With the current #openweb reboot going on there’s a lot of default thinking that is bad, and we do need to learn to judge between the good and bad paths if it’s to live up to its potential. Let’s start to give examples:
* Promoting silos vs promoting networks – as our current thinking is based on closed/silo thinking then when we promote #openweb projects we continue to use this thinking and promote silo/closed thinking rather than harder to understand open/network thinking.
– Protocols rather than platforms, balance talk about #Fediverse/#ActivityPub and #mastodon or branded projects. Our brand thinking is a failure of networking and contains strong unseen #deathcult thinking.
– Always outreach a wide selection of instances rather than a single one, the strength is in the network and not in the silo. Networks scale downwards, more/balanced, with stability is better than one “solution”. Be weary of sites that push themselves as the “place”.
– Networks are based on trust, in this look for groups/families of projects to support. Lose is always good, do not support “we are THE solution” closed siloed thinking. Write articles about a spread of views is better outreach as this is actually the project.
– be weary of projects that promise digital security/privacy first – these projects are always lying and thus dangerous and unhealthy for trust based networks. This is a hard-to-understand open/closed issue, we all need to have real conversations about this.
So we live in a #deathcult that we all have worshipped at for the last 40 years of neoliberalism. This is #XR now a normal understanding that we all have to face. What do you think of this mess?
My initial thought on most academia is wank, most is poisoned by the last 40 years of the #deathcult It’s better to go back to radical basics and reboot something from outside the poisoned mainstream, we are doing this with #indymedia reboot.
Most “activism” from this source is little more than a funding drain 99.999% of progressive funding goes straight down the #fashionista drain in academia and #NGO land.
Thinking on the modern UX for the #indymedia reboot. Tabs are a line at the top of the page – metaphor is not buttons. You are switching sheets of paper. The page is the paper. The top banner is the desk under the paper. It’s an interesting challenge to think through metaphors.
Using buttons you are outside the desk/paper metaphor so it’s a whole different thing, to mix them is not KISS and confusing. You are into early computer metaphors with the buttons – think mainframes. We are a “newspaper” so the tabs and table and paper sheets make a feeling for the project. Always echo back if you can for a project that is based on a solid past.
For new stuff “invention” is good and there will be lots of space and growth for this when the #OMN is up and running…
One thing the fediverse taught us is that copying existing successfully projects is a root out of the #geekproblem that #fashernistas embrace. So this up to a point is the right thing to do for social change. We for the first time put a spin on it by rebooting a radical grassroots social tech project. But behind this is something much more radical. The #OMN lets see if we can plant and nurture a seed. Think the soil is a little dry pastime for some compost, get your spades out.
A complex counterintuitive subject. When Capitalism and “free-market” stop being the trust that glues society together. You are left with social data and who controls it. Open or closed becomes the choice we face.
Open it’s a shared commons.
Closed its something else.
The closed path of the #encryptionists for the last 10 years. The open path of the #fediverse for the last 5 years.
Interestingly the fediverse was built as a lie as a hybrid open/closed. It feeds this lie to grow. In fact its nieverly open which is why it grew so strong so fast. Goda’s respect a good social con. But learn the right lesson, that open rather than closed is the path.
Judge projects by the #4opens then by #PGA hallmarks. A good first step.
PS. and YES before you comment it’s a balance not one or the other.
I have been developing and using #opensource and #openweb projects for nearly 40 years. For the last 20 years at the coalface of development, this is my experience.
Most #openweb projects are more than 99.9% unusable this is normal. A few come up to 5% usability; these are the “successful” ones. It’s very rare for a project like mastodon to be 50% useable – but more than 90% of the people I push in that direction still bounce – though this is more likely because of digital drug habits of the #dotcons than the UX of the project which is good itself.
Let’s be generous our #indymedia reboot project is currently 90% unusable; this is normal for openweb projects. It’s hard to build something with limited resources and training.
Our plan is to make it as simple and #KISS looking as possible to roll out to small groups of testers to develop it into being 20% useable by their feedback. While doing this we can roll out the idea of the project to bring more energy and resources into this shift from 10% to 20% usability.
We only open outreach when we are beyond that 20% level, because it would obviously be self-defeating otherwise. Then inch up the usability while shifting the social expectations of good #UX to a social harmony.
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 🙂
I think there is a deep modern poison in not seeing the world from wide ideological views. It leaves people dangerously pointless and thus breeds fascism.
As the is poison in the rejection of open media as a solution to social issues. An example of this is the current thinking that communication is responsible for the current mess we are in, spread by quite a few people.
You can reverse this poison with the understanding that the repression was there to overcome, so the violence was “openness” fighting “closed”. It’s dishonest to see only “closed” as natural, thus without violence, what do you think? Is this a fair view?
The closed side were only looking to strengthen their silo by centralizing power in the name of privacy and security. This with mostly no understanding of the problem on a personal level, it was the right thing to do – total control was what they needed.
The open side were for the Dublin core as it was a standard in this they were right. But it was so far from human scale #KISS and so top down as to be utterly pointless for grassroots projects.
With this ripping inside “open” and a block from “closed” outside. Nothing good could or did come out.
It’s verified by the crowd/community as you will have text, photos etc from the event from different views with some of them by known actors. The event happened.
A single post from a unknown source needs verification. Its journalism 🙂 from a grassroots prospective based on community and trust in that community.
Of course what we lack in the contempery world is these very things. In this it’s the chicken/egg problem 😉
The indymedia reboot is the egg, we the affinity group are the chickens?
As in everything in this project we look for the solution in the social first. Then look for tech that helps to build this social.
Focus on the #4opens #PGA hallmarks and try and solve the issue with the 5 functions.
Ha! This is startling to sound like a religion. Where in reality it’s about #KISS and keeping focus on this.
Lets look at trust/community building as this is what the OMN is about after 20 years of failed tech “solutions”.
* Link – am interested in there content flow for my community.
* Trust – i have a relationship with them, no questions.
* Moderate – we are building a relationship.
* Whoops – rollback
* Unlink – am annoyed, this is shit, waist of time.
* Bolyon logic hashtag flows – a conversation on what is important between the two groups to fine tune flows.
So for flows from a single source that dominate the instance flow. First stage moderation, more work for site crew. Second agree on a hashtag group based flow with the fast source and put them back on trust. Rinse and repeat
If it messes up rollback, if communication bracks down unlink.
An example of this would be the canary news site. Lots of low quality clickbate with acational good posts. Talk to them and get them to use a hashtag for quality post and subjects and only bring that in as flow. If they abuse this talk to them if you can’t come to an agreement then unlink or moderate. The is advantages for everyone to get an agreement and this will not affect the SEO games they play with the #dotcons
The outcome is the up quality of there SEO games getting grassroots content into the #dotcons And our communities we don’t have to see there SPAM. Grassroots news is spread wider, the communities that produce it are empowered. (And sadly likely co-opted, but that another problem for a different step)
Were is security?
Yes to security, people have to be who they say they are and content has to come from a place and its path has to be recorded.
Am going to joke and say we need a blockchain 😉
Trust has to have a foundation.
Stuff can’t just be made up at any level, this would brake trust.
Down the road the is a place for strong p2p identities and personal/group data stores. But not in the ” balancing” roll out of the OMN its good to plug in this stuff as the network grows. The growth stage is as #KISS as possible.
We are strongly refocusing on groups and flows and away from individuals and silos. We are not fundementism on this instead are balancing if that dose not sound to hippy… The #deathcult world is all #stupidindividualism and controlling #dotcons our mission is to rebalance this. Were the balence ends is up to the groups involved. I like the DIY anachronism of party and protest, some people like gardening, other are content with other things.. what ever rocks your boat the is space for meany paths – but the current #deathcult is not a nice one at all.
The is no securaty in tech, ecology or just about anywhere. Its very inhuman world we live in says the man sailing away in a lifeboat – as i keep saying that’s not a metaphor.
On the subject of people being who they say they are – this can be sudo anonymous if they feel like it but that “anonymous” person still has to fit into the trust web
Thus the sudo bit.
End thought
If data is the new currency, then opendata is the new communism, jumps to mind, lets see were #4opens leads.
