A #4opens review of boatbuddys.co.uk

https://www.boatbuddys.co.uk

The #4opens:

Are a simple way to judge the value of a “alt/grassroots” tech project.

Open data – is the basic part of a project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_data without this open they cannot work.

* there is no way to get your data out or to access the metadata. Its copyright. No open

Open source – as in “free software” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_software this keeps development healthy by increasing interconnectedness and bringing in serendipity. The Open licences are the “lock” that keep the first two in place, what we have ain’t perfect, but they do expand the area of “trust” that a project needs to work, creative commons is a start here.

* its closed source on the surface, not obvious what is happening under the surface. No open

Open “industrial” standards – this is a little understood but core open, it’s what the open internet and WWW are built from. Here is an outline https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_standard

* no RSS I can see, it’s a basic website I think with a forum? No open

Open process – this is the most “nebulous” part, examples of the work flow would be wikis and activity streams. Projects are built on linking trust networks, so open process is the “glue” that binds the links together. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Process

* it’s a forum so kinda open process but no look at the running of the project. 1/2 open

To sum up, it’s a project that could be made more #4opens if the was a community involved. This depends on the guys running it and their tech support being willing and having time to push the project out into the “commons”.

At the moment is a dormant seed #dotcons

1/2 open out of 4 so not a #4opens project.

A #KISS explanation of our current mess

The world is broken. Liberal Capitalism is trying to push back into mainstream mindspace and failing. The rightwing nutters with zero mortality are swamping them. The left is still a fraction.

The core issue is private ownership of data.

* The liberal capitalists apply “legal” DRM which is a digital fiction and dead end.

* The nutter right are corporatist walking directly to digital apartheid/political fascism.

* The left are irrelevant.

The answer is simple #4opens leading to a data commons. BUT this leads directly to a revolution of what it means to be human thus few people talk about it.

Message from a lifeboat near the end of the world #boatingeurope

If you want a good progressive media you need to challenge the powerpolatics that our current individual groups are based on

Power Politics, if you are interested in a progressive alt-media, this cannot continue as a core social solutions to the majority of problems. We need a genuine consensus based approach, which cannot happen if powerpolatics is an unspoken option in social movements. We have an existing social movement to build alt media and an easey to build outcome from this dead end problem, I express this as the #4opens in a less diluted form this is expressed in the open source/freesofterwere movement that almost all the world’s tech is already based on.

The cream of our new media networks such as #navaramedia are embedded in power politics and powerfully against such movements as the #4opens by ignoring issues that do not push there powerpolatics agender.

We have smaller groups such as #reelnews who are affinity groups, “family” based #4opens. They work in the horizontal world but there output is still largely building the powerpolatics worldviews.

The are many bottom feeding NGO projects such as the #mediafund who would like to be a part of powerpolatics but try to achieve this by feeding off #4opens projects building copies of alt media to subsidies there failing funding/powerpolatics agenders.

There are a bunch of “successful” alt media projects, such as #commondreams that feed off and feed back into the “chattering classes” these are irrelevant for progressive alt-media outcomes. But they do produce content that could be a part of a progressive media network

We currently have flows of content that aggregated actually builds a strong progressive media. BUT each of these projects that support the production of this media are embedded in and do not see outside powerpolatics agenders thus we currently do not have a strong progressive alt media. The best outcome of the current alt media projects is that Navaramedia become the new guardian newspaper, look at the #powerpolatics capture that ended up.

If you want a good progressive media you need to challenge the powerpolatics that our current individual groups are based on. One such #4opens network is the #OMN what ideas do you have?

Howto see the world

With out a wider “ideological” world view you have no place to stepaway from your past mistakes. Everyone needs to look at the world from differing perspectives. The current neo-liberal dogma in all its different fashionable clothes is just that a failed dogma that we clearly need to stepaway from.

The world can be different, I have lived most of my life in a different world to the one that is swallowing everything around me.

I use the word “blinded” to describe meany of the people I meet in tech and grassroots movements. They are blinded for differing surface reasons, on the hippy side it is conspiracy dressed as empty spiritualism. On the liberal progressive side it is internalized neo-liberalism feeding fear, cowardice and greed dressed in the “sacred” garb of “self intrest”. Best not to mention the process geeks or #encryptionists

The are paths to stepaway from this mess #openweb #4opens is one that would be empowering for both non geeks and the more technically minded.

The #geekproblem pushing over #openweb agen

https://www.wired.com/story/how-blockchain-can-wrest-the-internet-from-corporations The #encryptionists are trying to pushing there flagging project over the healthy #openweb reboot.

Q. need a new hashtag? lovers of blockchain (bloccatenaphile?) are a breed unto themselves, and not likely to be as sensible as some those who are in to encryption.

how broad is your definition of #encryptionist?

A. #encryptionists my “fuckyou” thoughts started with the #indymedia network. The #geekproblem installed a self signed certificate on the domain to increase “privacy” alongside not logging ip addresses on the local server.

The “good affect” only securaty theater, the bad affect, every user received a browser pop up saying “do not trust this site” and the IP addresses could just be collected “upriver” at the ISP/switch level by the state actors who were monitoring the project

#openweb

The affect of not logging IP address locally was a rising deluge of spam and moderator burn out.

The was not democratic process on these changes, and no way to role them back or even address the issue. The project of over 100 globle news sites, with thousands of media creators and millions of users. Ossified and then died, the #dotcons soon replaced it.

#fashernistas moved on, the #openweb started to die.

The #geekproblem pushing #encryptionists agenders OVER #openweb projects.

The is a role for #encryptionists /closed but it’s on balance a smaller one than “open” is my core experience over the last 20 years.

All tech is “ideology” as code, we need to talk about this #4opens

Building alt/grassroots media networks to challenge and widen the traditional media

Our current groups doing alt/grassroots media are too limited in their idea of what media could/should be in this the is either a naivety or a dishonesty. The most successful act and think they can be #traditionalmedia” without controlling the distribution of their content in any meaningful way. This is of course not unusual, the mainstream media is continually making this same mistake. All of them rely on the #dotcons which nowadays is largely the #Failbook algorithm for the there content distribution.

Our current grassroots/alt media have websites so already have one foot in the openweb, but none of their sites prominently link in any meaningful way to each others. They do podcasting so anther foot in the open web, but all their effort for outreach is inside the #silos such as Apple iTunes etc. it’s hard to directly blame them, though we should and will, for this sorry state.

So why are we here? On the one hand we have the #fashernista embrace of the #dotcons which almost all the current crew built their careers inside. A capitalist #mainstreaming.

On the other we have the suicidal embrace of #encryptionists complexity and parallel “standardization” into a pointless/shrinking to nothingness alt-tech ghetto were our #geekproblem are and desire to stay. A liberal/libertarian #mainstreaming.

With these issues in mind I have been outreaching to these groups for the last year, and building real working openweb linking tech as part of the #OMN project. This currently is not been getting past the crew’s naivety/self-interest/career focused thinking. Fair anufe if that is as far as their imagination/aspiration goes, but this is a clear problem for working alt/progressive/left media that urgently needs to be addressed.

So our current alt/grassroots media are irrelevant to rebooting a healthy society from a technical/social point of view. Their is some good content but no realistic path for this media to be seen or spread in a way that can be affective for social change outside the controlling #dotcons

One simple and practical path to change this is a basic. To move on with the project to get alt/grassroots media producers linking to each other on the #openweb Currently they pointlessly do not do this, even though they have repeatedly stated they do over the last few years.

What action have I been taking over the last 10 years:

1) Keep private messaging them on steps they can take, this works to an extent, as last year I asked them to add more tags to their posts and they “broke” the User Interface on the #OMN codebase we are using by adding lots more – which is a good problem to have. A small step.

2) Publicly talk to them as a alt/grassroots media group in blog post and their social media – this currently has little effect.

3) Talk to them in public as producer groups – this has had a limited effect with some groups, will try this more.

4) Publicly talk to them as individual’s, this will generally get a private response and little/no action just words so far.

5) Name and shame them as groups who do not link/share with other groups in public, this might be needed for some groups, but this is a negative.

6) Name them as individuals within the producer groups and push for linking directly to them in public, name and point to the individual that this is a clear negative fail, a last stage.

It’s a shame that this escalation is needed/not working – linking is a clear path to success on the web – the right-wing blogs/producers do this, it’s a simple fail that the left/progressive do not now, and generally never have link to each other.

“Make the world you want to see” LINKING is the bases of the #openweb and a strong path to #rebooting the grassroots internet itself. Looking for helpful/happy people to crowed source the active conversation to make this happen, maybe we need a “new” alt-media content #reboot to pull the current ones onto a sustainable path, lead by example.

For this to be relevant we need working open media tech, the best example of this is mastodon/activertypub. The #OMN project uses this and is simple #4opens based on linking, it’s a “first step”.

Updated text, find our current project https://unite.openworlds.info/explore/organizations

A metaphorical view of tech and society

The data soup

Mobs do not have minds, but they do have lots of tasty cultural bits bubbling and stirring that make a good humane soup we feed and grow on.

Experts/individuals have small minds and little/narrow incite into wider social truths they build single view expert solutions to universal mob swirling problems. These are cold bowl of moldy soup in no time, #fashernistas see steaming bowl for a moment tasty and nice to eat before moving onto the next leaving it forgotten cold and then decaying into dry mold.

Facebook is a expert created system for feeding/off mobs and privatizing there energy into private profit and social (mob) control. Its about taking all the tasty bit out of the data soup and feeding them to a tiny minority of “experts”.
Archive.org is a out of date fragile (#geekproblem) expert system for holding/keeping “mobish” data into the open future. Its the right project done in the wrong way but fine as a handle for the iron cauldron that contains the OMN data soup we need to build.
OMN is a non expert system to empower a diversity of expert/ish that bubbles out of mobs. Its a diversity of ladle in the never ending data soup cooked in a big iron cauldron. It’s Jesus and the fishes and wine, the “religious” power of #4opens.

#KISS and #4opens

Lets look at some alt projects from the perspective of the 4opens Themediafund

Lets look at some alt projects from the perspective of the #4opens – Themediafund

https://themediafund.org

Open data – the site has no visible RSS its likely wordpress so maybe has a hidden feed. Copyright content so the data is closed and locked vier copyright.
1/4 open

Open source – The site is likely wordpress so opensource but everything else is copyright. All the media is stored in #dotcon so not a open. Give them 1/4 open

Open “industrial” standards – Well wordpress is kinda a standard, but they do not openly support RSS, podcasting and all media is vier #dotcon so no.

Open process – The is no visible process (likely hidden bureaucratic open’ish). For tech dev I cannot fined the code anywhere.

Escaping the dotcon worldwide

Published Date 11/4/17 2:40 PM

UPDATE this is in process.

Escaping the #dotcon worldwide

Terms of services – based on the #4opens

* Activist – based on PGA hallmarks

* NGO – find a big org and use that’s TOS

Copy the mastodon TOS and refocus to the above

* Names x2

* Domains x2

Then setup Github sites with these names to run the tech side of the project and provide a on-line organizing space.

We need a list of outreach orgs and contacts in this likely all ready exists.

Funding document writing for LUSH

Offering a real alternative to the dotcons world

Published Date 10/17/17 4:59 PM

This is a quite #reboot of the #openweb going on. This #4opens project has nearly 1 million users https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mastodon_(software) It’s one of the use it or lose it moments for life outside #failbook. It would be a bad time for progressive funders to start to prop up the #dotcons world if we don’t try to change direction, sad outcome is invertible.

A funding application to set up/boot up both an “NGO” and an “Activism” instance of Mastodon. Each could have different “terms of service” but would both talk to each other and the wider #AP networks. It’s time and not a #dotcons and works #OMN

Would need a crew of 3 people part-time for 6 months roll out then 6 months sustaining after this year the project should be self-sustaining due to low running costs. Can use patron and occasional donation drives.

Crew
Hamish – lead fixer and Activist outreach
Sys admin – to set up the servers and keep them running
NGO Outreach – to outreach to NGO’s and get them to buy into the #openweb project.

Funding
5-7K funding for the first year. From Lush and Edgefund
This would mostly be part-time wages, with some server and outreach costs. A monthly donation would go to the development https://www.patreon.com/mastodon

The project would be organised on Github as a #4opens project as a part of an open media network.

Lets look at some alt projects from the perspective of the 4opens realmedia

Published Date 10/6/17 1:04 PM

https://realmedia.press

Open data – the site has a RSS feed but is copyright so 1/2 of a open

Open source – its wordpress kinda open 1/2

Open “industrial” standards – they do not easely support RSS podcasts and most media is corp hosted so 1/2 a open

Open process – Process is opaque.

Bronze 2 opens
Silver 3 opens
Gold 4 opens

realmedia is a Bronze #4opens project, need clarification.

Lets look at some alt projects from the perspective of the 4opens democracynow

Published Date 10/6/17 12:30 PM

https://www.democracynow.org/

Open data – the site has a RSS feed, no copyright/CC notice on site so ½ of a open till clarifyed

Open source – hard to tell if the code base is opensource so no open for now.

Open “industrial” standards – they support RSS and podcasts and all media is openstandered so a open

Open process – Process is opaque to ouytisders but likly relativly open to insiders so 1/2 open maybe.

Bronze 2 opens
Silver 3 opens
Gold 4 opens

Democracynow is a Bronze #4opens project.