The “User Story #makeinghistory” outlines a process for digitizing the #Campbell Family archive, which contains significant historical materials related to activism and political movements. The steps involved:
- Setting up the Application: The archive sets up a desktop computer or a hosted VPS instance to install the #DAT/ActivityPub based#p2p application for “makeinghistory.”
- Uploading Digital Files: They use the application to create an account and start scanning and uploading directories of digital files from the archive, adding basic metadata if possible.
- Building a Community: The archive builds a community of users, including family members and wider activist groups, to seed an affinity group and encourage them to install the application on their devices.
- Column Structure: Users see columns like “new” and “recent” along with others added by people working on the same accounts. These columns contain flows of boolean logic lists of the data in the shared account.
- Data Interaction: Users can interact with the data, adding metadata, information, and editing hashtags. They can swipe through items and modify data as needed.
- Categorization: By editing hashtags and data, items move into category columns and into the recent columns, thus shift to different groups and users.
- Engagement: Users actively participate in categorizing content instead of passive scrolling. As others add metadata, it updates the feeds of other users, encouraging them to return and contribute.
- Story Feature: Archived categorized metadata-enriched data flows are turned into cohesive narratives using the story feature, providing overviews and linking multiple items and categories.
- Sharing History: The created histories can be shared with the wider world, providing grassroots quality history in addition to more traditional top-down narratives.
- Impact: People use these stories to inspire real and lasting social change, recognizing the importance of history in driving progressive paths.
The “User Story – Resistance Exhibition” extends this concept to an exhibition setting, where visitors can participate in archiving and storytelling using an app installed at the exhibition. This creates a participatory space where people engage with historical materials and contribute to ongoing #4opens projects. All data collected is public CC and available for use in other projects, emphasizing openness and collaboration.
SECOND draft
User Story: #MakingHistory – Digital Family Archive & Activist Memory-Building
Goal: Digitize and share activist / family archives primary sources, stories, documents in a way that’s open, participatory, and rooted in real community, not just relic preservation. The archive becomes both memory and tool for social change.
Steps & flows
Setup infrastructure – Spin up a small hosted VPS or desktop instance. Install a #DAT / ActivityPub / peer-to-peer hybrid archive app (#makinghistory).
Upload & seed – Scan family / activist archival material: photos, videos, letters, flyers. Add basic metadata (date, place, people involved). Upload into the system.
Community building – Invite family, networks, activist groups to install the app. Form an affinity group around the archive.
Columns & filtering – Interface: columns like New, Recent, plus user-added ones (by theme / era / type). Users see flows of items (boolean filters, hashtag categories) they care about. Interaction & tagging – Users contribute: add metadata, tags, stories behind objects.
Swipe, browse, edit. Items shift columns/categories as metadata evolves.
Story feature / Narrative building – With categorized & metadata-tagged material, users can assemble “stories”, narrative essays, timelines, thematic presentations.
Sharing & impact – Publish these histories publicly: open & CC-licensed. These become grassroots counterhistories. Use stories to inspire activism, education, or community organizing – showing how history roots current struggles.
Exhibition mode (Extension) – In physical exhibitions, visitors can use the app (on tablets or provided devices) to browse and contribute live: tagging, adding memories, shaping the narrative in situ.
Why it matters, it opens up history: Moves memory out of centralized institutions (archives, museums) into the hands of communities who lived it.
Counter-narrative: Offers history from below, not only top-down or official versions.
Living archive: It’s participatory, not passive. People don’t just view; they shape meaning.
Grounded in #4opens: Open data, open process, open source, open access.
Potential challenges & what to compost (Lessons from past failures) What has gone wrong before, how we compost it in this story:
Burnout among core volunteers, people overload metadata tasks, get exhausted; later momentum fades. Spread workload through community; avoid “metadatabase queen/king” roles. Use columns & tagging that feel playful and meaningful, not tedious.
Power consolidation, with one person / small team becomes the de facto gatekeeper of what’s seen / what counts. Use shared governance: decisions about themes, display, moderation are open. Rotate roles. Use open process.
Tech falling out of maintenance with custom tools built, then abandoned. Use stable, simple tools with community-supported code. Make sure data formats are portable.
Exclusion in “participation” Some voices get left out, marginalized, younger, remote. Proactively invite diverse participants; ensure the interface / metadata vocab doesn’t force people to use jargon; make offline or low-bandwidth modes possible.
