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Looking at the paths out of the current mess

We need an effective way of communicating that all value on the #fedivers is cultural, the tech itself is a product of this #openweb culture. The #activertypub speck is an accident of this culture not being swamped become the #mainstreaming was not interested at the time

We have an increasing number of funders pouring money down the drain in #fedivers tech, when the source of the value #openweb culture that created this new “commons” is swamped by the mainstreaming agenda.

This #fediforum thing is going to be a hardcore invisible clash of cultures, all the #fashernitas who stood back from the #ActivertyPub push for the last 5 years are now flooding in, as are refugees from the encryptions mess. The language might be  #fedvers  BUT most of the people will not be. Let’s try and create focus, small steps.

#Mozfest Is on if you want to see posers, #fashernitas and general #NGO pointless. I did sign up but when the time came to log in I could not be bothered. I do use the browser, though.

We do need to express contempt for what a lot of the assumptions and agenda (often unspoken) our #NGO and #fashernitas crew push. Yes, it’s crap and pointless, so please say this, in most cases the “emperor’s” are not wearing any clothes. Express yourself, it’s needed.

The is going to be an increasing mix of #mainstreming people moving back to the #openweb we need much better tools and process to deal with the mess they bring with them as well as our own mess we have here. The is going to be a lot of prat’ish behaviour from both inside our #openweb movement and outside from the #dotcons we need a way to mediate this… as it’s obviously damage dressed up in #NGO clothing.

The problem with this negative circle is that it is self reinforcing, the prats, don’t like being pointed at as prats, and in reaction they dig deeper into prat’ish behaver. This damage is not helpful, we need fresh thinking, what do we do when “our” people act as prats. Ideas please?

The is a solution to this, the #OGB which mediates prat’ish behaver by democracy https://unite.openworlds.info/Open-Media-Network/openwebgovernancebody​

 

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#OGB is a projects that grew from #socialhub

#SocialHub is a community-driven space that seeks to promote #activertypub, working with new models of governance and organization that empower communities. It is part of the larger #fediverse, which is a network of decentralized social media platforms that do not conform to traditional hierarchies and power structures.

The #OGB project, which is come from #SocialHub, aims to develop a more decentralized and autonomous model of governance by leveraging open-source technologies and building on existing fediverse infrastructure. The project seeks to find a balance between structure and flexibility, with a focus on involving community members in decision-making and empowering them to “natively” shape their digital spaces.

The project is guided by the principles of the , which emphasize openness, transparency, and inclusivity. However, there is a need to resist the urge to impose traditional liberal solutions and instead embrace original thinking that is native to the #fediverse and #openweb.

The project is still in development and seeks coding input to build this community best practice grassroots producer governance model to help focus on sustainable, inclusive, and equitable. Lets keep project focus on separating off-topic threads, discussions from mainstream dogmas and “common sense” to prevent trolling and maintain focus.

The project is available on Open Media Network’s repository on Gitea https://unite.openworlds.info/Open-Media-Network/openwebgovernancebody, and a remainder we like to focus on #KISS online tools to facilitate horizontal governance.

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A coversation on trust and tech with #OMN projects

Remember the #fedivers is built like this, no geek in their right minds would do this, yet we use it every day

All our existing code is based on feudalism master (admin) surf (user) this is why it is defenceless vs capitalism (#dotcons)

There have been attempts to build democratic code, early #wikis, think #indymedia

#geekproblem “common sense” shifted them back into feudalism.

We have a hard #BLOCK on democratic code, if you want to change/challenge then this blocking needs to be removed.

The #OMN is a project for this, it’s an uphill battle to bring democracy into our coding.

This is the media project (text needs a update” unite.openworlds.info/Open-Med

Governance for horizontals to talk to “vertical power” unite.openworlds.info/Open-Med

And a video for you visionon.tv/w/jqTdss1qrdk4yEZi

We get into the details, of the #OMN you would get Boleyn tag changes on import, so you can auto translate guardian issued tags and add your own tags with both rules and manually.

These tags would flow out of your instances and could flow back to the guardian if you trusted each other.

The idea is to turn news stories/videos into “commons” objects with rich flowing metadata… done in a #KISS way based on trust/moderated link/flows

RSS bring in the legacy objects #activitypub is the main transport protocol.

It’s the news part of the #fediverse our first implementation of this would be #indmediaback

The idea is to decenter the server, the data is in a soup that flows… #activertypub is two-way this is need to build the horizontal network, so the soup does not ONLY flow one way.

Nobody is in charge, no slaves, no masters. Only trusted or moderated flows. It needs to be two-way, though you are right people being human meany will be one way. BUT we are not building it that way 🙂

RSS brings the legacy in, and it’s a simple display format for embeds and passive news feeds etc.

I think people find the “nobody is in charge” bit very hard thing to understand, even though we have built meany networks/social groups on this idea, and still do.

In the realm of tech, I call this #blocking the #geekproblem and to get anywhere we need to take the “problem” outa “geek” or we are left with the mess (in a bad way)

#KISS

 

 

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A actavist history of the web

The “better” #closedweb (ISP intranets) was “surprisingly” destroyed by the “inferer” #openweb which then exploded in use to spread everywhere.

The #mainstreaming thinking then tried and failed to recapture this project for ten years as it takes up global space, and was a real challenge change, that the “common sense” said should not exist.

This working alternative was finally sold out by our own #fahernistas, who bribed with money and statues members of the “unthinking” #geekproblem to build the #dotcons that rapidly took over the #openweb space.

Our wider activist #fashernistas created “liberal stories” about how embracing the #dotcons was a good path. The wider #fahernistas flocked to these #closedweb spaces to grasp at the real early power they provided, after society had finished this shift, the bate and switch took this power away, and we were left with “servalence capitalism” and no social power, as was obvuse at the time it was a con.

Our #fahernistats then pissed tech change/challenge agenst the wall for ten years. While the #openweb user facing technology withered, ignored and irrelevant to #mainstreaming

A few years ago we had an “accidental” #openweb reboot with #activitypub and soon after pushing of the next generation of #closedweb projects with #web03 leaving us in the current messy times.

Yes now the #dotcons are roting, but the #openweb is only a small change challenge due to our #fahernistas and #geekproblem actively #BLOCKING the change challenge inherent to the project.

Where are we now and what can we learn from this?

Liberalism in tech are often active prats, co-opting, bait and switch and taking the easy #NGO funded path when the choice comes.
They are #friendlyenemies, even when they deny this with all their “common sense”
Ideas to mediate this, please?

Do you except that “new” is often #deathcult (neo-liberalism) and #postmodernism because this is “common sense” what is your plan/idea to get around these problems?

I have had 20 years of “new” and am very underwhelmed, actually it’s almost all #blocking or adding to the #techshit to be composed. This is obviously a problem that needs to be mediated, what is your plan/process to have a better outcome?

Remember that the only thing that has worked in the last 10 years has been copying #dotcons with #activertypub every themselves has failed, what can we learn from this?

This is an important question that the #OMN project mediates.

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Talking about the #geekproblem in funding

Q. #nlnet – The problem we face with funding http://hamishcampbell.com/2022/06/06/the-problem-we-face-with-funding/

A. KiCAD, some warrant canary and Armbian aren’t “open internet” projects by any stretch of imagination, but the ones relating to routers and mesh networks are. They’re “open internet” at the infrastructure level – like Guifinet or Freifunk.

Q. yep and are useful for a tiny number of people so worth supporting. BUT the call-out for the funding is for a much wider social affect in the #openweb, so the is an obvious #geekproblem can you see this?

A. Whatever funding they put into the applications layer will be cautious because they probably don’t want to be dealing with Twitter-like problems. Infrastructure is more narrowly technical, and so it’s hard for that to blow up into a scandal, which could happen if they were more directly funding social networks.

Q.  yep… but the #openweb needs better USER-FACING code not more backend, the backend is not helping to address the social problems we face where it is being digested by the #dotcons and then adding more mess to compost. How to communicate this problem to the geeks?

A. Really it’s the backend – the plumbing – which needs more funding, because when you peel off the layer of ultra-trendy ActivityPub apps underneath you will find tools and systems which have been neglected for years if not decades. The application layer is currently a house built on sand. Or quicksand if you include Javascript.

Q. We do see the #geekproblem here you are right, and at the same time the view is irrelevant when you step back to look at the problem.

An example, #activertypub would have been still born without the outreach social UX of #mastodon. We have the #fediverse due to the social side of the mastodon project.

Adding more backend is feeding the #dotcons not the #openweb because we need BOTH, and we need to fund both. Yes, we can play “safe” and build tools to feed the future #dotcons, or we can do both and live life with the possibility of social change challenge…

UPDATE

Talking about the problem:

Q. Am thinking the #fedivers is in a bad way, so being angry and annoyed is understandable. The #openweb momentum we had is stumbling, the people sellingout growing as funding shifts… the problems grow, am interested in ideas to mediate these? The fedivers is a CULTURE first and a standard second… ideas?

A. I agree with your observation on the state of the fediverse. And on the cultural aspect too. I envision a Peopleverse (social) that is enabled / supported by the Fediverse (technical). And much more diverse social activity taking place here, that goes well beyond microblogging. And the funding should shift accordingly. You can fund as many innovation projects as you wish, but if the adoption of the technology grinds to a halt, then there’s a high risk this money is wasted.

 

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Really good questions, let’s try and address some issues.

The need for “governance” came out of a practical problem, the #activitypub community is made up of “cats” you know the slogan “herding cats” we were doing seminars outreach to powerful EU Eurocrats on why they should be interested in #activertypub and interesting they really are interested. We had no voice, only “cats” with everyone pushing their own tiny projects, it was a lot of work and stress, but we got the presentations done.

Back to the questions. A lot of the issues you are outlining are actually covered outside what is normally though of as process – It’s designed to be messy, it’s not designed to be tidy. Let’s illustrate this by answering each point.

Yep, they do, but they are subject to “recall”, and gain a lot from working with the “groups” the voices only get TOTAL power with consensus -1 which is a hard thing to acheave without the first working to building consensus through the body and groups and other voices.

You are right the is no sense checking in the formal sense, but remember the is no hard power, people only have to do things if they want to, its “governance” of a disorganization not a traditional power structer. if people get too “nutty” the is the power of “recall” if the body becomes to nutty the is the power of “dilution” more people can join the body.

The groups don’t have to talk to anyone, though will work better when they do, the voices can be involved or not worked better when they are – good to remember the “cats” at the beginning on this one.

The is no statute and no laws as this is “governance” with equation marks – there will be a growing body of mythos and traditions that people can call on when making decisions. There are no police or courts, nobody has to do anything – “cats”.

The body has negative power over the voices, it can recall them, which is the same as not signing off on their actions. The problem we are trying to solve is focus in a anarchistic/libertarian movement – how to talk to traditional burocraceys while still talking/being relevant to ourselves. The is a level of trust involved which is held in place by the #4opens

That’s a good question, that is not defined. It’s important to look at the codebase here, everything we talk about is the “default” the actual codebase can redefine just about every variable, it’s a set of tools for horazonatlish “governance” It’s up to the body to decide everything on how to use these tools if they change the default.

We have the traditional voting modals, we have a threshold etc.

The body can be restricted in size by fixing the first variable in this case it would be the instances/stakeholders or can be left to grow organically this is up to the body itself.

The group is made up of anybody in the body who needs to be a part of it – in this everything is a mirror of the same process #KISS You ask a hard question about “outside” experts/original submitter which i don’t have an easy solution to – so we would add it as an option that can be turned on or off.

They serve the same as the body, currently have two options 1 year, half every 6 month rolling to facilitate hand holding or easy/simple one year.

Due to the sortation and work load you will likely have a high turn over of new body members, the “recalling” will add to this as there are a lot of “nutters” sortation will bring up fresh people for the body to work :wink: this is a good thing as “trust” is built from this.

The voices are “trusted” to be a voice of the fedivers for their term, if they are not “trusted” they will be recalled to the body, and if they are nutters they will be recalled out of the body and a new member added ect.

Yep decisions can be made at different levels, on the image the thickness of the arrow coming out (with the blunt end) is the strength of that voice.

The group says it shite, and then move on, if the group keeps pushing shit then the voices ignore this group and in the end the body likely recalls it and replaces it with a new group – this is up to the body/voices.

Yes, sadly some good decisions that are not popular inside/outside the body/groups will be ignored we are still self “governing” cats the is no getting away from this.

Yep, based on the #4opens so everything is done with activertypub in open process, its a trust based network, if people won’t privacy then they can resign/not sign up from public governance and work through people who are happy to do open process.

Whistleblowering is a case for media not “governance” so is dealt with in this sister project Home – Open-Media-Network – Gitea: Open Media Network

Thank you for the interesting questions.

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Some questions answered on fediverse “governance”

An important word that needs some thought is “permissionless”

The body is made up of three different, balanced groups:

  1. Stakeholders – the people who do the work, who run/mod the fediverse
  2. Users – the people who use the tools/services, who use the fediverse
  3. The Affiliate Stakeholders – the people who commit time to support the work of the fediverse

This is a very broken web we live in so let’s clarify issues. The names can change, they are placeholders

Anybody can become a stakeholder, in the case of the fediverse this is setting up and running an active instance – could use mastohost for the less technical to do this or a home hosted instance on a old laptop.

If’s simple if a user wont to become a stakeholder setup and mod an instance.

Users are self-explanatory, they buy in but don’t have time or focuses or inclination to run a part of the fedivers.

The Affiliate Stakeholders are a little more complex and are thus treated differently, it’s up to the body itself to decide if the play a active and useful role.

Nothing in this is top down, nothing is this elitist, nothing in this is discriminatory, nothing in this is undemocratic. Its #KISS and looks safe to the “normal world” while at the same time being native to the fediverse and its roots.

All the coding is and based on #activertypub

We need a grant to make this happen who is helping to write the grant app.

Undated text Online governance – openwebgovernancebody – Gitea: Open Media Network

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outreaching ActivityPub to the EU – draft

This was an interesting process playing a role to do the document – outreaching ActivityPub to the EU https://pad.public.cat/p/ngi0-ec-activitypub-liaison-presentation-2021-04-19#/13

Good to get an outcome from this:

  1. #activertypub as a cross-platform standard for #dotcons who operate in EU
  2. funding to further this – we would need democratic structures in the #fedivers style to make this real rather than a Eurocratic/power politics dead-end structures.
  3. Is the path with a good outcome – I have been involved in a number of groups/projects that have received Eurocratic money and the outcome has always been sub optional not to say a compleat disaster. I have seen no/little thinking to mediate this outcome.

So on balance good to do this BUT we do need not to go down unrealistic paths.

Am trying to shift the focus so that the story is more “interesting” and “representative” ActivityPub in the EU sense is a movement as much as a standard – standards by themselves have little/no value. If the story comes from the standard it is easy to ignore, and it will be ignored. A movement, with a bit of jingoism (the ActivityPub speck is maybe largely a European thing?) is an easer story to tell/hear.

Good points, the #fedivers while having a good community, as individuals we do tend to act like cats.

Prepping the presentation is going to be a “herding cats” so best to concentrate on #KISS and focus on the ordnance – what do they need to hear.

The second day we can reveal the all to human delight (and worry this brings)

 

Like the focus on European as this is true – the #Fediverse mirrors the federated European dream and clearly moves away the US tech imperialism (soft power) of the #dotcons something that is a #EU agender.

My thoughts/feelings are pragmatic on a good outcome.

We have a clash of languages and assumptions for example “surveillance capitalism” and the “social dilemma” both come from inside business and Silicon Valley thinking – so they are not good examples to use for an ActivtityPub presentation which itself is COUNTER Silicon Valley thinking and has its own way of expressing these issues. Just use natural descriptive language instead of quoting the terms.

I don’t have an issue with web01 and web02 yes they are not correct, but they do communicate.

 

The first question is why – It’s a good fit both strategically, in challenging the big US tech corporations dominance and tactically, in it being simple to implement and open to innovation as it is outside of anyone group control and agendas.

But we are unready as a community if a big institution like the EU takes up ActivityPub you can see this in what happened to RSS when it was taken up by the NYT.

#activertypub like #RSS and the #www came out of grassroots movements, they bring world views with them its WHY THEY WORK. Yes the world view are in part incompatible with #mainstreaming, so the is a strong burocratic desire to hide these world views and then push them out of view/existence.

Why work with big vertical organizations like the EU – The bridges, allow our careerists and wona get statues crew a way to cross over to the mainstream to feed. By doing this they strengthen the bridge by adding mainstream value to the bridges.

Then the refuges from the mainstream shitpile have an easy path to get to alternatives gardens when the stink becomes too much to live with.

The bridge shifts out “problems” and “brings” in resources, expirence and skills to build real alternatives.

We need bridges to the mainstream to build alternatives.

Though the process will likely not go well. When dealing with power politics/vertical orgs in the end the grassroots is ALWAYS shafted – it’s the normal outcome they can’t help this behaver. So we need to keep the bridges in place no matter how bad there behaver is, keep calm and carry on – their behaver is shit to shovel for compost to plant seeds to grow a better world.

Am thinking we need more structears “from chaos comes order” rather than “order over chaos” its trust or control.

In the internal process. It’s interesting that people coming into non #mainstreaming projects and spaces then push “common sense” #mainstreaming ways of working and outcomes can’t see that they are creating a problem.

You then inevitably get Clouds of smoke to cover up the mess. When it clears everyone is covered in soot. it’s not a good look for anyone.

We need ideas on how to mediate this without going down the #mainstreaming paths.

https://socialhub.activitypub.rocks/t/webinar-with-the-european-commission-and-ap-community/1507/179

https://socialhub.activitypub.rocks/t/meeting-notes-for-prep-call-ec-webinar-19-april/1567

https://socialhub.activitypub.rocks/t/outreaching-activitypub-to-the-eu-are-we-ready/1589/11

 

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The fedivers – We need to now not fight like we always do

Let’s look at tech politics for a moment, all technology is based on political and economic assumptions.

The fedivers is born outa “stupid” anarchism

There are a crew pushing for cooperative socialism

The is the #mainstreaming of common-sense capitalism

We have our athoratern side but it has little focus

All of human history has been mediated by struggle around these issues. And what is happening now has a long inhumane history, look back to the Spanish Civil War for an easy-to-understand example.

We keep making HORRIBLE mistakes.

The #fedivers in its decentralization is at its roots an anarchist project, yes we have our remnants of feudalism in ???? As king and a few growing “influencers” princes. What we do not currently have is strong socialist roots, just the crew and structures around #activertypub which touches on socialism and capitalism with a anarchist undercurrent.

We need to now not fight like we always do http://hamishcampbell.com/?s=process and look with open eyes at what to build from. The first #ESF article is a good example of the mess we could be heading for.

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#indymediaback is a #openweb project of consensus based radical grassroots journalism

The #IMC project is an affinity group – so we are planing to work through consensus and diversity of strategy to move the project past where it was ripped apart by internal stresses after 10 years of running as a successfully worldwide radical grassroots media project.
To do this we have a #nothingnew policy beyond moving the project into modern standards #activertypub we need to reboot the project with work flows intact. Thus, we are working to this #UX https://unite.openworlds.info/Open-Media-Network/Open-Media-Network/issues/26 and the original workflows and process.
Of course this can and will be updated as needed, but we have a “chicken and egg” issue that we need a working affinity group/s to reach consensus on where we go. The #indymediaback project is a way of bootstrapping this code/process in way.
To keep “diversity of strategy” in place we are using the #OMN framework.
Update

What would a non #mainstreaming movement look like.

* firstly it would have to get past meany #BLOCKS that are now common sense.
My action is to jump back in time before these blocks solidified and build up from there. Not a bad idea and will likely work if people embrace it.
* Non #mainstreaming tech is SOCIAL/community and needs to step away from the current geek agenders to have real power for social change.
#OMN project we use the to build from this.