Tag: NGI

The #geekproblem mess we make of #openweb funding

#NGIzero #NGI #EU It’s important to remember in #openweb tech that most funding is poured directly down the drain, all value comes from #DIY culture which is always underfunded. Would be a good idea to try to rebalance this mess. And yes, we are not talking about the #dotcons mess, that’s another subject 😉

The value we are all talking about, the #openweb #fediverse based on #activertypub is a very good example of this issue. The group that pushed through the speck only goes through the formal consensuses process because the #dotcons were not interested in owning the outcome as it had no “value” to them. The speck was done as unpaid, unfunded #DIY labour, this is where almost all value actually comes from when you lift the lid on the current mess.

The importance of #DIY culture and the underfunding of #openweb technologies. It is true that much of the value in openweb technologies comes from the grassroots efforts of individuals and communities who are passionate about creating and maintaining these tools. This can be seen in the case of the #fediverse, which was developed by a group of volunteers who were committed to creating a decentralized and open social networking platform.

At the same time, it is also important to recognize the role that funding can play in supporting the development of openweb technologies. While it is true that much of the value comes from DIY culture, funding can help to support and sustain this culture, providing resources and support to help communities. One initiative that is working to address this issue is #NGIZero, which is a program funded by the European Commission to support the development of #openweb technologies. Through this program, funding is provided to support projects that are focused on creating often #NGO focused decentralized and #geekproblem projects.

Overall, it is important to recognize the importance of DIY culture and grassroots efforts in the development of openweb culture and technologies. At the same time, we should also work to support these efforts through funding and other forms of support, in order to help ensure that these grassroots cultures and the technologies they build continue to thrive and evolve in the years to come.

The first part is about democracy, the second part is hard politics, and is more nasty.

The #fedivers was booted up on grassroot #openweb passion and crowed funding, it was sustained in the early growth by crowed funding and expanded (in an often not helpful way) by #geekproblem passion. Over the last 2 years we have seen this shift sharply to “institutional” funding, some of this has been behind the seanes “think-tanks/academia” but over the last years the #EU though #NGI and more specifically #NGIzero have taken a central role in funding just about all fedivers #mainstreaming projects and much background technology.

In this, we have moved from meany 1000’s of people shaping the direction in a radically #4opens transparent way to handfuls of people controlling the levers of influence in a more opaque process. This is a clear and very obvues failing of #openweb governance, kinda normal and very obvuesly fail.

Now the wider #NGI project pour funding directly down the drain, which is a normal outcome so not an issue for us as the money is wasted anyway. #NGIzero are doing good, they are funding grassroots #openweb technology, so they are people we should work with.

How do we start to mediate this issue “In this we have moved from meany 1000’s of people shaping the direction in a transparent way to handfuls of people controlling the levers of influence in a more opaque process” And more importantly rebalance the #mainstreaming agenda that flows with this funding https://unite.openworlds.info/Open-Media-Network/4opens/wiki/Funding-of-openweb-projects this second part is a BIG problem, this first part is about democracy, the second part is hard politics, and is more nasty.

Let’s look at corruption in the #EU funding

Think this is too strong a stick to wave around now, but it might be needed down the line. Let’s explore how we might root out or mediate corruption within the #EU, particularly in relation to processes like the #NGI funding programs.

Some recent examples from an #EU #NGI meeting:

Meeting link: NGI Next Steps
You can find similar behaviours in most NGI and EU-funded project meetings.

  • Example 1: The disappearing public input

A horizontal public #BBB (BigBlueButton) online meeting was held. While BBB by default allows all participants access to a shared notepad, in this session the organizers had disabled access. This was likely done by a moderator acting on the assumption that it was “the right thing to do.”

Result: All public contributions were lost in the transitory chat. The only lasting record of the meeting was the hidden private notepad, invisible to the public by design.

  • Example 2: The biased note-taker in a breakout session

In a breakout session, the chair (who is likely a perfectly nice person outside this context) took notes solely based on her own agenda, completely ignoring input from participants. I was (non-directly) rude about this. She became confused and attempted—poorly—to integrate other input, but it was clearly not part of the plan.

Q: Should we have remained silent and allowed her notes—and those from a few other #mainstreaming figures—to become the only official record of the session?

A: Absolutely not.

We need to compost this crap, not add to it. Most of the time, people don’t stop this kind of corrupt process. We need to start doing that more.

What’s at stake? The #NGI has tens of millions of euros at stake in its upcoming funding rounds.
It’s clear that subtle manipulation of meeting records can easily shift the outcomes of who gets funded. Yes, this is basic corruption.

This is basic journalism, and while it’s unlikely anyone would be prosecuted—since most participants are so arrogant they don’t realize they are engaging in corruption—public exposure could damage careers and act as a brake on systemic abuse.

What should be funded? NGI should be funding a tech platform or group specifically tasked with transparency monitoring like this. It’s a powerful stick to wave—and even if we don’t use it immediately, we should have it ready.

I’ll be drafting a project outline soon here: https://unite.openworlds.info/Open-Media-Network/openwebgovernancebody/wiki/Corruption

This view is not arrogance, I should know, having worked at the heart of this mess for 30 years.

With the growing influx of #EU funding into the #openweb we will see an increase in #techchurn due to the #geekproblem being feed by #mainstreaming #stupidindividualism of most of the #fashernista who can jump through the bureaucracy gatekeeper hoops.

Hoping for a balance of good Vs damage, though the shear blinded arrogance of the vertical crew push us to the damage side. #NGI do not won’t to see this problem, we as a community need to push back on this for a better outcome

ome examples from a resent #EU #NGI meeting

Example, a horizontal public BBB meeting where the organizers are the only one who have access to the share notepad space. Note in BBB this is open by default, so a moderator closed it on the assumption that this was the right thing to do.

The result, all the public input is lost in the transitory chat.

Let’s look at a second example from the same meeting, the chare (who is likely lovely in person) took notes that were ONLY her agenda, ignoring the meeting input. Yes, I was non-directly rood about this. She was confused and started to try and take the agenda of the meeting badly.

Q. Should we have been silent and let her agenda and a few other #mainstreaming people been the only thing recorded in the minutes, thus the next round of funding?

A. we need to compost this crap, not add to it. Most time people do not STOP this crap process, we need to do this more.

As it said on the side of my blog for the last 10 years:

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

Orgs such as #NGIzero are unwitting feeding the “geek side there is naivety and over complexity” where the #mainstreaming #NGI are pushing the political side “arrogance and ignorance”

As I have been at the heart of this garden for more than 30 years, I think I have a better voice on this than most. That’s not arrogance, that’s truth 🙂

If you feel like talking shit please read this first en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_homin

I think the #EU guys find it hard to see how low our apion of the #mainstreaming mess they work in. The #EU people at these events are clearly incompetent on the subject of #openweb (and meany argue life on the planet in general) we all understand this in the grassroots.

If you wonder why grassroots people see the #mainstreaming as children. An example, due to the crap behaver of voting for piss poor politics, we have this boat land to look forward to. To call #mainstreaming incompetent is a clear understatement of the issue, talking to the wide #ngi project here.

We should talk about this survey https://unite.openworlds.info/Open-Media-Network/4opens/wiki/Funding-of-openweb-projects and some of the more scary issues it brining up:

NONE WOULD DO FEEDBACK IN PUBLIC, this is important. The #EU funding has some “terrorism” in the cliques that run it, as people are actually afread that they will lose their livelihood if they speak out about these issues.

Me am “chaotic governance” so I ignore this, but you guys maybe need to take this onboard if you have not already.

A carrot and stick approach is a good path. I see @ngizero as the carrot and us the “community” as the stick. With this leverage, we can push harder for a better balance of good/damage from the funding influx to the #openweb from the #EU

Good to remember here, I am seeing @NGIZero as the solution and not as the problem in what am talking about #NGI

In the end, my difficulty is that I see the #openweb funding from the #EU being pushed by a “childish” point of view that is hard to respect and that it’s likely to do more damage than good, this we need to fix somehow, if anybody wants to help with child care.

Some things to think about:

It’s interesting how the truly aporling behaver of vertical minded people is excused by power (majority vertical) when they act in easy to understand crap ways in horizontal situations. And on the other hand, how the horizontal people are vilified at every point often for simply pointing out how bad the vertical behaver is. We need to look at crap behaver in vertical organizers, as they often do not see themselves shiting over the preceding. Though this act comes ever so naturally to them.

You can see this with the suffrages, the hunger marches, the Spanish Civil War, the Greenham women, the miner’s strike, corbinisam and just about anywhere you look where the two groups meet.

It’s crap that we keep letting this happen, take note I have near zero tolerances for this!

Positive projects for a better outcome:

* One practical idea is that we do need “chaotic governance” to have a voice unite.openworlds.info/Open-Med

* Better focus on social tech https://unite.openworlds.info/Open-Media-Network/4opens/wiki

And more…

 

 

Invisible agenda on the #openweb

A. #NGIforum21 #NGI #EU It’s not “usability” its “control” – the #dotcons are built for control the #eurocrates need, the #openweb tools which work fine is for people to people.

The #openweb tools do not have the control that the #Eurocrats need to move onto our tools and be a part of our community. This is going to lead to a “invisible” fight, as they are increasingly funding development we face a crisis in the #fediverse A Sheldon crises talking the language of our crew.

Q. Yes, we should keep things people-to-people and avoid getting involved with large hierarchical organizations who will try to appear friendly but will move the development into a more centralized mode which they can then influence and have control over.

What the EU people want I think is a Silicon Valley in the EU. A digital portfolio from which they can project influence internationally and a vehicle for venture capital and new digital markets. If you read their blurb this is what they say, and I don’t have any reason to disbelieve them.

Obviously something like the fediverse doesn’t really fit with the cunning EU plan (fits like a fish riding a bicycle) and so at some point there will be an ideological parting of lovers (perhaps it has already happened, I am not following the NGI conversations).

A. The #mainstreaming funding of the #fedivers is already completely dominated by the #EU all the big projects are funded by #NGI

This is more #fuckup than conspiracy though am shore conspiracy is growing as people see the levers of power and control which comes with money agenda.

It’s an “invisible” hot war, standing aside is not an option.

Q. Maybe there should be a plan for whenever the EU launches some venture capital fediverse product. I expect it would be like what Trump is doing, but under some EU branded “incubator” and maybe with centralized moderation.

Something like that would create a tug-of-love between the revenue of projects and a centralizing agenda. I’ve been around the bloc enough times to know it’s bound to happen. These things are so formulaic.

A. I think that’s jumping ahead of were we are for the next year or two. Most of the People at #NGI pushing this agenda simple do not see the damage they do. Only a tiny number are actively “evil” currently.

We have a opening http://hamishcampbell.com the last few posts are a way to step away from this “crisis”.

Q. It’s like you can see the truck driving towards the cliff edge.

“If you go in that direction, you’ll fall off the edge”.

The driver says “Nah mate, it’s different this time”.

And you watch the truck as it reaches the precipice, and then falls off.

A. yep but need to look in the back of tuck as it’s filled with much of the #fedivers infrastructure that’s going to go over the cliff.

Actavisam is to sit down in front of the truck and refuse to move, while talking to the “press” about the issues #fluffy​

Or pour sugar into the truck fual tank in the night #spiky​

Standing and watching while shrugging shoulders is kinda #mainstreaming 🙂