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My indymedia story

This is a DRAFT

Indymedia was a decentralized, grassroots media network that emerged in the late 1990s and early 2000s. It was founded on the principles of open publishing, direct democracy, and anti-authoritarianism. The project eventually experienced a split in the UK, with one side, the #fashernitas building an aggregating site and the other #geekproblem building a centralized silo. The split was supericaly over technical disagreements, but was driven by doctrinal and tribal disputes. The decision-making process, which relied on #formalconsensus, had become ossified and unfixable, so no decisions could be make any more to mediate this.

The split was ultimately driven by a focus on control on both sides. The two sides were more interested in their own tribal agendas than in working together to build a diverse and #OMN. The silo eventually built an aggregating site, with RSS feeds, but in a very controlling way. The stress was always on control, and this ultimately led to the decline of the #Indymedia project. The #dotcons took over the space, and the project became irrelevant.

I was working on the project, the person working in the middle saying “don’t be a prat” as each side tore and tore and tore I continued in the grassroots, saying that the culture is the key and that the value is in open media network, not control. The split in Indymedia was a shit show, but we can learn from it in the reboot.

The plan now is to reboot the project before the split happened, around 2008 with a focus on the #fashernitas path of the splinter groups. This path emphasizes openmedia and decentralized structures, rather than control and centralization. However, with the reboot there is still a very real risk that some members of the community will push for a control/encryptionist path, which could lead to another split in focus. The challenge is to find a way to walk this path without succumbing to the same tribalism and and power politics that led to the decline of the original project.

The use of hashtags and semantic web technologies did not exist at the time. Tags and metadata were not core to the start original Indymedia project, but they were later being added as a way to help organize and categorize content, the idea of building a structure with #RSS feeds was being discussed and enacted.

At the time, Interestingly, the silo path recognized that their approach was wrong and came back to aggregation, with moderated control of RSS flows. This is reflected in the #OMN’s choice of “trusted flow” and “moderated flow.” We are building both sides of the split of the original project and yes, criticizing the fashernista path a little, which only had trust, which would not likely work at all in today’s world. It’s important we do not make this decision for people. We let them decide and build both. The key is to avoid building pointless messes and to resist the #mainstreaming urge to make a mess. We are not mainstreaming, and we must not be prats about this.

Looking at what happened to the web after this time, the last ten years of tech history, the grassroots silo path went on to build #Diaspora, while the grassroots #fashernista path went on to build the #Fediverse. However, despite these developments, there was still no news based open media network being built yet. This led to the creation of the #OMN and the current #indymediaback reboot.

Unfortunately, in today’s world of liberation “cats” due to the last 20 years of the #deathcult, nobody sees any value in the “open” part of the #OMN. Everyone is still fixated on the silo path of control, we have to work against this #mainstreaming blindness. Over the last 20 years, the #mainstreaming as a whole took the silo/encryptionst path of the Indymedia split. Contemporary social media took #fahernista side of the #open path, the #dotcons, took the ideas and sold us back a facsimile of this that they could control, such as Facebook and other algorithms base #dotcons

To make the reboot work best, we have to tiptoe around the legacy of #Indymedia, focus on rebooting the project ain its 2008 state, where the social process were still working. The silos’ path control the old domains as they took as a part of the ripping. We are building something that looks like the fashernista path they fought against, so we need to build two projects in one: control and trust. We need to get the domains back in use, which would be a huge boost to the #reboot project. At the same time, we need to build trust with everyone else, as this is the power of open. It’s complicated, but everyone wants it back. However, the history is challenging, and the two sides are still fighting: fedivers vs. silos as we see this old mess today.

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This was the thinking of the #OMN project ten years ago

This was the thinking of the #OMN project ten years ago: The proposed project is to reboot basic web tools and turn existing silos and portals into a network where data flows between different sites. The technology used will be #RSS and its lesser-known counterparts, allowing sites to link to each other and content to appear on multiple sites. The project aims to provide an alternative to the #dotcons and to serve alternative grassroots media by creating open tools and processes. The project will start with the addition of a sidebar to existing sites and the building of new aggregating sites with overviews on subjects. The long-term goal is to expand into other networks.

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A look at the recent history of radical grassroots activism

#ClimateCamp was a radical grassroots direct action movement to directly challenge #climatechoas and raise awareness about climate change and advocate for solutions to mitigate its effects. The movement was made up of a loosely organized network of activists who used a diversity of tactics to achieve their goals. Climate Camps were established in many countries. The movement reached its peak in the late 2000s and early 2010s and had a significant impact on public debate and government policy.

#Protestcamps are gatherings of activists who set up temporary camps in public spaces in order to bring attention to a cause or issue. The goal of these camps is to create a direct action space where people come together, discuss and demonstrate. The camps may range from #fluffy peaceful gatherings to more #spiky disruptive and confrontational events, depending on the nature of the issue protested and the diversity of tactics of the activists involved. Some well-known examples of protest camps include #Occupy, #ClimateCamp

#CriticalMass a decentralized activism movement started in 1992. The movement is centred around a monthly direct action bike ride where participants gather to raise awareness about car culture.
The idea behind Critical Mass is to reclaim public space for cyclists and to assert the right of cyclists to use the roads. The rides are often a festive and celebratory event. The Critical Mass movement has since spread to cities around the world, with similar events taking place in many cities.

Using #openweb tools like #RSS and #ActivityPub has several benefits in the context of direct action and grassroots politics.
Decentralization: RSS and ActivityPub are decentralized technologies that are not controlled by any single entity, making them resistant to censorship and control.
Interoperability: By using open standards like ActivityPub, organizations and individuals can communicate and share content with each other, regardless of the platform they use.
Transparency: The use of #openweb tools can increase transparency and accountability in the political process, allowing for greater public scrutiny and engagement.
Ownership: By using #opensource tools, individuals and organizations can own and control their data, rather than relying on proprietary services controlled by corporations.
Accessibility: By using open web technologies, information can be more easily accessible to those who are marginalized or excluded from the mainstream, enabling more inclusive and equitable participation in the political process.

Direct action and grassroots politics are important tools for effecting social change. Direct action refers to forms of activism that seeks to achieve a goal directly, without intermediaries, often through disruptive or confrontational means. Direct action can include strikes, sit-ins, blockades, and other forms of resistance.
Grassroots politics refers to a political movement or approach that is bottom-up, rather than top-down, meaning it seeks to empower citizens to take action on political issues, rather than relying on traditional power structures such as political parties or government. Grassroots politics aims to give a voice to marginalized or underrepresented communities, and to create change from the ground up.
Together, direct action and grassroots politics offer a way for people to engage in the political process and to bring about change in a democratic and inclusive way. By taking action outside of traditional political channels, activists and communities bring about change on issues that they care about.

#Fediverse is a #openweb decentralized social network ecosystem consisting of independent, user-run servers that are all compatible with each other. This allows for a more open and democratic internet experience, as users can choose to participate in a variety of online communities without relying on any single centralized platform.
The Fediverse is seen as a more privacy-friendly alternative to the #dotcons this is a working “white lie” based on thinking.

#XR “Extinction Rebellion,” is a global social movement that uses nonviolent civil disobedience to protest against the failure of governments to take action on the climate and ecological crisis. The movement seeks to disrupt the status quo and force political leaders to take immediate action to address the crisis. The movement was founded in the UK in 2018 and has since spread to other countries around the world, with a focus on large-scale protests and acts of civil disobedience.

#XR is a protest movement, some people classify XR as a #spiky radical protest movement due to its tactics and goals, but others consider it more liberal because of its commitment to #fluffy nonviolence. Ultimately, the classification of XR as radical or liberal depends on individuals looking at the problem, it’s a debate.

Programming and ideology are different areas that intersect.
Ideology refers to a set of beliefs, values, and assumptions that shape an understanding of the world and people’s place in it. In the context of programming, ideology comes into play when a programmer brings their often #mainstreaming values and beliefs to the coding they write and the systems they build. You can see this in the copying of the #dtcons to build the #fediverse and how this is now shaping the #openweb

Discussing #postmodernism and the criticism to “isms”. The idea is that blindly following a particular ideology can make a person a “zombie” to limit the ability to think critically. The phrase #nothingnew is used to suggest that fresh thinking on old issues is needed, rather than blindly following existing dead #mainstreaming ideologies. The use of ad hominem arguments, which is a type of logical fallacy that attacks an individual rather than the argument they are making, is clearly #blocking

The #OMN is a project focused on linking alt/grassroots media. In the context of the need for a rebooted #openweb and avoiding the #blocking of this by #fashernista and #geekproblem agenda.

The #OpenWeb is the internet where information and content is accessible to all, regardless of their location, device or network, and can be shared, linked, and re-used without restrictions or barriers imposed by proprietary platforms, walled gardens, or monopolistic practices. It is based on and aims to provide a more inclusive, equitable, and participatory world.
The #OpenWeb is often contrasted with the #closedweb or “walled garden web”, where content and data are locked behind proprietary platforms, controlled by corporations or governments, and subject to limitations, restrictions, and surveillance. The #dotcons

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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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What is the #OMN project for

The #OMN is about building #KISS bootem up trust based media networks for publishing and soughing content with enriched metadata flows. In the end you have a “stupidly simple semantic web of media object “cauldrons” and flows build up from a local level. What you/we do with this is up to the users/producers… this is held to radical politics by #PGA

Initial projects are media #indymediaback and archiving #makeinghistory with the resistances’ exhibition. There are likely lots of other things you can build as its just pipes and flows – the internet as a “open/trust” database of humane objects/people.

How this fits into traditional or Alt economics is not rarely up to us – but bounded by and #PGA so up for “connections” based on opendata flows – #RSS or #activertypub are good starts.

 

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Lets build a real world example base on the OMN tools set- a indymeda instance/network.

Looking at this very simply they are two pools of data – trusted and moderated

– the trusted data is displayed on the site and flows out from the site as feeds.

– the moderated is displayed on a back end moderation/draft feed the mods of the site get to decide what to do with this content, to add it to trusted, to leave in draft/mod for consensus, to remove it.

The content that is trusted is unedited, though the long tail of metadata can be edited and updated by mods.

The site banner and side links are static.

The site display is based on two main flows that are both #activertypub and #RSS.

Newswire and features (and optional individual flows based on user accounts)

* The first main flow, newswire, is made up of a number of sources

– user accounts from this instance (if turned on) based on roles defined by the .

– boolean logic tag created #activertypub or RSS feed – there should be on both ends of this flow in the best implementation – we can live with one end. These feeds are added by the mods of the site to allow a local network of publishing sites to be created and nurtured

* The features is a feed for storeys created from the resources published to the newswire, linking back to them. The flow is original content published as a feature by the mod crew based on if its in moderation it is treated as a draft not yet reach consensus if it is trusted it appears on the page and flow feed. This feed is a prime news resource to other newswires of indymedia sites that subscribe to it.

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Rich compost in technology

Think of the fedivers as a flowerbed in a big (#openweb) garden surrounded by concrete. We are interested in the garden and bracking up the concrete (#dotcons) to make room for more flower beds and wild forest.


 

#Activertypub is a part of the flow, as is #RSS and maybe #Odata etc. The apps are the pipes. The human community produces and mediates the flow, in a metaphorical sense is the flow.

The fedivers is lovely healthy’ish flower bed, a small part of the #openweb garden that we are caring/nourishing in our work. When we are down and dirty working in tech it is important to remember this. In the end the garden is the human community’s living as part of a wider natural ecosystem.

The current priority is to get the flow working in a small and sustainable way – thus the hyperlocal test rollout and #epicyon.

This is why i use “mess” “shit” “compost” and “spades” as communication metaphors. The stinking mess we are in is a fertile time for change. For the last 10 years the #encryptionists agender and the #dotcons have been a sterile time, in this shit is a good thing, to live in stinking times 🙂

We have to keep focus on nurturing the seedlings with nutrition rich flows otherwise they wither and die. “Priority is to get the flow working in a small and sustainable way – thus the hyperlocal test rollout and epicyon.”

Looking at wordpress (WP) as a option, would like to try this out on my blog (http://hamishcampbell.com) thus the desire to get it working better. We have already mastodon and peertube. With out a bigger crew we should concentrate on creating a flow with epicyon as this is work anufe. If we can join WP to this flow a bonus.

Remember we are ONLY planting the seeds in the cracks and nurturing them. The roots of the plants (community) bracks the concrete. If we spend time trying to break the concrete we will soon be exorsted and achieve little.

So our mission is to find cracks and plant seeds. Of courses gathering the seeds (crews/code) is a first step – thus outreach and the messiness this brings – we do live in stinky times.

Then think of #searx (http://openworlds.info) as the map to the garden and as a way for people to find out of the concrete paths to the fresh #openweb grass fields. It can all grow up slowly if we keep a nourishing flow going. If we forget, it dries up and dies as it has done meany times in the last 20 years.

You would be surprised how fast nature reclaims concrete given a chance 🙂

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A look at the internal mess of the uk indymedia project

The project i like to point to as an example. The indymedia project an early alt-media network that spread the use of open source software and organizing around the world at the turn of the century. In the UK the was a #geekproblem vs #openweb fight that became nasty over what we would now understand as “activertypub” the fedivers vs more centralized silo approach. In the UK you can see this stress point fought as a proxy war over #RSS

The #openweb aggregation side were sold a dud by the #fashernistas being swayed by the #geekproblem It was obvious that the project had to change and move away from central servers to a more aggregation model. BUT the movement was torpedoed by an obviously pointless opensource project instead of implementing a existing standerds based RSS they created there BETTER, BRIGHTER flavor which was of coures incomparable with everyone else.

This is an example of a “better” but obviously pointless open source project and also destructive behaver. The #indymedia project in the UK was ripped apart internally from this same devide in the end. A bad “open source” outcome. You can find similar behaver today in the fedvers if you look.

Its a intresting thing to look at. Actually you can see 3 active sides in the internal uk #indymedia mess and important to see the outcome that they ALL LOST in the end.

1) #encryptionists (being pushed by the #geekproblem)

2) #fashernistas (being influenced by the #geekoroblem)

3) #openweb being sidelined by the rest

1) The first resisted and blocked aggregation and #RSS from privacy and “securaty” issues.

2) The second is a obviously failed compromise by keeping control of “there” own better, non comparable RSS format.

3) The last, the one the whole project was based on were ignored and sidelined.

The #IMC project soon became irrelevant and died.

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What is the OMN

The #OMN its a anything in and anything out – mediated by trust database/network.

It’s up to “commernerty” what they do with this and up to the individuals what commerty they choose or if a bit geeky can be an individual. it’s just soup (data soup) of course my project is to build a media/news network out of this other people can build other things #OMN

The data soup is fed by folsonmeny flows of tagged data objects mediated by trust. The consumption is based on the same. All with a nice UI

Lossy, redundancy, trust are features, the #geekproblem seeing these as problems needs to be overcome.

Being based on the am looking at Odata as the rest API core https://www.progress.com/blogs/odata-faqs-why-should-rest-api-developers-use-odata as this is an outgrouth of #atompub and #RSS and comes from a long process of open development #indymedia What do you think?

The exciting bits are the “flows of trust” bulding commertys, the tech and code are just tools.

* Nothing new

* All #4opens

* Good UI