers, explorers, and many other things. We hope you will join us

  How do you support this?

  We intend for Cowbird to be a self-sustaining creative community that does not rely on advertising. We have a number of interesting ideas for how this could work, and we will introduce them when the time is right.

  Why do you call it Cowbird?

  We chose the name Cowbird to express the combined qualities of a cow and a bird.

  Cows are slow, steady, and grounded, while birds are fast, free, and full of joy.

  Most of the Internet — including websites like Facebook and Twitter — are all bird and no cow, while more traditional formats like novels and operas are all cow and no bird.

  Cowbird combines these two extremes to form a new kind of storytelling medium — mixing the slow, deeply rooted, contemplative idea of a cow with the fast, efficient, playful idea of a bird.

  But aren't real-life cowbirds lazy and not very nice?

  It's true that real-life cowbirds are not the nicest. They are "brood parasitic", meaning they lay their eggs in other birds' nests. However, this lack of commitment to child-rearing also frees them up to travel widely, have lots of sex, and make many babies, so, evolutionarily, they are remarkably effective and not lazy at all! In North America, cowbird populations are exploding.

  With this Cowbird, you get to be the cowbird, and we'll be the nest. You lay your eggs (stories) in our nest (website), and we'll do the job of housing and raising your stories. We'll nourish, connect, and preserve them, and we'll help many people see them. Cowbird frees you from having to build a nest (website) for your stories. We'll do that for you, so you can travel more widely, have more sex, and make more babies and stories! :)

  Why not call it Birdcow?

  That would just be ridiculous.

  What kind of browser should I use?

  We recommend Chrome, Safari, or Firefox. Internet Explorer users can expect a kludgy experience.

  Why aren’t my stats updating?

  Cowbird automatically recomputes statistics every few minutes. If things don’t look right, check back in a bit. If that doesn’t work, see a doctor.

• Why tell stories?

  Stories help us be students and teachers of life. They help us untangle experience, and they help us find meaning. Telling a story increases awareness; hearing a story increases compassion. Stories are guidebooks for living and lifeboats for memory: they help us not to forget, and then later, not to be forgotten.

  As individuals, we have about 30,000 days, and each of us will choose to fill them differently. We will choose to make art, make love, make friends, or make families, but no matter what we make of our lives, our greatest creation will always be our life story — the personal journey that unifies everything we do, think, and feel.

  What kind of stories can I use Cowbird to tell?

  You can use Cowbird to tell any kind of story, but we're especially focused on documenting the major sagas taking place in the world, starting with The Occupy Saga.

  Cowbird is also great for keeping a diary of your life.

  Who owns my stories?

  By default, Cowbird stories use a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License.

  This means that others are free to remix and reuse your content, for non-commerical use, as long as they provide attribution to you. We believe this is the best way for ideas to exist in the commons.

  However, you are also free to choose more or less restrictive licenses under which to release your stories, and you can make this choice on a story-by-story basis, using our simple license chooser.

  Can I tell private stories?

  Yes. In the bottom-right corner of the story editor, there’s a “Public/Private” toggle, which lets you control who can see that particular story. This can be useful for keeping a private diary, or for when you want to work on a given story for a little while before releasing it.

  Can I tell stories in other languages?

  You may tell your stories in any language, though we find stories in English get the most attention. Some people translate their stories into English, while others leave them in the original language. If you have audio in a different language, you may want to add subtitles in English.

  What size photos should I upload?

  It’s good to upload photos that are at least 2000 pixels wide (at 72 dpi).

  Why no video?

  For now, we’re focusing on storytelling with photography, text, and sound. We might add video at some later point.

  How can I record audio for my stories?

  If you'd like to add audio to your stories, there are a number of good programs you can use to do this.

  For your mobile phone, there is TinyVox, for your Mac, there is GarageBand, and for Windows, there is SoundRecorder.

  There is also the free program, Audacity, which is great for recording and editing audio, and which works on any platform.

  Any of these programs can output MP3 files, which you can then upload to Cowbird.

  If you use one of these programs to record directly into your computer, we strongly suggest you use an external microphone, instead of using your computer's built-in mic (which will have poor sound quality).

  For the very best sound quality, we recommend investing in a digital recorder, such as a Roland MP3 recorder.

  Also, you should consider editing your recorded audio, so it sounds a little more like NPR, and a little less like a rambling voicemail :).

  What are some tips on good storytelling practices?

  Check out our tips page for straight-up advice on how to tell great Cowbird stories and how to create great Cowbird characters.

  How do I create a story?

  Click the “Tell a story” button in the top-right corner of the page.

  How do I edit a story?

  Click the pencil button on the right side of any given story to open the story editor.

  How do I add my story to a saga?

  In the story editor, check the little "Include in saga" checkbox at the top of the window.

  How do I delete a story?

  In the story editor, click the "Delete this story" link in the bottom-right corner.

  How do I delete a memory?

  I'm not sure.

• How is this different from Wikipedia?

  Wikipedia was a big inspiration for Cowbird. Like Wikipedia, Cowbird is also a kind of encyclopedia, but instead of collecting canonical information, Cowbird collects personal experience.

  Cowbird is like a Wikipedia for life.

  How is this different from social networks?

  As an alternative to the shorter, faster, more mindset that increasingly dominates our (digital) lives today, Cowbird is a place to slow down and go deeper — less about sharing what you link to and like, and more about sharing what life’s really like.

  Cowbird is a place to find and tell stories. Real stories. The kind that take time to tell and that don’t disappear the moment they’re told.

  Many social networking tools encourage incessant, continuous updates, under of the premise of fostering “nowness”, but we prefer a different kind of nowness.

  Live your life. Take your time. See, and feel deeply. Later, with the clarity of hindsight, tell stories to make sense of your experience.

  How is this different from blogs?

  Blogs are reverse-chronological diaries, consisting of individual entries, arranged in a vertical list.

  Cowbird stories are lush, non-linear, richly interconnected environments, complete with maps, timelines, dedications, characters, and many other components.

  What are dedications?

  On Cowbird, every story can be dedicated to someone, so every story is like a little gift — a throwback to the days when people sent each other letters.

  We think the world would be a more beautiful place if people gave each other stories instead of stuff, so we’re trying to create a gift economy of stories.

  What does it mean to join an author’s audience?

  When you join an author's audience, that author's stories will show up as part of your "News". It's a great way to follow the authors you admire.

  Can I invite my friends?

  We'll be handing out invites to Cowbird sometime soon, so you'll be able to invite your friends directly.

  In the meantime, if you know someone who’d be a good fit for Cowbird, please encourage them to request an invite.

  Or, if you prefer, feel free to send us an email with your recommendation and we can get in touch with them.

  Can I contact an author whose stories I like?

  We're planning to create a messaging system sometime soon. For now, try dedicating them a story!

  What are characters?

  On Cowbird, authors can create versions of other people to include in their stories — we call these Characters.

  A given person (John Doe) might have many different characters that represent him. Until he signs up for Cowbird, there is no “official” version of him, the way there would be on Wikipedia and Facebook.

  When John Doe joins Cowbird, he can “claim” the different characters that represent him, and merge them with his main Cowbird profile.

  How do I claim a character?

  Sign in to Cowbird, visit that character’s page, click the claim this character link in the bottom-left corner, and then follow the instructions.

  How can I keep up with Cowbird?

  You can follow us on Tumblr, Twitter, and Facebook, and you can sign up for our weekly newsletter at the bottom of our homepage.

  How many lines of code is Cowbird?

  At the time of launch, Cowbird was 99,434 lines of PHP, 25,740 lines of Javascript, and 20,150 lines of CSS — over 145,000 lines of code in all.

  Is there a disk space quota?

  Not for now.

  What’s for dinner?

  Food for thought.