Tag: openweb

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

Outreaching the openweb

With the current #openweb reboot going on there’s a lot of default thinking that is bad, and we do need to learn to judge between the good and bad paths if it’s to live up to its potential. Let’s start to give examples:

* Promoting silos vs promoting networks – as our current thinking is based on closed/silo thinking then when we promote #openweb projects we continue to use this thinking and promote silo/closed thinking rather than harder to understand open/network thinking.

– Protocols rather than platforms, balance talk about #Fediverse/#ActivityPub and #mastodon or branded projects. Our brand thinking is a failure of networking and contains strong unseen #deathcult thinking.

– Always outreach a wide selection of instances rather than a single one, the strength is in the network and not in the silo. Networks scale downwards, more/balanced, with stability is better than one “solution”. Be weary of sites that push themselves as the “place”.
– Networks are based on trust, in this look for groups/families of projects to support. Lose is always good, do not support “we are THE solution” closed siloed thinking. Write articles about a spread of views is better outreach as this is actually the project.
– be weary of projects that promise digital security/privacy first – these projects are always lying and thus dangerous and unhealthy for trust based networks. This is a hard-to-understand open/closed issue, we all need to have real conversations about this.
More to come…

Why openweb projects fail

I have been developing and using #opensource and #openweb projects for nearly 40 years. For the last 20 years at the coalface of development, this is my experience.

Most #openweb projects are more than 99.9% unusable this is normal. A few come up to 5% usability; these are the “successful” ones. It’s very rare for a project like mastodon to be 50% useable – but more than 90% of the people I push in that direction still bounce – though this is more likely because of digital drug habits of the #dotcons than the UX of the project which is good itself.

Let’s be generous our #indymedia reboot project is currently 90% unusable; this is normal for openweb projects. It’s hard to build something with limited resources and training.

Our plan is to make it as simple and #KISS looking as possible to roll out to small groups of testers to develop it into being 20% useable by their feedback. While doing this we can roll out the idea of the project to bring more energy and resources into this shift from 10% to 20% usability.

We only open outreach when we are beyond that 20% level, because it would obviously be self-defeating otherwise. Then inch up the usability while shifting the social expectations of good #UX to a social harmony.

UPDATE:

If you would like to help with this process please set up a account here  https://unite.openworlds.info/indymedia/epicyon/issues and give us feedback on this test site https://indymedia.openworlds.info and this test look and feel template https://indymediadev.openworlds.info/test-css/ two versions of the UX then add an issue to the unite site with your feedback for the developers.

Rich compost in technology

Think of the fedivers as a flowerbed in a big (#openweb) garden surrounded by concrete. We are interested in the garden and bracking up the concrete (#dotcons) to make room for more flower beds and wild forest.


 

#Activertypub is a part of the flow, as is #RSS and maybe #Odata etc. The apps are the pipes. The human community produces and mediates the flow, in a metaphorical sense is the flow.

The fedivers is lovely healthy’ish flower bed, a small part of the #openweb garden that we are caring/nourishing in our work. When we are down and dirty working in tech it is important to remember this. In the end the garden is the human community’s living as part of a wider natural ecosystem.

The current priority is to get the flow working in a small and sustainable way – thus the hyperlocal test rollout and #epicyon.

This is why i use “mess” “shit” “compost” and “spades” as communication metaphors. The stinking mess we are in is a fertile time for change. For the last 10 years the #encryptionists agender and the #dotcons have been a sterile time, in this shit is a good thing, to live in stinking times 🙂

We have to keep focus on nurturing the seedlings with nutrition rich flows otherwise they wither and die. “Priority is to get the flow working in a small and sustainable way – thus the hyperlocal test rollout and epicyon.”

Looking at wordpress (WP) as a option, would like to try this out on my blog (http://hamishcampbell.com) thus the desire to get it working better. We have already mastodon and peertube. With out a bigger crew we should concentrate on creating a flow with epicyon as this is work anufe. If we can join WP to this flow a bonus.

Remember we are ONLY planting the seeds in the cracks and nurturing them. The roots of the plants (community) bracks the concrete. If we spend time trying to break the concrete we will soon be exorsted and achieve little.

So our mission is to find cracks and plant seeds. Of courses gathering the seeds (crews/code) is a first step – thus outreach and the messiness this brings – we do live in stinky times.

Then think of #searx (http://openworlds.info) as the map to the garden and as a way for people to find out of the concrete paths to the fresh #openweb grass fields. It can all grow up slowly if we keep a nourishing flow going. If we forget, it dries up and dies as it has done meany times in the last 20 years.

You would be surprised how fast nature reclaims concrete given a chance 🙂

Q&A what is a fashernista in the hashtag way.

Q. I’ve read a lot of your stuff but I’m hoping you’ll clarify something. What’s a “fashernista”?

A. A large part of society who do what’s fashionable. Not what’s right/wrong/best. In the era of the #deathcult of neo-liberalism this has always been the wrong path to take. It’s a simple idea.

men-make-their-own-history-but…

#fashernista is a feedback loop of #stupidindividualism at mo.

The hashtags are designed to make the mainstream as dirty as possible so people see the need to pick up #openweb tools “spades” to clear the stinking shit and pools of piss #climatechaos is increasingly going to show we live in (consumerism/alienating work/greed is good) Make compost (decay of death) to plant seeds (fertile life) to grow flowers (lifecult). It’s a convoluted metaphor 😉

Its a hard to understand, simple thing. In the era of the #deathcult the fashernisas are almost always wrong and a part of the problem. In the era of the #lifecult fahernistas are mostly right and a part of the solution, does that make it more simple?

What would a #lifecult look like in this era?

On outreach of OMN and indymedia reboot

Q. I’m not interested in doing that, as I don’t know what it is you are actually proposing. Apart from using hashtags and talking about #deathcult I don’t actually understand your plan?

What I haven’t heard is a practical way of hosting and distributing alt media.

Visionontv turned into a mess, just as Indymedia did. So what has changed?

A. What happened is a good question. The answer is simple the #Fediverse maybe start here https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fediverse

Where we are now https://the-federation.info/ or https://fediverse.network/

From an activist tech prospective. The real opening we have is this was built outside activism outside #encryptionist amenders and for the #openweb and is thus

Our own tech in activism was ripped apart by the open/closed war, indymedia dies because of this, visionontv never went anywhere because of this. Outside activism this war has also been fought, the closed/encryptionists have been dominant for the last 10 years.

Around 5 years ago a handful of people said fuck this crap we need a spade. They created #openweb tools, and it has exploded from there to be a real UI friendly alternative. This is exactly the same outcome of the World Wide Web did to the silos of the early internet.

Am simply bring this explosion of affective DIY creativity into the ossified and dead depression of activism tech. Obviously, meany nay sayers are going to piss and shit all over this move. Activist tech died for very good ressions. This does not have to be a block, as I say this makes good compost so get your shovel ready and let’s plant some seeds. I hope that not to metaphorical

A simple video on the tech https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S57uhCQBEk0 from this it’s clear this #openweb tech works and scales and people like it

What is also clear is that is people are getting seriously unhappy on the #dotcons

YES its going to be a mess of shit and piss and fuckups, that’s activism, and the #encryptionsists pushed “closed” ideas deep into our #fashernistas so it’s a uphill battle.

BUT we do not have a choice to stay in the #dotcons it’s poison and our ecosystem and social syteams are dyeing.

A realistic timeline, a year of dev and small scale roll-outs. During which there will be lots and lots of shit shovelling to stop it becoming a stinking mess that people will not go, nowhere near.

The tech is “easy”ish, it’s the shovelling shit that’s hard, non techs can help with this bit.

Help OMN indymedia reboot
* 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
* #OMN is not about tech – all code is ideology – the OMN is a social solution to a social problem
* teach people the #4opens and review tools/projects they use/want to use by them.
* on the dev/organising site you can help by asking simple basic questions

What did you do in the #dotcons during the climatechoas breakdown

Q. So are you gonna say what you’ve done? I don’t think posting on fb has any affect on the dotcons? The opposite in fact

A. Yep it dose, am doing a stepaway project, a group of us run 5 #openweb servers with a search engine, social network, video hosting, and tools development site/openweb organizing.  You can find links if you look back on me #failbook feed or search the web for OMN might find them.

A. Agen if you look back you will find a very long list of posts inside and outside the #dotcons with information, motivation about the #openweb projects as well as the current mess we face here .

A. If people use the #hashtags as seeds for communitys we could have the start of real radical revolt. If they don’t, more likely, we will have some liberal wank, no meaningful action and the death of billions of people due to this crap behavior and current mess as made clear by the #XR crew. Its a simple message and strategy.

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 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.

Blind

Without a wider “ideological” world-view, you have no place to step away from your past mistakes. Everyone needs to look at the world from differing perspectives. The current neoliberal dogma in all its different fashionable clothes is just that, a failed dogma that we clearly need to step away from.

The world can be different, I have lived most of my life in a different world to the one that is swallowing everything around me.

I use the word “blinded” to describe meany of the people I meet in tech and grassroots movements. They are blinded for differing surface reasons, on the hippy side it is conspiracy dressed as empty spiritualism. On the liberal progressive side it is internalized neoliberalism feeding fear, cowardice and greed. Best not to mention the process geeks…

There are paths to step away from this mess, #openweb is one that would be empowering for both non geeks and the more technically minded.