We need more crew to make this rollout work

If you would like to help with moving away from this current world/media mess please create an account: https://unite.openworlds.info this is the organizing space, yes this is to complex and needs to be made simpler and more #KISS but for now it’s what we have and works fine. Have a read through the issues and wikis on each #openweb project.

Then we need constant (polite) feedback on this thread to make the current site more useable for normal people https://unite.openworlds.info/indymedia/epicyon/issues/17

We have a public chat room here where you can get to know the crew and talk about the projects. Yes we know its complex, but agen it does work – here is a “easy” link for android phones https://conversations.im/j/indymediaback@conference.chat.openworlds.info or you will have to be geeky/ask for help and work it out from here: indymediaback@conference.chat.openworlds.info for other platforms.

Sorry about this it’s the #geekproblem that we are working to mediate and with your participation we CAN build useable tools.

If you feel you cannot help with tech/user side then you can support the core project with money here https://opencollective.com or if you don’t have money (we all understand) turn up and make tea at your local protest camp to talk about the #indymediaback #OMN project.

Let’s take a step way from this mess, pickup shovels #OMN and compost this shit pile https://unite.openworlds.info/indymedia/indymedia-reboot/issues/15

Can you host videos over Tor?

Q. lf we know someone who could host videos over Tor, could that help you? Is the software Tor/clearnet agnostic?

A. it might be an abuse of the #tor network to stream videos over it as it has limited bandwidth and is run on a volunteer bases. It would be a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons please have a look into the pros and cons of this as am interested.

Some answers from a brief search:

Q. under what circumstances Tor can handle streaming video?

A. What Tor can’t handle is lots of people consuming lots of bandwidth simultaneously. There’s no clean way to load balance and everyone is at the mercy of independent relays.

A. We’ve been saying for years not to run BitTorrent over Tor, because the Tor network can’t handle the load

Interesting most people talk about security/privacy and only respect for the commons as an afterthought – this is clearly a #geekproblem

update

Q. I2P is run by volunteers and encourages the sharing of videos. The internet is a Commons and depends on trust, not just Tor. ISPs have Fair Use policies etc. If not Tor maybe this person can share over I2P.

A. This one kinda fails one of the #4opens – open “industrial” standards. Only people who went through the process of installing bad UX code could watch the videos so not a good outreach project. The is a resion we are building out a OPEN media network. Worth thinking about this issue “It easy to keep crossing wires with “media” vs. personal. Media should be open, with clear sources, except when protecting them. Whereas personal data should default to private”

Let think about where the #BLOCKS are on grassroots media.

#stupidindividualism and the #deathcult that breeds this

1) One of the main ones is co-option by #NGO agender, both, by organizations who push for “common sense” #dotcons paths and individuals who strive to build their careers by trampling over the grassroots horizontality.

2) Second, I know a lot of people who would fuck over the future for petty personal grudges and narrow self subsistence. It’s a problem with rolling out positive grassroots projects like #indymediaback that we need to actively mediate for a good outcome.It’s interesting to think about this at a small personal scale and the wider social issue of #stupidindividualism and the #deathcult that breeds this.

3) Third, let me say something unfashionable, am a fan of liberals, they created meany of the good social things in the world. BUT Intolerant and dogmatic liberals are a constant drain, pushing of “common sense” agender over every issue they touch. This shit smeared problem needs constant mediation.

4) Fourth, the #geekproblem which is looked at in other posts on this blog – click on the hashtag to find them.

5) There are more please comment so i can add them.

Why so many manure piles online?

In web application development, there are 3 groups you can empower, and it’s important to understand which group you are empowering.

1) the users
2) the producers
3) the geeks who develop/admin

Most #geekproblem coding is about the 3ed grouping taking all the power to decide. This, tiny, “elite” know what is good for the rest “passive” masses. This is why most #openweb code-bases are unusable, because obviously they simply do not know, good #UX in social tech is hard.

Most #dotcons empower capital, who pay the geeks to “serve” the producers to enslave the users. In this they are an interesting evil hybrid.

I can’t actually think of an example where the users are actually empowered off the top of my head – ideas please?

Good #openweb projects try to empower the producers/user, they are not meany of these. Can anyone think of examples, we need a list.

Obviously we can’t keep repeating the first two shit outcomes, as they are already piles of stinking manure everywhere from the last 20 years of this tech mess. You have/need a shovel #OMN

Think the soil is a little dry past time for some compost, get your spades out.

Thinking on the modern UX for the #indymedia reboot. Tabs are a line at the top of the page – metaphor is not buttons. You are switching sheets of paper. The page is the paper. The top banner is the desk under the paper. It’s an interesting challenge to think through metaphors.

Using buttons you are outside the desk/paper metaphor so it’s a whole different thing, to mix them is not KISS and confusing. You are into early computer metaphors with the buttons – think mainframes. We are a “newspaper” so the tabs and table and paper sheets make a feeling for the project. Always echo back if you can for a project that is based on a solid past.

For new stuff “invention” is good and there will be lots of space and growth for this when the #OMN is up and running…

One thing the fediverse taught us is that copying existing successfully projects is a root out of the #geekproblem that #fashernistas embrace. So this up to a point is the right thing to do for social change. We for the first time put a spin on it by rebooting a radical grassroots social tech project. But behind this is something much more radical. The #OMN lets see if we can plant and nurture a seed. Think the soil is a little dry pastime for some compost, get your spades out.

DRAFT – contemporary look and feel

The “newswire” used to be open publishing we now add a switch trust/moderate to this wire. The UK indymedia site did something similar latter in its life. Its up to the “editorial collective” to flip this switch for site/accounts/tags etc

The central “fetures column” is newswire articals promoted to a feature. These are written by the “editorial collective” from text and media resources from newswire posts.

Both are news flows.

In journalistic terms the newswire is “breaking news” that flows past fast. It might or might not be true/accreat in real time but will be relatively accreat over time. Its “citizen journalism” in that horrible liberal term. Grassroots reporting maybe better term.

The “feature column” is more like tredtional journalism. Facts are checked, spelling correct, sound in audio good, videos stable etc its the best of the newswire collected and put into context by a group of “citizen journalists” this moves slowly so articals stick around for days/weeks.

The moderation stream is not visible to non “editorial collective” people.

The value in the OMN idea is a social feedback loop to push federation to a lowest level, grassroots. The 5 functions: link/trust/moderate switch is key to this social outcome.

The OMN use of these 5 functions as a strong political/social protection against political infighting/tribalism and mediating the #geekproblem by removeing the levers of control from the programmers/admins and giving them to the producers.

From my long experience in the delight and mess of grassroots media/tech, with out the last two “social tech” paragraphs the project has zero chance of working.

How should the hyper local indymedia rollout

A sideways look at the death of UK indymedia and things to learn for its reboot.

With federation, we don’t have to go down the path of a “virtual silo” this issue was one of the reasons indymedia was ripped apart. The desire for security, privacy and control of having it all on one server controlled by the “elite” geeks compared to having lots of different servers controlled by different groups. The final rip that killed UK was this very issue.

The fediverse is the reboot of the loose network based on trust and clearly against the centralized silo based on control

Not sure if the is a good history on this, most indymedia history is crap so best to go back to the original source. Think a lot is on archive.org

Q. Should IMC self-hosting be based on something like freedombone – easy to install, maintain, etc

A. Yes… though to seed it as a testing roll out we can host a few before passing um onto the community’s. But the idea is the same as freedombone which is a fab project. BUT as a outreach tool has real imitations due to ISP’s and crap routers in peoples homes, me and me brother tom (who is proper geeky) spent 3 days trying and failing to get it running, a little to do with freedombone and a lot to do with his rooter refusing to do port forwarding reliably.

As with everything OMN we take all paths, for the hyperlocal:

* Home install fab (but likely complex)

Bashrc is likely to add the indymedia server to freedombone so that’s the home install covered

* Community local install, good but could fall for the #geekproblem

Is for the geeks, so they can sought it out for themselves from the sourcecode.

* Easy VPS script – good anufe likely it will work

This one we have to make easy, but this is not a priority till after the test rollout.

* us hosting it on a central server bad but probably the right thing to do for the test rollout.

Is actually the second one just done badly 😉

Todo for the test rollout

* Get the peertube (@RCS currently AWOL) and searx (@jolek78) with @sanders making it happen back online and updated.

* Get a test instill of hyperlocal code to give feedback (@bashrc)

* find small community’s for test rollout, have lifeboats IMC, and a few others in mind (Hamish)

Give us a shout if you have ideas or connections on these.

A look at the internal mess of the uk indymedia project

The project i like to point to as an example. The indymedia project, an early alt-media network that spread the use of open source software and #4opens organizing around the world at the turn of the century. In the UK the was a #geekproblem vs #openweb fight that became nasty over what we would now understand as “activertypub” the #Fediverse vs more centralized silo approach. In the UK you can see this stress point fought as a proxy war over #RSS

The #openweb aggregation side were sold a dud by the #fashernistas being swayed by the #geekproblem It was obvious that the project had to change and move away from central servers to a more aggregation model. BUT the movement was torpedoed by an obviously pointless open-source project instead of implementing an existing standards based RSS they created their BETTER, BRIGHTER flavour which was of course incomparable with everyone else.

This is an example of a “better” but obviously pointless open source project and also destructive behaver. The #indymedia project in the UK was ripped apart internally from this same divide in the end. A bad “open source” outcome. You can find similar behaver today in the fediverse if you look.

It’s a interesting thing to look at. Actually you can see 3 active sides in the internal uk #indymedia mess and important to see the outcome that they ALL LOST in the end.

1) #encryptionists (being pushed by the #geekproblem)

2) #fashernistas (being influenced by the #geekproblem)

3) #openweb being sidelined by the rest

1) The first resisted and blocked aggregation and #RSS from privacy and “security” issues.

2) The second is a obviously failed compromise by keeping control of “their” own better, non-comparable RSS format.

3) The last, the one the whole project was based on, were ignored and sidelined.

The #IMC project soon became irrelevant and died.

The currency of the 21st century is information

What is the effect of #geekproblem, of privacy and encryption, and their fetishization of #cryptocurrencies?

The market (liberal individualism and private property that comes with it) provides information on value based on explotion greed and selfishness.

#Opendata and #metadata provides information on value based on connection, cooperation and altruism.

A #4opens approach spreads connection, cooperation and altruism into our social world.

A market approach (privacy, individualism and private property based on encryption) allows exploitation, greed and selfishness to be at the centre of our society.

This is an old ideological and political divide that is not talked about at all in the #geekproblem as the is “no such things as society, only individuals and their family’s ”.

Society is based on social norms, walking down the street in safety – soft

Code is hard norms. A policeman on every street corner – hard

The question that we need answers to is how can we talk soft (social) power to the hard power (code) of the #geekproblem when for them such norms are invisible. They can’t hear what we are saying.

Fig leafs are dangerous in tech

The #geekproblem fight between open/closed is a dangerous game of #figleaf. Media is always done in the open, so trying to secure and close this is completely self-defeating. In social networks it’s more complex, privacy in open is sudo anonymous at best. In closed in theory you can have secure p2p connections, but for 99.9% of people running on standard corporate hardware the is no way to trust this so agen sudo anonymous. So technology could be “secure” for .001% of people, maybe.

Please make this clear when talking about these issues, as fig leafs are dangerous.

For the social change we need

For the social change we need to survive as a society and flourish as a species we need to take some time to go back to basics

All economic systems are based a unspoken idea of what it is to be human. To be clear, if you do not have an understanding of this you have little understanding of anything that matters in the era of #XR

Let’s look back to early Christianity to highlight this idea.

* The Old Testament is based on a negative view of humanity, greed, selfishness and gluttony are the motivations that god is controlling by forcing us to bow down to his authority.

* The New Testament is based on love and common humane society.

* Capitalism is based on greed and the worst parts of human nature

* Socialism is based on altruism and the best parts of human nature

As you can see, the divide between these different ideology’s goes back a long way and likely to the dawn of human history.

These simple groupings live within supposedly sister ideology’s, think for example of how the horizontal’ists and the vertical’ists in progressive movements represent the different views.

When we start to understand this, you can use this clear difference to make judgments on what has value and what is destructive in our current society.

#deathcult

#geekproblem

#encryptionists

#stupidindividualism

#openweb

#OMN

The only question that matters is the balance between trust and fear is a useful way of looking at this.

If you are interested in technology and society

Open/closed, a look at the issues in tech

The idea of total control manifested in the master/slave relationship of computers and programmers is a core of geek culture.

Open is about attempting to share power in society.
Closed is about attempting to block social power.

The #geekproblem at root in our society is about liberalism excepting the division of the state and the citizen, it’s about the liberal ideal of individualism “the is no such thing as society only individuals and there family” though in the case of the #geekproblem it’s just the individual and not so much the family. Our current #geekproblem is a child of Thatcher and Reagan and the #neoliberalism they embedded into our social minds.

It’s interesting to see that the #dotcons (the right) have overcome this #geekproblem and enslaved code, programmers and the network to the control of the capital (and the state) and it’s sad that the left are children in this game.

A way out of this mess is to clearly reject the “closed” ideas in tech and instead re-embrace “open”. Thus unblocking the social flow, what we do with this flow (dangerous stuff) is up to us. We can recognise the danger yes, but to balance that we MUST recognise the disaster we are in now.

“Closed” feeds and re-enforce disaster and in NO WAY helps society to move from this mess #XR

We need flow, not blocking.

It’s simple.