Paramira Writing together, and keeping what was written
Pads for a project's members, on Etherpad, and an archive when the work ends.
Live
Write together, live, in a project's pads; when the work ends, the project is closed and its pads kept for five years.
- For
- a group writing meeting notes, a plan or a draft together
- Built on
- Etherpad, with projects and sign-in from this site
- Your data
- what you write, with your name on your changes; no IP addresses
- Who can read it
- the project's members, and whoever runs the pads server
- Licence
- Etherpad Apache-2.0; our packages MIT (the Etherpad client) and AGPL-3.0-or-later (projects)
What it is
Pads where several people write at once and see each other type, for the work of a project: meeting notes, a plan, a first draft. Each project has its own pads; only its members open them. When the work ends, the project is closed: every pad is archived with its history, and nobody edits it any more.
The vision
A group shouldn't need someone's Google Doc to write together, and work done together shouldn't vanish when a chat is deleted. The pads belong to the project, the project to its members, and the record of what was written is kept, for a known time, for the people who did it.
Using it
Start a project (contributors and admins): it is private at first, only you and the members you add see it. A chosen idea starts one by itself.
Add members by username, then make a pad and open it: it opens on the pads' own address, already signed in.
Make the project active when other contributors may see it; an admin may publish it (title and purpose only), after a vote if they wish.
Close the project when the work ends: every pad is archived with who wrote what and when, for its members and admins, for five years.
What to know
Whoever runs the pads server can read every pad. That is how Etherpad works. For writing nobody else should read, use the community apps, where the server can't.
An archive is kept five years, then deleted; anyone can ask to have their name erased sooner.
Nothing on the pads' pages comes from another site, and the pads server keeps no IP addresses.
How it's built
Part | What it does |
|---|---|
Etherpad | The pads, as it ships, with no plugins, on an address of its own |
| Projects, members, who sees what, closing, the five years |
| Talks to Etherpad's API, which never leaves the server |
| The project pages, and the one-time hand-over that opens a pad |
The site makes the pad's session and hands it over once; the pads' address answers only what a pad needs, never Etherpad's own admin or API.
Run it yourself
The recipe is in the repository (recipes/pads/): Etherpad's settings, its database, the proxy's routes, and the module for your site. It needs a site with the same sign-in as this one.
Get help
We can set it up for your organisation, for a minimum donation.
Where paramira.org uses it
paramira's own projects write in it, from a chosen idea to a grant application.