Year: 2021

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.

Fluff/spiky debate and the respect for diversity of tactics – talking to the coop tech crew

I’ve changed the title of this thread as it seems to have drifted away from its original topic (and my apologies for the poor choice of original name).

The changing of title is telling for what we are talking about here “Fluffy” vs “Spiky” is the perfect example of the problem.

Fluff/spiky debate and the respect for diversity of tactics is the bedrock of affective activism that social change/challenge is built from. Yes the coop movement is well on the fluffy side, in this it can complement the more spiky side and should play a role, no matter how limited this is.

An example of this history would be the Greenham marches who often stopped overnight in Quaker halls and were feed by cooperative businesses. These marchers then went on to tear the fence down on the nuclear missile base as a protest agenst the Cold War escalation.

I made a film about this, that varies coops sponsored

To highlight meany activist have strong connections/come from the coop movement

Meany of these angles come from a worker coop.

Meany coops have been supporting this protest for more than 30 years.

This action came from the community that meany of you are likely to be connected to.

A workers coop.

OK if you guy are going to demolish the foundations (“Fluffy” vs “Spiky”) I will leave you to do this, there is much to do, and few people actually doing. The “governance” project is an attempt to expand this tiny group https://unite.openworlds.info/Open-Media-Network/openwebgovernancebody/wiki/Statements-of-support

Sorry for the slight rambalyness – mess

Am using “mess” in a positivize and a negative sense – this is a bit confusing maybe.
In the pro mess sense, it’s a celebrating of human creativity and diversity, this is messy and it’s not a problem, it’s a solution.
In the negative sense its agenst the NGO crew who won’t everything to be in order https://www.jerrypournelle.com/reports/jerryp/iron.html
Of course the is a 3ed veritable – who the mess works for – this is mostly unspoken – it’s an idealogical view, pick the one you like. We are pushing anarchy in the messy sense of “from chaos comes order” it’s up to the people to make “order” from their local mess – we scale this vie federation with the codebase.
The #deathcult ists like mess see the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shock_Doctrine is an example.
Looking at mess as something very human that we need in moderation so we can choose to create “order” without this mess we can’t be truly human.

NFT – The whole thing is a scam

A. We have to stop our #fashionista falling for this #encryptionist crap
NFTs are actually a terrible way to support artists. Most artists don’t break even on NFTs. The only people you are supporting are greedy pyramid scheme salesmen, and unnecessarily acidifying the oceans.

Q. what are your sources that suggest most artists don’t break even on NFTs. That sounds like a dubious claim.

A. There are a ton of link on this https://medium.com/…/how-much-it-actually-cost-to-sell… How Much It Actually Cost to Sell an NFT.

Q. interesting, but that doesn’t suggest most artists break even, that just seems like a lesson learned about that particular author’s experience. Costs that people unfamiliar with the platform need to consider before trying to mint an NFT with that particular platform.
None of those things are inherent to NFT as a technology, and is just related to that very specific way of doing it, and it’s not the only way.

A. do a search the money reflects the electrical power to do the transaction and to a less extent the cost of the system hardware. It’s a complete catastrophe, whatever way you look at it. And don’t believe the hype about version 02 as that is based on hundreds of thousands of hard rives spinning pointlessly. The whole thing is a scam.

Q&A on outreaching the fluffy/spiky debate to the fluffys

Have been working with bridging this often hostile divide for more than 30 years in hundreds of campaigns on the ground and online. The best outcome you can hope for is “diversity of tactics/strategy”

It’s a miracle when the two sides can hold this bridge in place, the effect of this miracle is more powerful outcome for both agenders BUT the longer this bridge is held in place the stronger the internal and outside forces push to demolish it – it falls, have never seen a bridge hold for the whole campaign.

The #mainstreaming agender always supports the #fluffy aproch and pushes down the #spiky aproch so its less a question of right/wrong more a question of holding the balance agenst this #mainstreaming pushing. The balance is where maximum power lies. So yes in this forum, and in general, the “spiky” aproch has more “power” than the fluffy aproch simple because its is repressed by the mainstream and meany of the “common sense” fluffy crew.

The “debate” is in this case is a metaphor for action, it’s important to keep both approaches working and hold a bridge in place, so people can cross and communicate between them.

In tech outreach work using the hashtag #geekproblem to highlight the “need for control” that is a clear block and not a solution to the very human mess we are in. We need to build structers/code where we “lose” control of our current #mainstreaming agenders and take “control” by building bridges and holding these human bridges in place, so we can choose different paths.

The project for “governance” i brought here in the first post is a “spiky” aproch to this outcome FAQ link

Yep, best to build tools/process from “lived expirence”. We are swimming in a river of social shit with the #mainstreaming of neo-liberalism and postmodernism that is the bases of “thinking”. Thou these ideology died years ago, the zombies of both are still eating our social brains.

You guys experienced it here, when I came to this well “fluffy” space I was met with a well “spiky” reception. The more dogmatic liberals can often be VERY spiky were the #fahernista radicals are generally kinda “fluffy” in their actual outcomes. Lifting the lid and look at the actions, don’t take what people say at face value, to see the fluffy/spiky debate in action, by lifting this lid you start to build a bridge…

Putting and holding this bridge in place is the start of power for social change/challenge.

I came here because you guys have useful skills to help build the tools we need Online governance – openwebgovernancebody – Gitea: Open Media Network

Misunderstanding – Out reaching the #OMN #openweb projects.

I start to understand the misunderstanding, blocking many of the people outreaching the #OMN. It’s a DIY project there is the assumption that people will see the need and fill in the missing bits. The “missing bits” have a function, to be filled in otherwise we would be pushing clean non-messy #dotcons world view which is a very different project.

Maybe this is hard to see, but we would be doing something utterly pointless if it is not messy. So people pushing clean are not helping, rather they are #BLOCKING

Must stress the utterly pointless here, as people have done slick/controlled alts many times over the last 30 years and in the medium term this has always proven to be pointless.

It’s a world view problem that’s going to kill us, well lots of us.

Quote https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARiaiyHrijw

Meany people reply to outreach by telling the #dotcons story as if it were common sense… where the outreach is telling DIY, so communication is missing/past each other.

The #OMN is offering tools, people are generally looking for shiny toys a different world view. From the DIY prospective shiny toys are just rubbish to add to the landfill were tools you can build a new world if you are motivated and have care and focus.

To put this bluntly, its #DIY or death as #XR says in the streets. Hope this #KISS aproch helps to build a bridge – up to you guys to hold this bridge in place.

#OMN projects are tools for YOU to change/challenge the world we live/die in.

We live in a world full of monsters dressed in fluffy clothes

Monsters, scratch our fluff crew, and they turn spiky, repression is a universal human problem to be mediated. The subject of the fluffy/spiky debate – respect for diversity and the desire for debate based on this respect is a core outcome. We need to build bridges.

That is clearly passive-aggressive.

You feeling discomfort… did you read the links and think about what I was expressing or did you stop at the “discomfort”?

Yep, talk about what people bring here, engage, think…

” A. I find it interesting, and revealing, that nobody here actually talked about what the thried was about Online governance – openwebgovernancebody – Gitea: Open Media Network ”

UPDATE

Good place to start from.

In the 1990’s anti-road moment that grew into the early 2000’s anti-capitalist/antiglobalisation movements. This time solved meany issues in activism/grassroots outcomes. One of these was a way of mediating the blocking of communication we have here. They called it the “fluffy/spiky debate”, note you will only find mentions of this as we are crap at keeping our own history, lets not start a conversation on “our” academics and the crap they feed :wink:

  • fluffy is what we have here – let’s all get on and be nice to each other.
  • Spiky is we have in meany affective activist groups, it’s a mess lets use the tools we have to make the mess less nasty, this will be messy.

The most important part is the “debate” which leads to a VERY HARD idea “diversity of tactics” on the ground and online. The quote above is a small step to this.

A fluffy view of governance Kees Boeke – Wikipedia

A spiky view of governance Online governance – openwebgovernancebody – Gitea: Open Media Network

Both have value, BUT one has more value for existing society than the other as it’s deigned to work in a mess. The other is fine for “calming” situations for small “inward” looking groups

In the era of #climatechaos and the #mainstreaming swing to the right-wing we need to build and maintain bridges that keep respect for the “fluffy/spiky debate” in place.

And most importantly these process need to work in mess.

What do you think?

UPDATE

Remember I have met some of these people. What do you think I should do with these guys, they hid posts 6 times, they permanently removed one post,

They pushed Ad hominem – Wikipedia attacks in meany replies, not just ones.

FINALLY, one of them likely reads some links and posts something that has relevance to what am talking about, and I reply to this very late first step and SILENCE.

Don’t blame them, this is kinda normal, but this takes the fluffy outa fluffy and shows the spiky that is always a part of activism.

As I say this is normal for this group of people

What to do with them?

On the wider subject of this thread, Identity politics and the agender it pushes

In the face of growing #climatechaos and our attention being trapped inside the #dotcons, I see most people as complete fantasists and see the worship of the #deathcult as their main motivation.

In the next 5–10 years, I see a lot of BLOCKING and lots of blowing of smoke to cover this behaver.

I live on a lifeboat, it’s not a metaphor.

The start of this post is the BLOCKING and the smoke blowing I am talking about on this blog.

The end is “feel good/bad”, which is just the chatting classes talking to the chattering classes.

There are people who are not a part of the chattering classes who have agendas, as the blog post says in the end.

Diversity is a good (ecological) thing, and the chattering classes as the blog post says are VERY bad at noticing their active role in our social poverty on this one.

Talking to the burocractic coop crew

A. I find it interesting, and revealing, that nobody here actually talked about what the thried was about Online governance – openwebgovernancebody – Gitea: Open Media Network 1

If you can look outside your world view… We are doing a funding proposal to do the simple well tested project/workflow (which we know dues not scale) and roll it out trying federation to scale. We know this works to extent , look at the “Fediverse ” as a living example of this approach working to scale small to bigger.

Yes there will be lots of “smoke” and we could do with some help keeping the project clear of this.

Q. Apologies, I hope this didn’t seem like a personal attack. As a middle-aged white guy, I was using it as an example of something I see a lot and am trying to figure out how to solve, that’s all :slight_smile:

A. Nothing personal, more am talking about a systematic problem of a class/groups of people, as you say likely “middle-aged white men” who find it impossible to see things have value, even though the is a deep and long history they likely no little about. It’s a kinda poverty in thinking and care that is endemic in late era #deathcult

” Distilled, grassroots, radical governance is a good fit for the fediverse.

This working practice comes from 30 years of building from The Tyranny of Structureless tick box list.

Social change groups have worked in this way to challenge and change power structures on the ground. Some examples of Social change groups: from squats, protest camps, climate camps; to indymedia, Reclaim the Streets; to XR and even Occupy.
Rainbow Gatherings are a working example of this grassroots governance. They have been going on for 50 years and the core is still based on the founding traditions which came from the Vietnam War – not the hippy dippy origins that people talk about.

From the perspective of a radical, grassroots, social technologist this is distilled into a codebase, as a “permissionless” roll-out of frameworks for social groups to form and see/govern themselves.”

Remember the project comes from the lived expirence of a culture, as all the best one do. In this culture Sociocracy would be the hippy siting round the fire saying why don’t we all just get on love is the answer as the crusty pisses on the garden he planted and the party people ignore the washing up rotor he put up and everyone else just gets on with the jobs they are interested in.

Life is messy, life should be messy, these “hippies” are of limited utility in the culture am modelling “governance” on the ground should be ruff and ready, built of doing and trust from this doing., people have to work out how to get on with others and make tools work for a useful outcome, we don’t hand them “solutions” we DON’T do tech fixes.

Yes maybe, but it does not come from this, you can look at it as a co-operative anarchist idea of human nature put into code – coops can kinda be this in a much more burocracy focused way than am outlining.

Making a edge to a community means you need legalistic policing to enforce this edge. We recognize that as a problem and like the fediverse we ignore this as incompatible with our world view – in the setup we outline its simply not needed, this is “native” to the fediverse.

We ignore this issue in a creative and usefully way, if you won’t a voice setup and run an instance, then you should have a voice as you are running and caring for a part of the fediverse. You will maybe notice the is a positive feedback loop here.

We already tick all those boxes.

#KISS and human has MUCH MORE POWER than complexity, if people can’t understand the tools they cannot use them in creative and human ways – mess is good.

The project is more IMPORTANT for what it does not do than for what it does.

Been takeing part in online #openweb events – and resisting the urge to bite people.

Looking at this event https://2021.ngiforum.eu Way to meany stuffed shirts, technological fantasists (blockchain) and a lot of #EU money what could go wrong…

Spent a hour looking through the list of participants opening in new tab all that said something interesting. Of these more than 2/3’s had the tag blockchain so closed them, and then looked at the rest, then closed them… as we all know the is little hope in places like this, but worth a look, sometimes you find something useful. Someone has to turn over the tech shitpile to make compost.

Last week attended the online event by the Knight Foundation (huge #openweb funders for the last 10 years) in the USA on #reimagining the Internet. It was 100% about the #dotcons kinda nutty how bad things are in the funded #NGO #openweb world

With this in mind I moved the #4opens to its own space https://unite.openworlds.info/Open-Media-Network/4opens/wiki it’s a useful #openweb tool for moving tech projects in to the right pile.

Here are 10 sample #4opens reviews to help you to understand what its about and how you can use this simple way of judging if a project is worth supporting or not unite.openworlds.info/Open-Med

Please add to this, sign up for the site and add more or just publish them on your own #openweb site with the hashtag #4opens

UPDATE

Why go to these events? Its about connection to people building bridges and resources for bridge building. The problem is all the resources at these events are poured down the drain and/or consumed by social parasites – the chattering classes.

I spend a bit of time going to the events every 10 years to see if this has changed. COVID-19 and the onlining of the events is a time to do this. This time, like last time, am feeling an “opening” but think the parasite classes are going to be stampeding through it. For a useful outcome we would need a soughted #openweb group to take up space, without this the opening is not going to have any good outcome.

This mythical group does not exist, there are individuals scattered about, but nothing that has much social power to be able to work with/bridge the power politics.

Kinda sad and bad but its where we are at #XR

UPDATE

This strategy can work (up to a point) to get resources, the last time, 10 years ago,  I got a big chunk of dosh to set up http://visionon.tv which the remains of is funding the #OMN infrastructure.  But this is another story – you can likely find articles about this back on this blog.

UPDATE

In any burocracy there are always a few people trying to get out, its what bridges are for, and there will likely be lots of people on our side who want to get in, also what bridges are for hamishcampbell.com/2021/04/16/ a post that touches on this bridging subject and why it has value.

UPDATE

Only now reading up on the background of this #EU stuff

“What is Horizon Europe?

Horizon Europe is the EU’s key funding programme for research and innovation with a budget of €95.5 billion.”

No wonder the is such a feeding frenzy of pigs at the trough was wondering why this sudden interest in the #openweb

UPDATE

This comes to mind when talking to just about everyone on subjects like this today “They are casting their problems at society. And, you know, there’s no such thing as society. There are individual men and women and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look after themselves first. It is our duty to look after ourselves and then, also, to look after our neighbours.”

Knight foundation and its impact on grassrots media and the #openweb

Dropped into the events for this https://knightcolumbia.org/events/reimagine-the-internet if you won’t an example of pouring hundreds of millions of $$$ down the drain the Knight foundation is it. This is normal, but by doing this they shaped the agender of the #openweb for the last 10 years, this is a problem, a BIG problem, they need to be held to account for.

Feel free to shout at people like this, at the very least we need to make this problem visible.