Tag: 4opens

We need fresh thinking on this mess

There will be lots of VERY bad behaver from the every side in this #openweb reboot, let’s try and keep diversity of voices in place with #4opens process. Please don’t become a prat, as it’s easy to start, and it’s hard to stop, mess and more mess.

Prat ish behaver comes in waves, that matches the waves of #mainstreaming and the Alt reaction to them, this flotsam can make things messy so good to shovel and compost.

Our main #blocking in alts is from our blinded #postmodernists and the culture they have spread for the last ten years… this is very messy and will do damage. As this is a form of “common sense” it’s hard to compost.

We need fresh thinking on this mess.

On the #openweb us and them is simple, we have to define things then collectively fight as hard as we can to keep that definition #KISS

#openweb spaces, a lot of social suicidal behaver – people strive to destroy the #openweb by pushing non “native” #NGO structures and paths. It’s a hard thing to pushback on, it’s #mainstreaming “common sense” bad behaver and a VERY bad outcome, please try not to be this problem.

Greater cooperation and collaboration between the different communities involved in developing #openweb protocols

The state of various #openweb protocols, such as #Bluesky, #Nostr, and #ActivityPub, and the challenges they face in terms of interoperability and communication between their different communities. I am advocating for a grassroots #DIY culture that focuses on building bridges between these protocols, rather than contributing to the “messiness” of the ongoing discussions.

All of these protocols are #4opens and #openweb native, which is a positive development, but their different cultures create difficulties in communication.

The UX (user experience) of these protocols is less of an issue now than it has been in the past, and that the #Fediverse is doing well in this regard. We will need new work on moderation thinking in anticipation of the “data soup” that is coming, with potential for information overload and the need for effective moderation strategies.

A bridge to #Nostr already exists (#Mostr), we need efforts to be made to create similar bridges for other protocols, such as #Bluesky.

Greater cooperation and collaboration between the different communities involved in developing #openweb protocols, in order to create a more cohesive and effective ecosystem.

The world walks right past us looking the other way and takes the big bundle of bills from capitalism.

OK, had to close then open new accounts on #visionontv #peertube because of #spam, the spam is starting agen – there is an update that allows you to put new accounts on ask/moderation, we need to upgrade at some point to get this.

Interesting this is exactly the way our ten-year-old #OMN project handles flows as is the “new” moderation in #bluesky… if we don’t manage to go to the world, the world come to us… well more like the world walks right past us looking the other way and takes the big bundle of bills from capitalism.

This is normal, we are still doing needed work, but better would be good to 🙂

#bluesky #Nostr #activertypub

They all share #openweb tech, so this is a win.

Where they differ is in the “culture” they come from and push.

#bluesky comes from surveillance capitalism, it’s from the #dotcons and has meany of the same assumptions, just “better”.

#Nostr comes from the #encryptionists and #bitcoin bro crew and suffers from being from this mess.

#activertypub is #openweb native and comes from the traditions the whole software world is actually built on.

#KISS

The #KISS path is to simply bridge them all and let them cooperate, as they are all a part of the #openweb family.

The more complex and messy path is that some of them might not want to do this… OK now we get to the part where piss is likely signal rather than noise. Let’s draw a line, (a date is good) if they don’t bridge, we let loose the pee, liquid trickling in will short out their servers.

Ending thought:

For a lot of our #fashernistas in our spaces, things only matter if they come from #mainstreaming this is obviously crap blinded behaver – but it’s hard to communicate why, likely they can’t see me 😉

PS. I liked that joke.

Why is Mastodon so dominant in the fediverse?

Q. Why is Mastodon so dominant in the fediverse?

A. It had better #UX and @Gargron running it was an effective communicator at #KISS and built it out as a #4opens project alongside a healthy (white) lie about security and privacy.
The rest of the projects lacked these things – #Pleroma the obverse compaine was ripped apart by the #geekproblem then embraced by the right-wing. #Peertube was stuck in a good but closed development for years. #Pixelfed is a little brother project to #mastodon. Then there are a whole flood of #NGO funded projects that have no community.

Might be useful to see it as we’re having a “KING” problem, then the rest are #feudalism all the way down. This should be easy to fix as its #4opens and all #openweb, but it’s not. Just about everyone is hard #BLOCKING the obvuse need for “democracy” as a path out of the mess #OGB

How is the #NOSTR world doing on this?

A draft funding application – OGB

Requesting funding for the Open Governance Body (#OGB) project. Which is being developed by the Open Media Network (#OMN). The OMN is a collective that builds and hosts #4opens standards-based socio-political software. Our mission is to provide communities with the tools they need to organize, communicate, and make decisions.

The #OGB project is a grassroots initiative that seeks to empower communities by giving them a stronger voice in decision-making. We believe that traditional social coding projects that are based on a top-down approach to power are not effective. Our approach is different. We are developing a bottom-up solution that is based on the principles of sharing power and collective decision-making.

Our team has years of experience in grassroots social tech projects. We have been directly involved with #UnderCurrents, #indymedia, #VisionOnTV, #LondonBoating, among others, and have a firm grasp of what does and does not work within organizing both social and technological communities. We have also worked on UN and World Bank projects in West Africa and have decided to manage them through community/scrum, rather than formal methods.

We are seeking funding in the amount of $50,000. This funding will be used to pay four people to work on the project at a fixed rate of ten thousand euros for 9-12 months of work. The bulk of the work will be programming and implementation details. The remaining ten thousand will be used for servers, expenses, outreach work, extensive testing, and basic project upkeep.

A Look at Existing Projects

It is important to note that foundation funding agendas can have a negative effect on the agendas of #openweb projects. A brief look at some existing projects highlights this issue. For example, decidim.org, which is an NGO process similar to loomio.org, Formal processes can be a bad tool for “herding cats” in social challenge or activist groups. And has been imposed numerous times in activism but has always failed.

After reviewing loomio.org, it is clear that the same ideas and workflows were pushed onto #climatecamp, #indymedia, and #occupy. In the first two cases, it ossified the projects, and in the last case, it was a mess. The #processgeeks behind these projects have not changed, and their projects are a bad fit for life and a terrible fit for the fediverse and activism. However, they may work for some NGOs and more formal cooperative organizing.

It is important to note the differences between formal and informal governance structures. Both use “consensus,” but the Open Governance Body is more like a do-ocracy than a formal governance structure.

 

The #hashtags embody a story and world-view

My use of #hashtags is confusing a lot of people, good to have some signal in the noise on this subject https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypertext I am using them in the way the #WWW was designed to use them #KISS

The #hashtags embody a story and world-view that are rooted in a progressive and critical perspective on technology and society. They highlight the negative impact of neoliberalism (#deathcult) and consumer capitalism (#fashionista) on society, and promote the original ideals of the World Wide Web and internet culture (#openweb). The #closedweb hashtag critiques the for-profit internet and its social consequences, while the #4opens promote the principles of transparency, collaboration, and sharing in open-source development.

The #geekproblem hashtag draws attention to the cultural movement of geeks, who can become blinded by their own technical knowledge and fail to consider the broader social implications of their work (#techshit). The #encryptionists hashtag critiques the dominant belief among some geeks that all solutions need more encryption, which can lead to a desire for total control and artificial scarcity.

Overall, these hashtags are interlocking and tell a wide-ranging story and world-view that advocates for a more humane, collaborative, and transparent approach to technology and society. The #nothingnew hashtag raises the question whether new technological projects are needed, or whether we should focus on improving existing ones. The #techchurn hashtag refers to the technological outcome of the #geekproblem, which can lead to a constant cycle of new projects that do not address underlying social issues. Finally, the #OMN and #indymediaback hashtags promote the idea of an open media network and the rebooting of the altmedia project that was once the size of traditional media on the #openweb. The #OGB hashtag represents the need for open governance and the power of the community to make decisions collectively.

A native path out of the mess people make on the #openweb

The Open Governance Body (#OGB) describes a permissionless process/structure that is open and allows the group that forms using the tools to decide who is a part of the group or not. This process can divide into a web of connecting instances of governance as a natural human process of group formation. The #OGB emphasizes that there is no exclusion and always diversity, making it a natural fit for the #fediverse.

The #OGB also shows that if people are stupid and focused on individualism, each governance instance will have one member and no power. To gain power, people have to work together, which is built into the code. The #OGB emphasizes that hoarding power is limited, and it flows through the community, energizing and solidifying the community and building horizontal power to challenge/change vertical power.

The #OGB focus is on the importance of keeping things simple (#KISS) and that some people will try to push for existing power structures before democracy. However, as the process is permissionless, it is not possible to stop them from doing this. The #OGB emphasizes the need to do better, and that being native to the #fediverse is a big help in this regard.

The #OGB emphasizes the importance of recognizing where power comes from in the context of the #fediverse. The fediverse operates differently from corporations, governments, courts, and police, and it is important to think and build with this difference rather than trying to drag the fediverse back to the #mainstreaming path.

The #OGB builds from the #fediverse works because it is different, and it is easy to forget this important thing when #mainstreaming agendas grab and hold. The #OGB suggests that the missing question in almost all conversations is “who are we empowering,” and emphasizes the need to do better in alt-tech.

The #OGB notes that there are problems in alt-tech and suggests that starting with the #4opens would remove 90% of the mess, revealing the real potential for good outcomes. The #OGB highlights that doing better in alt-tech would involve using shovels to make compost and planting seeds of the world we want to see.

The #OGB describes the process scaffolding for the governance body as a default effect, where the decisions on how things work will be up to the members of the body. The power of the governance body is only the power of default, and the #OGB is about removing all hard default choices and building in a small number of KISS tools, then letting the body members work out themselves how to use them.

The #OGB uses the example of #Couchsurfing, where the website redesign removed the #DIY tools active Couchsurfers had used to self-organize, leading to disappointment among members. The #OGB argues that letting members make their own process, open vs. closed, is necessary to overcome the #geekproblem and have hope for alt-tech.

The #OGB builds governance with the way, rules, norms, and actions are structured, sustained, regulated, and held accountable. this is to mediate that the #Fediverse currently has a “herding cats” governance, denoting a futile attempt to control or organize a class of entities that are inherently uncontrollable.

The #OGB codebase is not just a tool for the #Fediverse, but it can be used to democratically run any structures that have stakeholders.

The #OGB provides an example of how the codebase can be used to run a local street market, with each stallholder as a stakeholder, people who shop at the market as users, and the local council, events company, and shop owner’s association as affiliate groups. The #OGB approach and codebase will scale sideways, with street markets governed city-wide, and each of the markets becoming a stakeholder, users as users, and city-wide orgs and groups as affiliate groups.

The #OGB shaping of the “body” comes from a long history/experience of horizontal activism, where “those who do the work have more say.” noisebridge.net/wiki/Do-ocracy

The #OGB pushes that the bulk of the voice comes from those who run the #Fediverse, the people who run/support the instances. The people who build the tools also get a say, as do support orgs and events, and the users who will be spread widely get a say, but their power is diluted by the much larger numbers involved.

This working practice comes from 30 years of building from The Tyranny of Structureless tick box list https://unite.openworlds.info/Open-Media-Network/openwebgovernancebody/wiki/03.-The-Tyranny-of-Stucturelessness That code being quite “anti-human” is an interesting challenge, and it’s important to figure out how to get the humane “mess” in a coding process that is based on being “exact” and in control #OGB

The #OGB project is grounded in lived experience, and it’s a way out of this mess. We cannot keep using traditional institutions. We have to stop the #techcurn if we are going to use #openweb tech for social/ecological change/challenge, and we need to think about this now.

The #OGB project is about developing better ways of having “trust” based conversations and “trust” based “governance” in the #openweb. The project is built from hundreds of years of on the ground organizing that has shaped every “freedom” we enjoy and is done in a #KISS approach. The #OGB is a #fedivers native way of working, NOT a #mainstreaming way, and it comes from directly working, setting up, and solving recurring problems at hundreds of direct action protest camps.

The #OGB focus on what we know works, as at the moment, almost nothing works for social good. The #OGB project is what is needed, a voluntary cooperative and collaborative alliance that is native to the #fediverse.

The thinking is that we need to put a stop to the #techchurn as we have piles of #techshit already to compost, that #nothingnew is a hashtag for this.

It’s not the goal of the #OGB project to create an organization that tells everyone what protocols and standards to use in the #fediverse. The #OGB project is about developing better ways of having good “trust” based conversations and “trust” based “governance” in the #openweb

To sum up, the current working models of “governance” in open-source projects are monarchy, aristocracy and oligarchy. This is the rock star developer, the coders and the funders. It should be obverse to anyone that 99.99% of people are missing from this feudalistic ideal of “governance”.

Democracy is the basic foundation of our shared modernity.

WHY DO WE PUT UP WITH THIS MESS IN TECH?

Let’s take a different path, please #OGB

Q. that is an optimistic projection

A. I have no illusion that the normal shitty behaver of fucking people over and being a prat will happen, but the codebase is designed to mediate this crap behaver for better outcomes 🙂

#OGB “permissionless” is an important word that needs some thought. The body is made up of three different, balanced groups: stakeholders, users, and affiliate stakeholders. Anybody can become a stakeholder by setting up and running an active instance, and users are self-explanatory. That affiliate stakeholders are a little more complex and are treated differently, and it’s up to the body itself to decide if they play an active and useful role.

That nothing in this is top-down, elitist, discriminatory, or undemocratic, and it’s #KISS and looks safe to the “normal world” while being native to the #fediverse and its roots. All the coding is #4opens, based on #activertypub.

With #OGB, it’s important not to get lost in the #processgeeks and their dogmatic love of #formalconsensus, as that’s a dead end and has been for the 30 years of activism and coding tech. It’s important to keep the #OGB both #KISS and human, understandable. The #OGB is native “governance” and federates in the same way as the projects it “governs”. That this approach is counterintuitive to mainstream ideas and “common sense,” but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

This approach has worked to some extent, as seen in the “#Fediverse” as a living example, working to scale small to bigger. There will be lots of “smoke,” and help is needed to keep the project clear of this mess. We have to overcome our #stupidindividualism to have a hope of a better world.

#OGB To remind you that the need for “governance” came out of a practical problem where the #activitypub community is made up of “cats” who were doing seminars outreach to powerful #EU Eurocrats on why they should be interested in #activertypub. #OGB is designed to be messy and not tidy, and it’s a “governance” of a disorganization, not a traditional power structure. “governance” can cooperate with more formal models of governance like traditional cooperatives.

My indymedia story

#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 #fashernista, building an aggregating site and the other #geekproblem building a centralized silo. The split was supposedly over technical disagreements, but was driven by doctrinal and tribal disputes. The decision-making process, like much activism at the time grew to rely on #formalconsensus, become ossified and unfixable, so no decisions could be made to mediate this.

outline of the #reboot project

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 #4opens #OMN. The silo eventually built an aggregating site, with RSS feeds, but in a very controlling way. The stress was always on control as “security” 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 of the project.

The plan now is to reboot the project before the split happened, around 2008 with a focus on the #fashernitas path of the two 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 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 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 project and the current #indymediaback reboot path.

Unfortunately, in today’s world of liberation “cats” due to the last 20 years of worship 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 based #dotcons

To make the reboot work , we have to tiptoe around the legacy of #Indymedia, focus on rebooting the project in its 2008 state, where the social process were still working. The silos’ path still controls the old domains, they took as a part of the ripping apart. 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: Fediverse vs. silos as we see this old mess today.

#OGB is a projects that grew from #socialhub

#SocialHub is a community-driven space that seeks to promote #activertypub, working with new models of governance and organization that empower communities. It is part of the larger #fediverse, which is a network of decentralized social media platforms that do not conform to traditional hierarchies and power structures.

The #OGB project, which is come from #SocialHub, aims to develop a more decentralized and autonomous model of governance by leveraging open-source technologies and building on existing fediverse infrastructure. The project seeks to find a balance between structure and flexibility, with a focus on involving community members in decision-making and empowering them to “natively” shape their digital spaces.

The project is guided by the principles of the #4opens, which emphasize openness, transparency, and inclusivity. However, there is a need to resist the urge to impose traditional liberal solutions and instead embrace original thinking that is native to the #fediverse and #openweb.

The project is still in development and seeks coding input to build this community best practice grassroots producer governance model to help focus on sustainable, inclusive, and equitable. Lets keep project focus on separating off-topic threads, discussions from mainstream dogmas and “common sense” to prevent trolling and maintain focus.

The project is available on Open Media Network’s repository on Gitea https://unite.openworlds.info/Open-Media-Network/openwebgovernancebody, and a remainder we like to focus on #KISS online tools to facilitate horizontal governance.

Thinking through composting the #techshit


The #openweb has many benefits, though it will not always be the right tool for all situations, there is a lot of mature tech available for privacy and control. The desire to mix these technologies comes from #mainstreaming liberalisms desire for social media to be private, rather than inherently public.

The decentralized #openweb and encrypted chat are obviously separate and should coexist without reproducing the mistakes of centralized #dotcons social media. Focusing on the #4opens and leaving hard privacy for individuals and groups in peer-to-peer encrypted chat is the “native” path.

Thinking through composting the #techshit. In our era of dead ideologies like post-modernism and neoliberalism, we need to build “bounded” projects that have clear boundaries, such as #4opens and #PGA, to keep us focused and resist #mainstreaming liberalism and right-wing ideologies. This helps us create a shared space of practice and direction for politics and technology. While “branding” can be powerful, caution is needed to not creating a sense of dogmatic tribalism in these movements #OMN

Good horizontalists understand theory comes from practice, and the basis of this is #DIY – working practice to build theory. Starting from theory lead’s to a dizzy mess that results in more #techshit to compost or academic wank. Instead. Building from grassroots DIY practices, such as #OMN, #Indymediaback, and #OGB, and then using theory from these practices.

We need to emphasize the importance of focus on the #openweb. Engage with this flow to practice activism and to avoid pushing mess.

What is the value of “bounded” projects

We need to build “bounded” projects because we live in the era of the #deathcult based on the dead ideologies of post-modernism and #neoliberalism. Both deny the possibility of the world we want to build. So “common sense” is not our friend.

The “boundaries” of #4opens and #PGA keep focus vs this “common sense”. We are lost without this.

The #OMN are building tools for the “other” that’s us. “Them” are hostile, especially if they don’t understand “they” are. This is #mainstreaming liberals, and right wing crew.

#PGA is about, horizontal giving us a shared space of practice, understanding and working for “politics” and the #4opens gives us the same for tech

They together create a boundary for us to focus, Without this we have a tendency to fight and create mess. So it’s a soft/pours “us” and “them” to provide focuses and direction. In a bad sense, it is the badges of the tribe. In a better sense, it’s the banners we fly at our gatherings, but this starts to sound a bit nationalist. So let’s not do this 😉

The subject of “branding”, flags, banners is a real balance, they have power… And we need power in horizontal movements.

This podcast is a interesting look at this https://media.blubrry.com/novarafm_radio_for_a/audiofiles.novara.io/acfm/2023/230212_ACFM_Trip_32_Myth_2.mp3 as background thinking.

Talking about trust and power in networks

A. on the subject of “security” we have a #open policy of not trusting ANY client server security at all, so this should only be done #4opens as far as possible and having limited trust in #p2p security, even though we use this, because of the insecurity of the underlighting syteams it runs on, mostly old outdated phones, built as blobs by #dotcons this simple approach gets round much of the current thinking of technical “security” ie. the is almost non at a normal use level and little real security at the paranoid level as you will be talking to the normal level so there security will fail even if yours is solid. good to keep this in mind 🙂

The #OMN is all about people messing around with each others data 😉 but yes we need good basic security, (sudo anomumus) accounts, public audit trails (openprocess) everywhere. we will need digital hashes/cigs for media items etc. but the data it self just sloshes around and gets hacked at and added to. its a commons, the rules are social based on trust flows, they are not mostly hard coded or encrypted. but we add a smidgen of hardcoding and decryption ONLY were its needed. So 90% trust flows, 5% social norms, 4% hardcoded, 1% encryption is my thinking.

A. Data has the value the instance itself is transitory, and yes the instance is needed and stores the data but if it vanishes it has little impact on the value (the data), we build this into the network.

Q. am talking about the machines

A. We won’t the instance to stay up and be secure, BUT we build the network, so it keeps working when they are hacked and poisend by bad actors.

Q. Yes, but that doesn’t mean we make things easy for bad actors

A. Yes, the code and instances have to be secure, but the network flows, and the data soup have to keep working when the individual instances are hacked and poised, no security is fool prof and the #OMN is focused on building trust so is inherently more open to fools, we build with this in mind. We are building a #KISS semantic internet of data/flows. For example the idea of rollback as a core security model rather than more traditional hard (control) security is a good fit, due to the #4opens approach, the missing few days of data will (mostly) rollback into the instance so the cost of being hacked/trust failed is less of a block to being open and (social) trusting to bring in actors/sysadmins/moderates etc. On the tin, we are clear that our network is a trust based “lossy” network.

Where you can still run the #OMN as a hard control based secure network if you wont BUT it will not scale to the social change/challenge if this second option is the only one, this is the current #geekproblem we need to work our way out of. The first path of trust based “lossy” is where the real horizontal “power” comes from.

Q. We sometimes need to think/talk about “security”.

A. I can only repeat I don’t have a solution to this, but I have a path to one, make the user facing “trust” based then from this, “trust” them to fix the next “problem” the #geekproblem of the hardcoded #feudalism of all our networks and code. Or in other words head in sand and pray someone else will fix it, am bussey 😉

On the #OMN projects maybe we need to list what needs to be secure: the account, the activity feed, the data credit might be more but can’t think of much else off the top of my head. And yes to secure the account the instance has to be secure, to secure the activity feed the flows need to be secure, to secure the credit the likely needs to be some hashing done on the media objects.
We likely end up back close to the place we started, but we come to this from a very different place, if that makes sense. This path we take matters.