Dev test work for Makinghistory application

The #makinghistory project is a decentralized, open-source archiving and storytelling network designed to preserve and amplify grassroots histories. It’s founded on the idea that history isn’t written by the winners – it’s made by those who resist, build, and care. Using digitized collections like the CampbellFamily archive as a seed, the project invites communities to reclaim their narratives through shared, federated networks. This isn’t just another data repository – it’s a living, breathing ecosystem where collective memory is gathered, enriched, and kept accessible for future generations and movements.

The application functions as a community-installable tool that allows anyone to host their own archive node. These nodes, whether local or remote, connect into a wider peer-to-peer network of storytellers, archivists, and activists. Core features include uploading and organizing digital files, enriching metadata flows, and linking material to broader narratives using human-created tags and annotations. The platform follows a participation-first path, encouraging affinity groups to contribute not just data, but context, weaving a rich web of interlinked histories.

But #makinghistory goes further than archiving. It’s a space for collaborative storytelling, publishing, and public exhibition. Its narrative layer draws from the archive to trace connections between people, places, and events, transforming scattered fragments into stories of solidarity, resistance, and change. These outputs feed both digital commons and real-world installations like the Resistance Exhibition, where history is brought to life in public, participatory spaces. This is the infrastructure for radical memory work, a composting system for movement knowledge. Developers are not just needed to build features, they’re invited to help shape the very flows and protocols that keep history in the hands of those who live it.

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Developer Roadmap: #makeinghistory – Testing & Prototyping

• Phase 1: Core Object Listing
  • Implement a single-column interface that lists objects (text, image, link).
  • Set up two test instances that can post and sync objects between them.
  • Default view lists objects by most recent. Super simple.
• Phase 2: Hashtag Columns
  • Add support for hashtag-based columns (inspired by Mastodon’s Tweetdeck interface).
  • Reuse and adapt existing open-source implementations where possible.
• Phase 3: Story Objects
  • Introduce a new “Story” object that composes and links existing media objects, with added narrative context.
  • These stories are published through collective/community accounts (discussion needed on access/trust models).
• Phase 4: Federation & Flows
  • Begin mapping and testing how edits, hashtags, comments, and objects flow across federated instances.
  • Align this with the #OMN trust model and the work from the #indymediaback reboot (estimated 90% overlap).
• User Interfaces
  • Desktop: Use a Tweetdeck-style interface, similar to Mastodon’s current layout.
  • Mobile: Build a simplified UI with a single-column scroll. Objects open fullscreen with sideways swiping (like Tusky for Mastodon).
• Every Object
  • Has edit capabilities (if user has login/auth).
  • Editable hashtags.
  • Comment threads.
  • All changes sync across instances via federation/trust flows (option 4).

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The current test interface and images will need refreshing, as they’re based on early-stage mockups. But the concept remains: keep the interface minimal, usable, and focused on narrative composting. This project is both infrastructure and imagination, grounded in the old but reaching toward the new.

These images need an update as they were based on the dev work from back in the day. This is the very basic interface for testing. The mobile user facing interface is a flick sideways basic interface.

The logic and workflow are all based on the OMN project and have likely a 90% overlap with the indymediaback project

DEV of the #OMN projects

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At the core of the #makinghistory infrastructure lies the Open Media Network (#OMN) – a trust-based, human-moderated, #4opens project that offers a decentralized, federated database shared across peers. What makes the OMN unique isn’t just what it does – but what it refuses to do. Rather than chasing complexity or abstract “AI-powered” solutions, the OMN focuses on simplicity and social cohesion, using technology to support and grow human networks. Its structure is purposefully minimal, with only five essential functions:

These core functions are: Publish (to share a story as an object into a stream); Subscribe (to people, pages, groups, or subjects); Moderate (to express trust or disapproval by pushing or pulling content); Rollback (to remove content from your stream based on trust flows); and Edit (to collaboratively change metadata across federated nodes where you’re authenticated). This framework serves as the back-end engine for building a grassroots, DIY semantic web. The front-end can take many forms: city-based or subject-specific sites like a modern reboot of Indymedia, regional storytelling platforms, or thematic archives like #makinghistory. Protocols like ActivityPub form the connective tissue of this system, the plumbing.

In practice, this means people can build meaningful media spaces that reflect local struggles and solidarities without being dependent on corporate platforms or NGO gatekeeping. The data cauldron of the OMN stores the shared knowledge, and every community holds a golden ladle – a way to draw out, remix, and republish what matters to them. If you’re interested in supporting this effort financially, you can do so via Open Collective. And if you’re ready to dive deeper we need to make this #KISS project work. Let’s build tools for memory, not marketing, infrastructure for resistance, not careerism. Let’s be #makeinghistory together, not board looking at a screeen.