Trump was chosen and elected by this internet web and more will grow from the dotcons

Published Date 12/15/16 5:05 PM

draft

The internet has “grown” mind/s of its own.

This is a convoluted sketch outline of a core tech/social issue.

in the #dotcons Neo Liberalism “free trade” is baked into our dominant online infrastructure, in this it flows freely though society perverting and sickening as it touches. Everything the #dotcons do pushs this poison deeper.

Google links/adsences

Fakenews in “Macedonia”

The populist loon energy of the disempowerd

Trumps melding this to gain personal power

There is a logical feedback loop here that is built into the working everyday internet. The flow of the historical choices/actions shaping our use of the internet are now pushing global political agenda’s. Trump was chosen and elected by this internet/web and more will grow from the #dotcons

The (unthinking) liberal solution of censoring “facknews” makes the issue more dangerous, as in most things the solution is in “open” rather than “closed” in this we have to unravel the current “closed” #dotcons rather digging them in deeper.

Here ends a sketch of a key issue we face today and over the next year.

Ps. jumping on to VPN’s is no core solution just pushing back the issue while digging deeper into it.

The world is open for change

* Old paths have visibley vanished
* People are up for doing things different
* Funders are up for funding different
* The new “commons” is infernat and as much as the #dotcons grab the is more.
* Socerty is being #reboot ‘ed (trump, brixet etc.)
* Our planet is likely to #reboot with out us (climate change)

We don’t have to be slaves, we do have to create a new path, am suggesting the #4opens as a way of mediating the path we have to take. Trump etal is suggesting the #4closed I think 4 is a nice number anyone think of what the #4closed are?

Am I being flipernt, nop, am not. I am being seruase, the one thing Trump made obvues was that if you repeat something anufe it comes into existences – try thinking about the #4opens then repeating it a lot – its a bit like casting a spell – words have power.

If you wont to “take” the world the #4opens is a way to do it ethically and it has power to get round meany of the current #blocks

Some thoughts on the OMN idea

Published Date 10/14/16 2:15 PM

You would have to be very out of touch not to see that echo chambers are inherent to #failbook and historically less on #twitter though they have changed over to a algorithmic time line you have to opt out of. The OMN is only moderated by humans. It has a built in “market” that rewards trust thus actively builds out human networks. Groups that link will grow, thoughs who do not will slide back as others move forward.

Arrogance & Ignorance and how to get past this blocking is the issue. You don’t overcome A&I that’s not an option. But getting round it is well possible. The OMN is built on the human condition of trust and serendipity. Both hard human sells, but both the only values we have if your not up for shooting people dead to get your way.

Echo chamber is just a #fashernesta word for feeding prejudice in this it’s the same as buying a tabloid in the old days or listing to R4 and only shouting at the radio when you disagree. The OMN opens – echo chamber closes. Of course we understand that “open” is not a solution, but it is better than closed…

Its easy to misses the point about “open data” you don’t have any control of the machine network that the #dotcons work with. And if you understand the issues with geeks you will likely never have power over complex digital tools. The way out of this is in the #4opens this “forces” the geeks lose of the power they desire and need to be motivated. In this you have a riddle which is not solved by logic – maybe solved by emotion? The OMN cannot be built with logic, It might be able to be built by emotion. I think this is likely the root of many missing understandings? You can’t stop the geeks/fashernista desire to fuckup but the is hope of mediating it with the #4opens that’s about it.

There are issue’s with algorithmic options in general “who guards the guardians” the #4opens are a safety feature that the #dotcons will remove. You would have to be very deluded to believe that #failbook works in a society sense, no matter what individuals say, you should know this.

The Q. Is how to get a KISS project past alt apathy, geek complexity and fashernista … well just fashernista… #fashernista= “stupid individualism” if you’re reading my older posts.

Part 2

Am more a #fuckup rather than #conspiracy type of guy, but the lack of linking is a clear issue to be addressed.

The data, it’s a soup, the sites are just spoons that dip. You get to choose by linking where the value is. Every one can have a spoon if they like (but talent will out, some spoons will have more value than others) so it’s #4opens to linking and content. A silo is a single site like #failbook and the sites listed in this post. On the web the value is in linking content is just something to link to.

Silos host/horde content, if they don’t link they have limited value.

Looking at the tech and organising of UK alt grassroots media

How meany sites link to another alt/grassroots media sits. From this list of 38 UK sites, only 2 link to another site.

Many people find it hard to understand the underlining understandings that push projects based on flow and linking, such as #OMN and #openweb. Here is a short list of activism projects.

Silo

Is a place for holding/hoarding closed data – this is used by the #dotcons to extract funding from “free users” when mainstream/alt silo projects finish, as 99.9% do, the data varnishes and is lost, and in this the effectiveness of any alt building is diminished. Silos do not use open licensing for content re-use. Just about every alt/grassroots media project is a silo. It’s about capturing data. It’s obvious that this is a unthought through issue of “churning”

Portal

It is an idea that you can be the big one, all the small fashionista websites aspire to be the big one and by doing this they are working to the logic of the #dotcon and working against the logic of the openweb. They are building a project to lock their users into their project. Portal and silo are overlapping (but different) ideas for building web projects. In the mainstream, Apple is a prime example of this working. In the alt/grassroots, almost all alt/grassroots media projects are portals. It’s about capturing users, just as silos are about capturing data. For a left wing group this looks much like “recreating the Soviet Union” the one party to rule the state.

Dotcons

Are for-profit data silos in the old days working as portals, more recently they are building out siloed networks as a pseudo networked portal. It’s both sad and bad that many alt media projects unthinkingly aspire to be #dotcons

Link

It is where ALL the value is, on the open web. Without links, content has NO VALUE. This is an obvious statement, its hard to understand the lack of understanding around this simple thing.

RSS

Is a grassroots web standard that is still at the base of many of the #dotcons world but is being pushed into the background of the #openweb by building silos/portals in the grassroots/alt. RSS is like an open LINK with added data, thus adds value to the web. Its a powerful open tool that we still have. An API is like a geek control freak superpower of RSS – the problem is in the complexity/control freak bit…

Geek

A subculture that is control/obscurity and more recently technical solutions to trust (wraparound right) this has always been a closing force on open projects. This helped to strangle the original successful alt/grassroots media projects and is pushing for the shrinking of the open web.

Fashionista

The unthinking desire for new/innovation/conformity. A wider subculture that churns the growth of alt/grassroots so little can grow beyond seedlings.

NGO

Are greedy dispoling of resources, both human and money. The liberals that use bureaucratic funding to push out the geek/fashernista agendas over alt/grassroots projects. These are uneasy friends and clear (invisible) enemies.

Network

It is both a technical thing of wires and frequency and an understanding of mutual aid and of “diversity of strategy”. It’s native to the openweb and should be at the base of any alt/grassroots media project. In the closed #dotcons the widespread use of A/B testing is a pail controlled shadow of this.

4opens

Wikipedia is an example of this. It’s basic stuff, open source project stuff. LINK

Looking at the tech and organising of UK alt/grassroots media. Do sites link to other alt-media projects? Do they support/display openweb standards (RSS)

First DRAFT (please message me with corrections/info)

the canary

http://www.thecanary.co/

Has a RSS feed, regular updates, copyright group silo, it has no outside linking

Reelnews

http://reelnews.co.uk/

UPDATE: site back online, no visible RSS but can find a hidden one. It’s likely copyright and a silo.

(Their website is hacked/down, so posted the #failbook link used to have RSS and regular updates. Anyone know what’s happening? Update they hope the site is back online soon.)

Real Media

http://realmedia.press/

UPDATE: website back online copyright, no visible RSS feed, but you can find ones. It’s a bit of an aggregator but has been suffering from poor spam control. It’s pretty much a portal/silo – but could be more.

(They used to have an interesting website for the tec used, but it ended up being just a silo, they look like they are rebooting? Maybe a another silo? We shall see.)

Update they are rebooting as a linking site, let’s hope it’s not a silo.

Novaramedia

http://novaramedia.com/

Has regular good content, RSS, they are a product of the #dotcons social media wave and good at it. Copyright/CC is not stated. The site is a silo with no outside linking

Counterfire

http://www.counterfire.org/

No RSS feed, starting to look a bit “old left” regular updates, no copyright/CC notice. A silo with no external links

The Bristol Cable – Bristol

https://thebristolcable.org/

No visible RSS feed, it kinda probably tries to obey the #4opens, maybe. It’s a WP blog site, in this it’s a media silo with no external links.

Port Talbot Magnet

http://www.porttalbotmagnet.com/

No visible RSS feed, it mostly fails the #4opens due to copyright, data and organising. It’s a WP blog site, in this it’s a media silo with few if any external links.

New Internationalist – based in Oxford

https://newint.org/

Has RSS feeds, it kinda passes the #4opens using a CC licence for its content. It links to the #visionOntv project.

The Ferret – Scotland, based in Edinburgh

https://theferret.scot/

Looks like the old media transitioning to the new media. No visible RSS feed or copyright/CC notice. Is trying to be “open process” looks like a WP site.

Strike! – based in London

http://strikemag.org/

Looks like an archive of a print mag? Has an RSS feed 🙂

Positive News – based in London

http://positive.news/

Dated looking site, hard to read, no RSS feed and a copyright notice. A silo.

Slaney Street – Birmingham

http://www.slaneystreet.com/

Did not load

Manchester Mule – Manchester

http://manchestermule.com/

Has RSS feed but last article end of 2015 so not an active site. Probably for fills the #4opens.

Co-operative News – based in Manchester

http://www.thenews.coop/

Nasty looking site and no RSS, copyrighted, it’s a silo

Ethical Consumer

http://www.ethicalconsumer.org/

No RSS, copy rightish, old looking site.

Marlborough News Online

http://www.marlboroughnewsonline.co.uk/

no RSS, copyright

West Highland Free Press

http://www.whfp.com/

No RSS, copyright, it’s a silo.

Star and Cresent – based in Portsmouth

http://www.starandcrescent.org.uk/

No RSS, no copyright notice? It’s a silo.

Morning Star – based in London

https://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/

Has an RSS feed but its empty, copyright, silo.

Cambria Publishing Co-operative

http://www.cambriapublishing.org.uk/

Publishes paper books?

Zed Books – London

https://www.zedbooks.net/

paper books and online reading lists, no RSS I can see.

Sheffield Live!

http://web.sheffieldlive.org/

Blake House – based in London

http://blake.house/

No RSS, fashionable calling card website without content, probably copyright?

Media Co-op

http://mediaco-op.net/

Calling card website without content, no RSS, likely copyright.

Ignite Creative – based in Oxford

http://ignitecreative.co.uk/

Calling card website without content, no RSS, copyright.

Shedlight Productions – based in Southampton

http://www.shedlightproductions.co.uk/

Calling card website without content, no RSS, copyright.

Steel City Film and Media Co-op – based in Sheffield

https://www.facebook.com/SteelCityFAM

it’s a #failbook page, maybe open?

Trafford Media & Communications – based in Manchester

(mostly a printer, but also do film production)

http://www.traffordmc.org.uk/

Calling card, no site.

The Community Channel

Community Channel

The granddaddy of NGO media, no RSS feed, likely copyright silo.

Jammu Kashmir TV

http://www.jammukashmir.tv/

It has content, silo?

Open Audio

http://openaudio.co.uk/

Has a working RSS feed

Inform My Opinion

https://audioboom.com/channel/informmyopinion

Has working RSS feed, but it fails in my pod catcher, it’s a page on a #dotcon?

Mydylarama

http://mydylarama.org.uk/

Has RSS feed, copyright, silo?

AMP Worcs

http://www.ampworcs.co.uk/

Calling card.

A Television

http://www.afro-media.org/

Half finished calling card site.

Salfordstar

http://salfordstar.com/

Hastings independent press

No RSS, no copyright/CC notice, a silo with no external links.

http://www.hastingsindependentpress.co.uk/

Corporatewatch

https://corporatewatch.org/

Has RSS feed and CC licence, no external links on front page, it’s a silo but better than most.

bellacaledonia

http://bellacaledonia.org.uk/

Has a RSS feed, it’s a silo but the is hope for it.

voxpoliticalonline

http://voxpoliticalonline.com/

it’s a blog in the old school sense, has RSS

evolvepolitics

http://evolvepolitics.com/

it’s a silo with no RSS and no external links

A lot of the original links came from https://www.facebook.com/jdaviescoates

Rebooting the openweb

Published Date 9/20/16 2:42 PM

The OMN is based on a simple understanding that the last 10 years have been wasted on #dotcons and #encryptionists delusions. In this time #NGO’s, activists and at-geeks have wasted the #openwebs potential to shift society to a more humane path.

To move beyond this decaying circle, we need to #reboot the basic infrastructure that has been allowed to decay. Early “#web02” was based on open features that crossed website boundary’s in a way unthinkable today. A partial list of has been complied here https://medium.com/@anildash/the-lost-infrastructure-of-social-media-d2b95662ccd3#.rcs7irbas

To take this needed path the #OMN project can be built out to overlap many of the projects listed, at its core it is aggregation, linking and metadata. This is one of the steps for the needed #reboot

Publishing – we have no problem with this though technically (though phones are becoming more of an isolation issue) there are lots of existing CMS and tools outside the #dotcons that can be used, many of them are kinda #4opens though most miss the #KISS part.

Search – this is lost and hard to regain, but the is space for a clever use of “adblocking” browser plug-ins replacing adverts with native #openweb content (like the #OMN flows) while obscuring the data mining that the #dotcons are cash powered by.

Comments – this is a hard one to solve, but the problem is meditated by linking back to the source of articles. To OMN this part could be done with a few open standards – but pushing this out would be hard. A back burner issue.

Responses – can use the existing “open standards” maybe choosing a KISS implementation to #reboot

Likes/Favourites – we build a back end version of this as core to the OMN, how to front end this is an interesting avant-garde project that we should implement in different “standard” ways after OMN boot up.

Updates – is core to what the OMN is.

Identity – try #rebooting a KISS implementation of the existing open standards to use this in the OMN roll out, use it, but don’t push it hard as It’s going to be hard to overcome the #dotcons on this one.

Friends list – half core to the OMN, can attempt to #reboot this as part of the #RSS “object” aggregation your identity is an object to be aggregated.

Following – is a core part of the RSS OMN project.

Syndication – this is the core of the project, using existing tools based on RSS

API – a #reboot of Atom pub is a likely useful part of the OMN for the synchronisation of content.

Metadata – in the OMN this is a KISS fockonermy that a more systematic labelling rules can be built on. A KISS roll-out of the semantic web is what the OMN is about. Creative commons will be at its core.

Discovery and tagging – is what the OMN is, and it allows easy uptake by alt-media producers, who wonts content to be seen by more people and traffic driven to their sites.

Analytics – can be built up as the project expands, the current #dotcons tools will work fine on roll-out as it’s just the #openweb.

Advertising – is up to the individual sites (with reference to the CC licensing of content) the tools of the OMN could be used to roll out a #4opens advertising network if someone was interested. The creative use of “adblockers” has a role here?

Aggregation – is what is core to the OMN the back end of this is no more than a “small number” of people. The output is as wide as the openweb allows and can be feed as links into the #dotcons

Time shifting & reading – can be added to the OMN tools using basic user RSS lists.

The Lessons – “there’s (almost) nothing new under the sun.” this is at its core a #reboot of existing projects/standards rolled out as KISS as possible with in the small existing network of alt/grassroots media. From there…

Is the OMN tech complex

Published Date 8/14/16 7:46 PM

There is a hard-to-understand idea that the technology behind the OMN (open media network) is complex. At a base level it is not, it’s the same tech that has been written 1000s of times in the past and uses nearly 20-year-old technology.

What is complex is the ideas and social understandings behind the ideas of using this “stupidly simple” technology in the OMN.

Firstly, it’s needed to understand that Alt-media and the open web in general is F**cked. Once past this point, it becomes easier. Secondly an understanding of the forces that F**cked is both on their side: the #dotcons, Facebook, uber, Amazon etc and on our-side, our encryptionist geeks, NGO social media gurus, process vampires etc.

We don’t currently have power to affect their side, so let’s look at our side, in the sense of understanding the OMN. It’s based on the #4opens and none of our guys like this combination for different reasons. It’s based on KISS – our geeks don’t like building on the old and our politicos are pushing the #fashionista of the vapours avant-garde, so both reject the “old” foundation ideas/tech of the #OMN.

The idea is very simple – that we get alt-media groups and sites to be part of a network so they become bigger than their parts. And a very basic issue is solved, they link to each other, which currently the isolated silos do not consistently do. The link is the currency of the web, in this we all become richer and have wider outreach on the “#openweb”.

The “innovation” of the OMN is the use of RSS articles as a database exchange format. We thus create a redundant, distributed network of databases holding and displaying (linking) to our collective history. Why RSS? Without it, we have to get agreement and write custom code for every site that wants to join. With RSS, it’s copy/paste and go on 98% of existing sites on the open web. The first is self limiting and impossible to grow, the second just works. There is no complexity at all at this basic level and no need for site agreements etc.

Troubleshooting this rollout there are issues, but nothing that can’t be solved by tweaking and bodging. The next stage is a little more complex, synchronising these databases and keeping articles up-to-date and exchanging tagged metadata so that the “curating of the flows works”. This will need thinking and programming for real, but nothing that throwing some bandwidth and processing power can’t solve in an “inefficient way” – again, #KISS.

Build it first, scale it second. We are running this out in the small world of alt-media, so geeks keep it KISS. There is a philosophical and design issue that will cause bottlenecks, the CMS’s we will be using are designed as portals/silos not data rivers/media flow sites. Some creative thought can help here. And there is the opening for innovation and new CMS’s at a later time.

To conclude, the blocks on building out the OMN are within our own geeks and politicos and have to be overcome. That is the tech is relatively easy, the social side is complex, Ideas for this? My idea is to form a wide;y skilled affinity group and go for it, lead by example. Other paths, ideas, welcome.

Alt media

Published Date 6/8/16 6:19 PM

Where is alt-media and what are the issues in geek culture that stop it from having much effect.

There is no active working alt-tech and the open web that would be shaped by this open alt-tech is withering under the #dotcon push to enclose.

* 98.9% of alt-tech projects are obviously pointless.

* 1% are potentially useful but are killed by NGO/foundation funding agendas.

* .01% are useful but suffer/starve from a lack of geek focus abd funding.

There are some content projects in alt-media, but they have no working alt-tech to build out. All alt media relies on the #dotcons (Facebook, twitter etc) as distribution. Their websites are generally little more than branded portals, much like yahoo 10-15 years ago. The is minimal inter-operating between the different projects and almost no linking.

For the content producers a positive “alt-media” outcome is to play a role in old (legacey) media or move into the short lived dotcon news orgs. This is a complete failure in open web terms. In this we are fucked, and there is currently no path out within the existing projects.

Outside the existing projects, the solution to this is simple: the tech needs rebooting at a basic level. This is not a complex thing, being mostly social technology using existing open standards.

LINK OMN

Is client server p2p torrent infrastructure failing

Published Date 3/29/16 1:22 PM

There are lots of sites down, lots of fake files etc.

A colleague Richard Hering has posted a number of music videos to YouTube. As these contain a synchronised score of complex music, they have unique educational value. Sony recently blocked a number of these in no less than 244 countries. “Sony have bought up a 50 year old recording they never made and now take it down wherever it is shared”.

He also uploads to torrent sites, where such very old culture (for instance the music of Johann Sebastian Bach) is popular, and should surely be treated as a common heritage.“People need to share, it’s a basic need I think”. He used to upload such videos to Piratebay, but this has not accepted registrations for a while now. He uploaded it to Kickass and and some people still find it there, but the Piratebay has not indexed it and and you cannot even find it on google. The crackdown on piracy has lead to the proxy universe being full of poorly indexed and fake sites. The proxy “copies” are not mirrors….

This is looking to me like we have a crisis in the client server side of P2P, which might be about morale and the burn out of the open generation. ISP blocking is probably driving down ad revenue… Google is now pushing down real torrents, which means it’s pushing up fake torrents. It’s a shadow or a corpse of a P2P network.

[Richard Hering adds a note here: it’s very important not to underestimate the problems which google is now causing. I searched my popular torrent on a number of search engines, just using its title plus the word “torrent”. The results:

1. Duckduckgo.com – first on page one.

2. Yahoo – first on page one

3. Bing – 4th on page one

4. Google – page 7! Despite tracking my activity and selecting what I see on that basis, which ought to push the result up.

So Google is suppressing torrents. In future I think I will use duckduckgo, as it does no tracking. I already use it on the phone, as it blocks ads.]

Without tech activism, I think this p2p world is ending. It will continue “submerged” inside the #dotcons. But another part of the open web fades. That was what true p2p applications such as RetroShare were about. Escaping from the silos of torrent sites. True p2p might still be an option but would need activism to push it into mainstream view. It’s a little harder to setup, but it’s not rocket science, use it or lose it is the mantra and we have lost lots. “I remember Peter Sunde from tpb saying that it wouldn’t be a bad thing if torrents got killed off – it would force innovation” But the question we beg “only if we innovate”.

RetroShare would solve these issues and it “innovates” human networks as a useful “side effect”. But a German court has tried to ban it. However RetroShare is just p2p encryption, which is basic to the web, so can’t be banned, with out huge clateral damage to the #dotcoms, especially if used for something legal.

https://torrentfreak.com/anonymous-file-sharing-ruled-illegal-by-german-court-121123

“A court in Hamburg, Germany, has granted an injunction against a user of the anonymous and encrypted file-sharing network RetroShare . RetroShare users exchange data through encrypted transfers and the network setup ensures that the true sender of the file is always obfuscated.”

The issue here is human error: he added the promedia as a direct friend. To quote TorrentFreak “Promedia posed as a “friend” of the respondent. The decision of LG Hamburg is not compelling.”

We live in a world now where the younger people (early 20s) are possibly part of the post-P2P generation for whom the internet is facebook etc

What a thought.

The spring OMN The river of news project

Published Date 3/15/16 4:29 PM

Am not going to say anything you probably do not know in this application so will keep it short.

The project has been inspired by the technical work and ideas of Dave Winer (http://scripting.com) and the practical media work and open web projects of Hamish Campbell (http://visionon.tv and http://hamishcampbell.com)

The aim of the project is to play a small part in overcoming the mind space gap that is highlighted on the side of my blog:

“A river that needs crossing political and tech blogs – On the political side, the is arrogance and ignorance, on the geek side the is naivety and over- complexity”

Its a no-brainer to say that the open web is failing as more of our mind share is taken up by closed networks such as #failbook and propitiatory “eco systems” such as apple, google, Amazon, Microsoft etc.

If we are to play a meaningful role is saving the commons we all build on we need a raft of projects and more impotently basic infrastructure to help re-boot the open web to push these encloses back. We need to cross the river talked about above, this is much harder than it looks, if you haven’t tried it you probably wont appreciate the difficulty involved.

Rivers, streams and springs and useful metaphors for understanding how we look at “news”.

* The springs are our blogs, our company pages etc.

* The streams are aggregaters based on subjects, our twitter streams and #failbook walls badly for-fill this role

* The rivers are currently our old mainstream media and increasingly the enclosing areas of #failbook and #dotcons.

I have a open standards based project to play a role in building up “news” outside of the #silos and will still work inside the silos so the is little to lose.

The OMN

To escape our silo thinking

Published Date 3/10/16 12:01 PM

“A river that needs crossing political and tech culture – On the political side, the is arrogance and ignorance, on the Geek side the is naivety and over-complexity”

Right now, there’s a widening gap between political organising culture and technical development culture, and neither side is entirely wrong, but both are incomplete.

On the political side, there can be a strong understanding of power, institutions, and social dynamics – but sometimes limited understanding of the underlying technical structures that shape digital reality.

On the technical side, there is deep expertise in systems and architecture – but often a tendency to treat social problems as purely technical challenges, leading to over-complex solutions that struggle to survive real-world communities.

Both cultures end up building silos. Not because they intend to fragment the ecosystem, but because silos offer clarity, autonomy, and a sense of control. Unfortunately, isolated projects – whether political or technical – cannot compete with the continental-scale infrastructures built by the #dotcons.

The deeper issue is that we are collectively neglecting the shared infrastructure beneath all of this: the #openweb itself. Returning to simple shared ground, if we want to rebuild cooperation, we need to start from principles both sides can recognise. The web is fundamentally made of relationships:

Articles are data objects.

Data moves through flows.

Feeds are living links that carry those flows across networks.

Links – not platforms – are where long-term value accumulates.

Synchronisation and redundancy are what create resilience, memory, and continuity.

This isn’t a political claim or a technical ideology, it’s simply how the web works when it is healthy. For political organisers, this means understanding that content alone isn’t enough; influence comes from shaping flows and networks. For engineers, this means recognising that technical architecture always encodes social assumptions – and usability, trust, and governance cannot be abstracted away.

Why silos fail. Many alternative media and grassroots tech projects emerge with strong intentions, but remain isolated. Without shared protocols, interoperability, and common infrastructure, each becomes another temporary island. Meanwhile, legislation and platform enclosure continue shrinking the open internet, reinforcing dependency on centralised systems.

The question is not whether we build alternatives, we already are. The question is whether those alternatives connect into a living ecosystem or remain fragmented experiments. The bridge is federation as social and technical practice. Projects rooted in federation – like ActivityPub and related #openweb work – offer a path, because they align technical architecture with social values: decentralised but connected, autonomous but interoperable and “native” diverse without fragmentation.

The #OMN approach tries to extend this principle beyond software into social organisation with shared commons instead of platform ownership, collaboration instead of central coordination and replication instead of scaling hierarchies. This isn’t anti-engineering or anti-politics. It’s an attempt to integrate both.

Crossing the river together, political organisers bring understanding of power, context, and collective action. Engineers bring understanding of systems, resilience, and infrastructure, neither alone is enough.

The challenge is to move away from siloed thinking toward shared stewardship of the #openweb – treating it not as a product or ideology, but as a living ecosystem that requires ongoing care.

We don’t need perfect agreement to start building bridges. We just need enough shared understanding to reconnect the flows. Because ultimately, the goal isn’t to build another island, it’s to rebuild the river.

Why did the #openweb flower and die over the last 30 years

Published Date 2/22/16 1:17 AM

Why did the thousands of open internet projects fail? Despite large amounts of state, foundation, #NGO funding. There were early successful activist tech projects, all proved to be pointless or withered with success. In all cases I would argue that the underlining fairer was one of ideology, almost all projects worked against the dominate ideology of the net and web itself. Just as the #dotcons burned and bust repeatedly, traditional media was hopeless in till a new generation came along who had an inclining of the underlining working of the new tech ideology.

The few open projects that worked with in the ideology of the web were swamped by the pushing of the funding of the #mainstreaming of the web/internet. I am arguing here that the majority of people making a living in the #openweb/internet world are core to the problem not the solution, I could name hundreds of projected with the word open/radical in um who actively destroyed “open”.

A tiny minority created a world expanding technology based on the ideology and practices of trust based Anarchism. This exploded into the existing tech/communication worlds, pushing aside, pushing over, all the “better” 20th century vertical (ideology) tech already in place. Open became dominant for a while and this open was “locked in” because of a strong ideological thread throughout the standards and structures of the internet/web, the very “chaos” of the #openweb protected it from the “vertical” (20th century) locking of corporates such as Microsoft etal.

Nothing last forever, a new generation came along who merged the “open” back into the “closed” can’t really blame them, they were children of Thatcher and Reagan. Am amazed to have lived though the time of the #openweb, the world really did feel very different for a time. Who are the heroes and who the villeins, this history is unwritten yet, better get to it.

This is my realistic/pessimistic view of where we are at LINK

We face a digital cliff the open internet may be over

Published Date 2/11/16 5:30 PM

The is no consensus on this, here are two views on this subject:

We have Phil Windley who thinks the open internet was a historical fluke http://www.windley.com/archives/2016/02/decentralization_is_hard_maybe_too_hard.shtml here he is talking about the very real view that the internet is finished, that the commons have been enclosed by the #dotcons silos and what remains outside are terminally withered and dying.

Then Dave Winer http://scripting.com/liveblog/users/davewiner/2016/01/26/0936.html who argues that the #openweb comes in waves and what Phil Windley is arguing is but the drawing back of the water before the next wave of open washes in.

My point of view is that both are right, the open internet was a historical “mistake” and with Winer that there are a few waves left, the storm is not over yet. There is a logic to the digitisation of everything and the web was a living example of this let loss, it was a tsunami that crashed over our cultures and this storm is not over yet.

Yes, the commons opened up by the early web was enclosed by #dotcons, but their sea defences are low and weak and the digitisation storm still rages.

We are free to make our lives have meaning in this stormy weather.