The is a tension between grassroots movements and #NGO paths on the #Fediverse and wider #openweb projects. From a #fluffy point of view the NGO path, while often well-intentioned, can lead to forms of imperialism where outside forces-through funding, structure, and top-down approaches—unwittingly impose their agendas on communities. These actors often don’t realize they are…
Federating Metadata Flows: Bridging Folksonomy and Categories for the #OMN
These native #openweb activism based projects have been around for the last ten years. In the reboot of #Indymedia and the development of the Open Media Network (#OMN), the challenge of federating metadata flows sits at the heart of how people organize, distribute, and consume media in a decentralized, grassroots-driven native path. We’re navigating the…
The metaphors are change and challenge
Balancing the #mainstreaming mess by focusing on what’s “native” is a crucial step in rebooting the #openweb. Rather than outright rejecting things that don’t fit, the goal is to actively engage and mediate through pushback, ensuring that the core values are preserved while allowing space for broader participation. This approach helps prevent the dilution of…
Thoughts on the mess we made on #socialhub and the wider #openweb reboot
The frustration of navigating the mess of activism, tech, and grassroots movements, especially when they get co-opted and sidetracked by personal interests, #NGO agendas, or broader #mainstreaming mess. We need ways to process, compost, and turn this mess into a more productive path, one which balances burnout and disillusionment. A part of this is the…
The Open Media Network (#OMN) is a set of tools to empower communities
People find it hard to understand the “unique” selling point of the #OMN beyond the tech, which is “common sense”. And this is, drum roll, reveal, that people and content are data objects in the “commons” by default and only private/owed by exception. This is the basic #KISS “unique” selling point of the #OMN there…
Parasite #NGO and #fashionista tech
“But the principal objection will doubtless refer to the plain language used. My excuse, if indeed excuse be needed for saying just what I mean, is, that it is impossible to clothe in delicate terms the intolerable nastiness which I expose, and at the same time to press the truth home to those who are…
The #openweb, the #commons, the real-world spaces we build are where the future lies
Resilience is community and trust. Resilience grows by connecting the actions of today to the possibilities of tomorrow, even when that future is unknowable. It’s rooted in community, and community thrives on mutual trust. Trust isn’t about keeping a ledger; it’s about giving freely without expectation. Money is not the foundation of resilience. Across the…
The problem with fragmentation
The #openweb is inherently social, as it’s a people to people network, so pushing the term Open Social Web and resulting hashtag #opensocialweb or #socialweb by NGOs and #fashernista groups is adding mess at best and real damage at worst. While the intention might be well-meaning, it introduces confusion and fragmentation, by unthinking mirroring #dotcons…
Mediating the prat’ish behaviour and #deathcult mentality
When alternatives cross with #mainstreaming in both our #openweb movement and the broader #dotcons landscape, we find ourselves confronting a troubling dynamic—a rise in prat’ish behaviour, characterized by ego-driven conflict, divisiveness, and resistance to meaningful change, this threatens to undermine the progress we urgently need. At the heart of this issue is the 40 years…
Navigating the Trolls
There is a shifting of social and political paths underway, we will have a move to the left or the right, the centre path has made itself irrelevant through, not having any valid path to mediate, growing social divisions and ecological breakdown. On the left in our efforts to find meaningful change, we often encounter…
Myth of the tech genius
When we all moved from the #openweb to the #dotcons 20 years ago, the lies being pushed shaped attention. This imprisonment us in a personal and social mess that we now need to compost. One easy to understand #mainstreaming part of this is the idolization of tech billionaires and the revolting cultural myth that they…
Communities and People are the #Openweb
The #Fediverse, short for Federated Universe, is a part of the #openweb made of human connections through #4opens computer networks. Its value is not a collection of software packages, much more about the flows of human community that build relationships across diverse groups and regions. Imagine the Fediverse as a web of communities, each represented…