Tag: diy

Theory and practice in activism

Meany #fashernistas have a troubling view of theory and practice. All good horizontalists understand that they come from practice. At the basis of this is #DIY that is working through practice to build theory.

To start from theory go ground and round and round then try and put this into practice, ends in a dizzy mess. When this mess is imposed as a solution we obviously get more #techshit to compost or academic wank to clean up.

We are building from what works #grassroots #DIY with #OMN #indymediaback #OGB based on theory from practices.

Good to engage with this flow to practice activism. Please try not to push mess our way, focus is important.

Composting the Last 40 Years of Social Sh*t: Understanding Political Motivations and Embracing Openness and Trust

In today’s world, it’s common to feel overwhelmed by the barrage of information, opinions, and ideas flooding our #dotcons social media feeds and news outlets. From political debates to social issues, it is a challenging to navigate through the noise and understand what’s really happening.

A way to cut through the clutter to gain a better understanding of the political landscape is by using a metaphorical shovel to compost the last 40 years of social sh*t. By digging deep and examining the roots of political motivations, we can understand the forces driving the right and left wings of politics.

Firstly, understand that the right-wing is motivated by fear and the desire for control. Whether it’s fear of losing power, fear of change, or fear of the unknown, the right prioritize maintaining the status quo over progress and innovation. This translates into policies that restrict individual liberties, limit access to healthcare and education, and perpetuate systemic inequality.

On the other hand, the left-wing is motivated by trust and openness. Rather than relying on fear and control, the left prioritizes transparency, collaboration, and inclusivity. This leads to policies that prioritize social welfare, protect human rights, and promote equality and justice.

However, it’s not just politics that require an openness and trust-based approach. In the tech world, the framework provides a similar role in promoting transparency, collaboration, and decentralized decision-making. By embracing the principles of the :

* Open data – is the basic part of a project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_data with out this open they cannot work.
* 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.
* Open “industrial” standards – this is a little understand but core open, its what the open internet and WWW are built from. Here is an outline https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_standard
* 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

helps ensure that technology is used for the benefit of “us”, rather than “them”. But, as with any tool or framework, and left-wing politics can only work if people are willing to pick them up and use them. This means taking a #DIY (do-it-yourself) approach to politics and technology and embracing the power of the communertys to create change.

Tilling the fertile soil of hope requires a commitment to openness, transparency, and collaboration, but it also requires simplicity. Keeping things simple, or #KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid), helps to prevent people from getting bogged down in complexity or becoming trolls on social media. By focusing on a simple but powerful vision of openness, trust, and collaboration, we can work towards creating a more ecological, just and equitable world.

In conclusion, composting the last 40 years of social sh*t requires a willingness to dig deep and examine the roots of political motivations. By understanding the fear-based approach of the right and the trust-based approach of the left, we can better navigate the political landscape. Embracing openness and trust-based working helps to ensure that technology is used for the benefit of all, while keeping things simple can prevent us from getting bogged down in complexity or becoming trolls. It’s up to each and every one of us to pick up the shovel and start tilling the fertile soil of hope.

Liberal trolls – are often not WHO they think they are

DRAFT to be edited

http://hamishcampbell.com/2023/02/14/archiving-the-openweb-in-a-personal-way/

http://hamishcampbell.com/2023/02/12/thinking-about-why-openweb-projects-fail/

It’s hard to get a thried out of mastodon, hopeful this is in the right order and not missing bits. As usually, if you would like to be anonymous with no linking please say so, thanks.

Made a blog post, if you reply your text might be added to this if you don’t tell me not to 🙂

We are talking about this blog post http://hamishcampbell.com/2023/02/12/thinking-about-why-openweb-projects-fail/ I sent to the people I had archived the conversation as a seed for a blog post, the guys jump in with limited good faith.

@bob Note that my posts are CC-BY-NC. If you’re quoting me, then you need attribution, otherwise it looks like your own work.

The blog is to take transitory content “a toot” and make it more long-lasting and link it into a flow of social memory. I would love a codebase that had this built into its #UX Now, if someone made code to automate credit and archiving work just as well, I would be happy to use it.

@elplatt yes, in general it’s good practice to quote or block quote and attribute. Right now, it’s not clear who said what

I don’t tend to do “good practice” as I do this #DIY and don’t get paid for my time. I have two ways to “anonymize” text, if I keep the flow then I take the names out and put Q. and A. as the voices, if it’s out of the flow I just put “from the #openweb” this makes it quick and simple to archive things I value without jumping though impossible conversations each time. If people won’t credit and ask, I add it, it’s the polite thing to do.

Then nuttyness starts – from @elplatt I’d prefer not to be associated with plagiarism. Please remove my content. Thanks.

It says from the #openweb in BOLD, so it’s not plagiarism (Plagiarism is the fraudulent representation of another person’s language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions as one’s own original work.) . But happy to remove stuff if people don’t won’t it archived. (I updated the blog post to add bob as he asked to be, then move the FROM THE OPENWEB under bob. Have a look and tell me what you won’t http://hamishcampbell.com/2023/02/12/thinking-about-why-openweb-projects-fail/

whaw that is bad behaver: @elplatt #GreatjusticeNet has blocked campaign.openworlds.info for plagiarizing fediverse content [IMAGE] lie about someone then block their instance.

Q. Interesting to think about, if this was an argument, should I keep the stuff online or remove it if asked? What’s the good path for this?

@bob Friendly reminder to always credit people for their work. Avoid making it look as if you wrote something, which you didn’t. This is really just courtesy, or treating people with care. Saying “this came from the internet” isn’t sufficient. There can also be cases where people request to remain anonymous, but that is typically rare.

That is way too much work is the problem, in grassroots activism the are to meany borderline nutters, so my work practice is a reflection of this. Good to remember all #OMN projects are CC licence and not for profit, so with this understanding its best just to hold the nuttiness and talk as a first step. People to people, not law/rights/property etc 🙂

@bob Well, in the case of plagiarism this isn’t really a law thing it’s just an act of courtesy to say who quotes originate from. (we get a bit lost here as it’s nothing to do with plagiarism, it is about a liberal troll) Ripping people off is what BigTech does. We need to be better, and treat people well. (its not about ripping people off it is about a liberal troll)

Nobody is doing plagiarism, nobody is stealing. Nobody is ripping anyone off, we are talking in good faith, I hope. Best to put bad words and judgments to one side https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plagiarism it is not, now what else is the issue?

To @bob you are missing the point of what we/am talking about, and pushing a liberal private property view agenst a “commons” view.

Now this does bring up the issue of licence, my instance is the same as bobs CC-BY-NC so in theory I have the right to reuse content without asking as my blog is also CC-BY-NC, but I am polite and go a stage further if I am unshore if a person wants to be linked I initially publish post with “from the #openweb” post the URL to get feedback.

@bob This isn’t a stage further. It’s the BY part of the CC license. It doesn’t necessarily require links, but some indication of who the content is by.

Morally, you would be in most cases wrong to push this, but legally you are right. Now comes the issue of me making this into a blog post. I need to quote him in the post, but it would likely increase the bad feeling if I did this with name and LINK, under CC-BY-NC I have the right to use his post, he can’t say NO but morlay should I name and shame him or just leave the mess as an anonymous example of working practice?

@bob Under CC-BY-NC I have the right to use his post, but not without attribution.

I can see no copyright notice https://greatjustice.net/about But his personal sight is https://elplatt.com/ CC so let’s assume for now. Added the link though it feels like trolling, very happy to remove it

For the blog post, would likely need to look at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use as am pretty sure at this stage he would say no text, but the is no story without the text, and he has already given me the right to use the text under CC-BY-NC if I link to him, the instance blocking and CC licencing cross site is icing on the cake.

NEED TO CHECK THIS

Thinking more about this, I likely did not need to have this conversation at all, as a journalist criticizing a “work” is a clear case of fair use. I anonymize the text so that I can freely reinterpret it, which is what the archives are for, and labaled (FROM THE OPENWEB) to stop people thinking it was my work TICK then it’s just a working document and a good example of a clash of Liberal ideas.

The CC side of the conversation is not wrong, it’s just NOT what my actions are based on, OK, this makes more sense. This conversation is ltraly a liberal troll storm in a tea cup, that’s what happens if you talk to people about archiving 🙂

This is based on the idea that this is a working document (which all my blog posts are, they get updated and reused all the time) So it’s not an act of publishing (which in this case it was not as I was still drafting, asking if people wonted attribution)

But would be when I mythically called it finished… round in circals in the world. The second story on the post is more finished, the text there is changed/transformed, so from the #openweb is OK.

hamishcampbell.com/2023/02/12/

 

 

Archiving the #openweb in a personal way

I spend a bit of time copying conversations off transient communication, microblogging, #failbook, chat etc. and archive this on my blog. I don’t tend to do “good practice” in this as I do it #DIY and don’t get paid for my time 🙂

I have two ways to “anonymize” text, if I keep the flow then I take the names out and put Q. and A. as the voices, if it’s out of the flow I just put “from the #openweb” this makes it quick and simple to archive things of value without jumping though impossible conversations each time. If people won’t credit and ask, I add it, it’s the polite thing to do.

Now if someone made code to automate credit and archiving work just as well, I would be happy to use it 🙂

History of copyleft activist grassroots video distribution

Hamish Campbell, the founder of #VisiononTV, began his journey into copyleft video through his project called #RoughCuts. In a recent interview, Campbell shared how RoughCuts started as one of the first copyleft video projects that encoded activist video in MPEG-1 format, an early standard format for video. He would burn CDs with an hour of different films and create a user interface using HTML to make it easy for people to watch them on their computers.

The CDs were sold for five pounds each, the project was designed to be a sustainable #DIY media distribution platform. People were encouraged to buy the CD, copy it, and give it away for free, and the revenue generated from the CD sales would help fund national screening tours, pay for travel expenses and equipment repair.

As the technology of the web advanced, people could watch videos online at a reasonable quality, which made the CDs obsolete. Hamish took a break from RoughCuts until the technology caught up a year or two later, and he started VisiononTV, a webTV project distribution platform for on-the-ground screenings. People could watch the videos on the web, but the primary focus was on taking the content offline and showing it on big screens to an audience in the same room.

Hamish Campbell’s RoughCuts project was a pioneering effort in the field of copyleft video, which paved the way for his later project, VisiononTV. His approach of creating sustainable DIY media distribution platforms continues to inspire and influence media activists around the world.

A interview with Hamish Campbell on grassroots media and tech

Interviewer: Can you tell us about your project #RoughCuts and how it started?

Hamish Campbell: Before I did #VisiononTV, I started a project called RoughCuts, which was offline copyleft video. It was one of the first copyleft projects with video, encode in the MPEG-1 an early standard format for video, about VHS quality video. You could fit an hour on a cheap CD. I would burn these CDs with different films, and an interface to the front of it using an HTML page, so you put the CD in your computer, and this web page would pop up with a list of all the films with a bit of information and a link to play the film. Then I would copy these in a CD burner. I’d go around the country doing screenings and I would sell the CDs for five pounds if people wonted to support the project.

Interviewer: How did you fund national screening tours for Rough Cuts?

Hamish Campbell: I funded national screening tours by selling these CDs, which were available for free if people wanted to copy them. So, I said, buy the CD, then go home, and copy it and give it all to your friends. It was a take-it-away-and-distribute-it-yourself project. It was sustainable DIY media distribution, so the person who was doing it could be sustained and could actually make a little bit of money to travel around and pay the expenses, repair cameras, etc.

Interviewer: How did the technology change of the web impact RoughCuts?

Hamish Campbell: The technology of the web moved on, so people actually could put video on the web and watch it on the web in reasonable quality. So then, why buy a CD? Why have a physical medium? It became an obsolete project. So then I kind of stopped doing that for a while, but then a year or two later, the web technology caught up, and it was really easy to do web video. So I thought, let’s do a webTV project distribution project for on the ground screenings, so people can watch on the web, but what it’s really about is taking it off the web and showing it on a big screen to a bunch of people in the same room. That’s how #VisiononTV came about.

 

Talking about the #indymediaback project

Q. A few comments on your excellent video.

Your page layout is driven by desktop. Nowadays, people think mobile first.

The rollback: an interesting idea.

A. Yep it’s the #nothingnew part of the project, the original IMC was ripped apart buy internal arguments and bad process, so we are rebooting the project before this happened so making minimal changes outa the box of UX and process, the needed changes can then come FROM “consensus” of the fresh crew running the rebooted instances.

The mobile expirence is swipe sideways to each of the menu items as columns. This is a reasonable compromise, as the original project had no mobile interface.

This is an example https://indymedia.hs2rebellion.earth/users/news you have to click past the SSL error to see the site, on mobile a single column interface, but the swiping is not implemented, so you have to click on the menu at the top. This test site is a RSS/AP aggregator #indymediaback

Q. Well, that is interesting. Seeing something is so much more impressive than just a video. What is the software platform? What web server are you using?
It is pretty easy to do https.
Is anyone actually using the software?

A. sadly, the 2-year working project was killed off by covid just as we were going to start the outreach at protest camps. The codebase is now abandoned, was based on epycion, but dev on this folk is now stopped/blocked.

What we had is a good expirence though, Imagen if the swiping worked. The RSS and AP side works for input, the AP output does not work, none of the tagging was implemented on these rollout test sites, we are still running 3 but needs a committed crew to restart #indymediaback

Was 6 months work for 3 people to put this working code together #DIY and a wider collective to do the work on the text and process to bring the original #indymeda back in the spirit of #nothingnew but the stress of dev and covid broke this as we were getting close to test rollout, been dormant since then.

We need to chose a new codebase and find a coding crew, most of the hard work is done, all the existing design, process and outreach text is in place to push this out agen as the “news” part of the #fediverse

But its another year of nonpaid #openweb work… phwww… fighting agenst the pointlessness of the #mainstreaming is a hard sell, even though it’s blatantly and obviously needed.

Talking to people about #twittermigration

Thinking of stepping away from the #dotcons to the #openweb a conversation with an activist signing up on a big general instance – they kinda all do this.

A. You might be better off on an activism focused instance, https://activism.openworlds.info, but you will be fine on the one anyone, as they all talk to each other. The instance you join is your “home community” so good to join one that matches your interests and mission.

Q. Thank you so much – I am entirely lost here as just arrived and the whole ‘find your server’ bit flumoxxed me! Excuse what’s likely a silly question – but ‘where is my main profile?’ ie: where whatever bit of Mastodon I’m on… I would
be the same me?

A. you have joined a big general instance’s https://mastodon.online/ it’s a fine place to be. You can have more than one account on different instances, I have 3 mastodon accounts on 3 different instances, run 2 of these as a part of the #OMN

Ps. hashtags are your friend, use them in posts and click on them to find interesting people

Q. so if I boost a post on one account – I would need to also boost on other ‘me’ accounts in other arenas/spaces? Thanks so much for your help x

A. you can do that, but you don’t need to. All the instances are kinda one big space. The import bit is that each instance has a community and focus, so it helps yourself and the #openweb if you put our self into a subject instance.

For example, if someone complains about your posts it’s the mods and admins of the instance you join get to decide if it stays up or your account gets closed… so best to have a relationship with the instance admin and mods… This is much easer on a smaller, friendly focused instance than a bigger, more inpersional general one.

It’s much more #DIY and human relationship than #twitter.

The fediverse is an “accidental” openweb reboot

The #fediverse is an “accidental” #openweb reboot by the #fashernistas, so it’s herding cats to get anything done, not a bad thing, not a good thing It’s what it is.

One way to move away from this mess is #OGB grassroots #DIY producer governance.

Otherwise, live (and die) with the mess, and try to stop people bowing down and praying to the #deathcult is a step to keep the #openweb in place.

A conversation on the #geekproblem

A. We compost the current tech shitpile by #4opens to weed out 90% of the crap so as a first step we only have to work through the 10% then we are trying projects like #OGB and #OMN to work base on trust links to sift this last down to 1% then it’s human to human scale where we can build links/community’s out wider.

I think we have a good first step, if we can move the projects past the current #blocking​

Q. I think you need to breakdown what needs to be done and what you’d like to be done into small chunks to get past some of the blocking.

Especially if you want tech hours on it, at the moment.

Because there are folks there looking for a project to contribute to, but they aren’t always sure how to contribute.

A. Not how protest camps or squats, or hippy gathering happens. They are grassroots #DIY were people “just know” what to do because it has to be done to create the “world” around them.

Here you are describing the #geekproblem as a path out of the “problem” am addressing. Protest camps, squats and hippy gatherings all happen in the “real world” and are made by “real people” so “geeks” could/need to do all of them gives you an idea where the “problem” is 🙂

Q. Possibly even put the bite sized chunks into a toot and make it an appeal for help. Because yes we do have issues in the tech community with ignoring the negativity but sometimes folks will make grabby hands for the chance to do something positive, even a tiny thing to move a project forward.

A. have been working on this for 20 years, we can’t “solve” this problem from “inside” the problem. Change/change is needed from meany people to shift the #blocking culture. Am one voice, it requires a community, yes the are tools #4opens #OGB #OMN etc are useful. If the chicken and egg “problem” can be mediated.

“All code is ideology solidified into action – most contemporary code is capitalism”

You and your wider community can take the #4opens and judge codeing projects, thus discard 90% of them. The remaining 10% will have obvious holes that then people can focus on, examples are the projects I push. By doing this, building up and widening our “culture” we can focus on the 1% that is really important. From this we change the world as default, and likely our nature. Of course, it’s not this simple and challenge/change can easily be negative. It’s this or #deathcult

Q. OK, so consider that some geeks may not see how they can contribute, it could be background, it could be they haven’t had much of an opportunity to interact with the real world of protest.

We need to open the door both ways. Not just make tech more accessible to folks outside tech, but to figure out how to open the door so that techies can start to learn how they can help.

I think it’s a bit like pebbles on a mountain, small steps then we can build on that and make larger momentum.

A. metaphors are the precursor of action, what is needed is a group of people to take action – this is how every protest camp, squat or hippy gathering starts.

We have the metaphors, we have some actions (#4opens process is easy) what we are lacking is groups of people.

We have a soft social problem, NOT a hard codeing problem.

Urgency is always here, the spiky hashtags are there to find these groups. Use them or lose them.

Q. I think that’s something you can build on.

A. “not how protest camps or squats, or hippy gathering happens. They are grassroots #DIY where people “just know” what to do because it has to be done to create the “world” around them.”

The is a boring circal, The is a “I” “you” issue that surprisingly happens less in the above world. On the web in the context of meany of the people I am talking to, I call this #stupidindividualism this hashtag expresses the boring circal.

We can persuade people to our point of view, but it does take energy to do so. Most people don’t come up against life endangering adversity, so it’s hard for them to see the issue. We are still wired to see immediate danger rather than what could be seen as existential danger to life.

A. its a cultural problem, how are cultures created is maybe usefully to look at.

How to do affective change/challenge this is a long history of this visionon.tv

Q. Most folks don’t fall foul of laws etc, because they are never put in a position to be. But when you end up at the edges, that’s when you see the harm. For example, I had a very nieve idea about the UK and the EU and the Union. I’m now at the edges as I’m a 3rd country national in France.

Yet I still have an immense amount of privilege. Refugees are harmed way more by the edges of society and law than I am. But mainstream folks see people at the edges as a threat.

It’s the same with environmental and social protests, people in the mainstream don’t get why the edges harm.

Basic stuff – use it or lose it #OMN

Misunderstanding – Out reaching the #OMN #openweb projects.

I start to understand the misunderstanding, blocking many of the people outreaching the #OMN. It’s a DIY project there is the assumption that people will see the need and fill in the missing bits. The “missing bits” have a function, to be filled in otherwise we would be pushing clean non-messy #dotcons world view which is a very different project.

Maybe this is hard to see, but we would be doing something utterly pointless if it is not messy. So people pushing clean are not helping, rather they are #BLOCKING

Must stress the utterly pointless here, as people have done slick/controlled alts many times over the last 30 years and in the medium term this has always proven to be pointless.

It’s a world view problem that’s going to kill us, well lots of us.

Quote https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARiaiyHrijw

Meany people reply to outreach by telling the #dotcons story as if it were common sense… where the outreach is telling DIY, so communication is missing/past each other.

The #OMN is offering tools, people are generally looking for shiny toys a different world view. From the DIY prospective shiny toys are just rubbish to add to the landfill were tools you can build a new world if you are motivated and have care and focus.

To put this bluntly, its #DIY or death as #XR says in the streets. Hope this #KISS aproch helps to build a bridge – up to you guys to hold this bridge in place.

#OMN projects are tools for YOU to change/challenge the world we live/die in.

At the #OMN we have a number of #openweb tools for you to use

* A non filter bubble/not tracking search engine https://openworlds.info
* A radical (fluffy/spiky) offline/online TV project http://visionon.tv
* Social media, https://campaign.openworlds.info for fluffy and https://activism.openworlds.info for spiky.
* #indymediaback test servers https://indymedia.openworlds.info and https://indymedia.hs2rebellion.earth and https://roadstonowhere.openworlds.info for testing and use.
* A code hosting/organizing site https://unite.openworlds.info
* Funding/money https://opencollective.com/open-media-network
And we have chat/wikis, bots and other projects. The running cost of all This is currently just over £500 a year as we have upgraded the visionontv server to host lots more video.
 
Feel free to use/support the #openweb projects and get involved in running them, become a mod, its #DIY

Useing WordPress as a open tech project.

We end up using WP from the problem of finding a non #geekproblem alternative place to host a site. With the dotcon option its fine if you are building a site to do anything more than basic public publishing then you have to pay for the pro options which are expensive. We fell into this trap http://boatingeurope.openworlds.info were we are locked out of the basic advanced options unless we pay 3-5 times the monthly amount, in this WP hosting is a #dotcons we paid two years in advance to get a big discount so locked in now without the functions we need.

We also self host a WP install on OVH http://hamishcampbell.com this gives you the full power of the pro features at a cheap price and works fine till you hit a #geekproblem now our SSL is not working due to a change in the domain name and some plugins have stopped working becouse our PHP is outa date. Both are basic #geekproblem to fix and the online help is so full of commercial spam that its hopeless with out haveing a geek to step in and fix the blackbox this is my experience on both the hosted and the #DIY use of #WP as a website. Sorry this is not a solution.