Think that might be a good #openweb slogan, “technologies job is to hold the trust in place”
#OGB Decisions only count if a wide number of people engaged in them, because in the end it’s this group that will “enforce” the consensus. So one power mad nutter (quick, take the crown off) has little power to capture.
Only trust groups actually have “power” and as they are trust groups this power will likely be used better, a good outcome.
Trust and #4opens solve this hard technology problem in a soft, swishy way. So technology job is to hold the “trust” in place.
#OMN think there are ways to stop people burning the coding project down:
Ask how their feature fits into the #4opens
* Open process should block most
* Open data sum
* Open licence is obvious, so likely won’t block much
* Open “industrial” standards should block much of the let’s do it my way mess.
So if we keep focused on this, with the check on #PGA we should block much of the #mainstreaming and if very polite keep people in board.
This is hard work.
#OMN We build strong defaults and we hardcode in #4opens We keep these ideas at the front of the project, though people will want to push them to the back for outreach (#mainstreaming)
We need to build tech from grassroots, horizontal. Problem is, people will keep adding #mainstreaming common sense. This will course friction that will burn people out fast in tech.
Feudalism is not a good model of governance, yes I understand this is the norm for #opensource and #freesoftware, but we do need to update to something more relevant at some point.
The #fediverse is a good opertunerty to try democracy, maybe?
The indieweb is strongly individualism, where the Fediverse is more community based, though says it’s individualism to get #mainstreaming outreach (white lie).
indieweb is a good fit for capitalism
Fediverse is (as of now) a bad fit for capitalism
So it depends on your (mostly unspoken) view on politics. In this they use overlapping tech but for different use, they are both #openweb native.
Thinking of stepping away from the #dotcons to the #openweb a conversation with an activist signing up on a big general instance – they kinda all do this.
A. You might be better off on an activism focused instance, https://activism.openworlds.info, but you will be fine on the one anyone, as they all talk to each other. The instance you join is your “home community” so good to join one that matches your interests and mission.
Q. Thank you so much – I am entirely lost here as just arrived and the whole ‘find your server’ bit flumoxxed me! Excuse what’s likely a silly question – but ‘where is my main profile?’ ie: where whatever bit of Mastodon I’m on… I would
be the same me?
A. you have joined a big general instance’s https://mastodon.online/ it’s a fine place to be. You can have more than one account on different instances, I have 3 mastodon accounts on 3 different instances, run 2 of these as a part of the #OMN
Ps. hashtags are your friend, use them in posts and click on them to find interesting people
Q. so if I boost a post on one account – I would need to also boost on other ‘me’ accounts in other arenas/spaces? Thanks so much for your help x
A. you can do that, but you don’t need to. All the instances are kinda one big space. The import bit is that each instance has a community and focus, so it helps yourself and the #openweb if you put our self into a subject instance.
For example, if someone complains about your posts it’s the mods and admins of the instance you join get to decide if it stays up or your account gets closed… so best to have a relationship with the instance admin and mods… This is much easer on a smaller, friendly focused instance than a bigger, more inpersional general one.
It’s much more #DIY and human relationship than #twitter.
The “better” #closedweb (ISP intranets) was “surprisingly” destroyed by the “inferer” #openweb, which then exploded in use to spread everywhere. The #mainstreaming thinking then tried and failed to recapture this #4opens project for ten years as it takes up global space, and was a real challenge change, that the “common sense” said should not exist. This working alternative was finally sold out by our own #fahernistas, who bribed with money and statues members of the “unthinking” #geekproblem to build the #dotcons that rapidly took over the #openweb space.
Our wider activist #fashernistas created “liberal stories” about how embracing the #dotcons was a good path. The wider #fahernistas flocked to these #closedweb spaces to grasp at the real early power they provided, after society had finished this shift, the bate and switch took this power away, and we were left with “servalence capitalism” and no social power, as was obvuse at the time it was a con.
Our #fashernistats then pissed tech change/challenge agenst the wall for ten years. While the #openweb user facing technology withered, ignored and irrelevant to #mainstreaming. A few years ago we had an “accidental” #openweb reboot with #activitypub and soon after pushing of the next generation of #closedweb projects with #web03 leaving us in the current messy times.
Where are we now and what can we learn from this? Liberalism in tech are often active prats, co-opting, bait and switch and taking the easy #NGO funded path when the choice comes. They are #friendlyenemies, even when they deny this with all their “common sense”. Ideas to mediate this, please?
Do you except that “new” is often #deathcult (neo-liberalism) and #postmodernism because this is “common sense” what is your plan/idea to get around these problems?
I have had 20 years of “new” and am very underwhelmed, actually it’s almost all #blocking or adding to the #techshit to be composed. This is obviously a problem that needs to be mediated, what is your plan/process to have a better outcome?
Remember that the only thing that has worked in the last 10 years has been copying #dotcons with #activertypub every themselves has failed, what can we learn from this?
This is an important question that the #OMN project mediates.
A. I joined here only recently to experiment with the Fediverse, and that’s my first impression too. The two hottest kinds of topic I found were meta discussions such as “Twitter users will come here now”, and “the system is fucking with us using vaccines”.
Q. we build at Alt but will people come, some will. Moving away from the #dotcons it’s a tiny step we need to do more, MUCH more #OMN
A. people use the mainstream media because there they can find the information they want, their friends, and have a pleasant experience with highly usable tools. Only a very small group of people would use a privacy-oriented social media with complexities such as a federated network just because “fuck the system”. Even a nerd with the obsession for cybersecurity and privacy like me has an hard time finding interesting stuff here. And, believe me, I’m trying.
Q. this is an excellent question to ansear.
There are two points:
Firstly, we had exalent outreach alt media around for 20 years, #indymediaback is an example project that we need coders to help reboot.
Secondly, to think that we/you have any chance of grassroots progressive social change challenge without working alt media is a fatal fantasy. We can clearly see this in the mess of the last ten years.
We have the codeing tools #activitypub, and we have the historical social models that we know used to work, but had scaling issues.
The #OMN plan is simple, bring the new working technical scaling to the old working social models/process #4opens
As you say the fedivers made up of copies of #dotcons is too small a step.. We have to take the next step if we have any seruse ideas about change/challenge of the current #mainstreaming#deathcult
We have to change, challenge our social ideas and social process in what is left of the #openweb
This is less fundermentalist than it sounds as open-source (free softer) development already works mostly #4opens so the change being pushed by the #OMN is #nothingnew
This should be easy, but #BLOCKING has obviously to be overcome, dig, plant, grow. Compost the #techshit, repeat. One good first step is to be honest about our own funding.
A. being “alternative” is not a strong selling point because you define yourself relatively to something else instead of having your own identity. This dooms you to be always in the shadow of “the mainstream” as a sort of second choice.
Q. Being alternative USED to have a strong identity as did #openweb and yes you are right they DO NOT have this any more, this is a problem we should change challenge not except as “common sense”.
Think before replying as this conversation is more about agreeing then division, focus is good.
If you keep doing the same thing, there will be the same outcome. Different worldviews produce different processes, and sometimes entirely different outcomes. This is the core lesson people miss when they treat radical #openweb projects like just another app or fluffy #NGO pitch deck.
All the #OMN projects grow from a different worldview – that comes from the lived traditions of the commons, the early Internet, and grassroots organising. It’s a worldview that has already worked: from the early #indymedia network the global voice to the anti-globalisation movements, to the early #wikis and #blogospheres that built collaborative knowledge before #closedsocialmedia captured it, to #Fediverse platforms like Mastodon continue to prove federation can scale without #dotcons corporate control. These are working proofs that decentralised, transparent, and trust-based systems do build society. They have scaling limits – yes – but these limits are part of their strength: they push diversity, autonomy, and accountability at human scale.
The challenge now is that most people entering the tech and activist spaces have no knowledge of this lineage, or worse, have knowledge of only one half of it. Developers who understand federation but not community process end up building silos with nice APIs. Activists who understand horizontal organising but not open standards end up trapped inside Facebook groups, Google Docs, and Slack workspaces – all walled gardens that feed the #nastyfew systems they claim to oppose.
When people have no grounding in subcultures, that underpins our civil rights, free software, and creative commons, they apply their all-knowing #mainstreaming “common sense.” They block the processes that make trust possible, dismiss open governance as messy, and treat openness itself as a threat to control. The result is stagnation: yet another “platform for change” that centralises power, burns out volunteers, and silently collapses when the funding ends.
The #OMN is an answer to this trap. It’s not a single tool, but a shared soil, a technical and social framework designed to connect and compost all the half-built projects and forgotten ideas still scattered across the #openweb. By combining the social scaling limits of grassroots organising (trust, transparency, and accountability) with the technical scaling power of open protocols (ActivityPub, RSS etc.), we rebuild the conditions for a real public commons. The tools are already here, what’s missing is the cultural memory and the courage to use them.
Hey, changemakers! Are you tired of shouting into the void on social media? Frustrated with the endless noise and the lack of impact? It’s time to harness the power of #hashtags to fuel a movement that can actually make a difference. And guess what? The #openweb is our playground for this revolution!
Check out The Hashtag Story https://hamishcampbell.com/?s=the+hashtag+story it’s more than just a guide; it’s a blueprint for building something big, something real. If you’re passionate about activism and ready to step up, this is your chance. This isn’t going to be an easy or comfortable path, but hey, who ever said change was easy?
The #OMN (Open Media Network) path is more than a simple call to action. Core to this is that the hashtags story can be more than just noise; it can be seeds for a movement, a way to connect, organize, and grow. But this only works if we make the commitment to turn those hashtags into something more than just digital graffiti. We need to take that extra step, turn talk into action, and make the #openweb a place for real, meaningful activism.
The #hashtags cover technology and society from a progressive view and are very simple, on a surface level, but full of complex conversations when you lift the lid and talk in the context they grow.
#BLOCKING = refusing to look/averting eyes/eyes closed
They are complex and interlocking, telling a wide story and world-view, to show a path out of our current mess.
#deathcult is relevant because of #XR forcing us to look the truth of ecological and social decay in the eye, good to ground this in real historical experiences, think of the Irish Potato and Bengal famine.
#Fashionista is about consumer capitalism, looked at as social illness.
#openweb is about building code for anachronism rather than capitalism
#dotcons are feeding social illness, we cannot keep building this sickness, the step away metaphor is a positive path away from this.
#closedweb is a form of technological slavery, we often choose.
#4opens is a tool that can be used to guide us on to the better humane path and, it gives us the power to JUDGE and thus decide, it is POWER.
#geekproblem is a group of people lost in darkness, blinded to humane light, they inbreed monsters in code #techcurn#techshit
The #geekproblem hashtag is not simply negative, it’s taking obvious “problem” out of “geek”.
The problem is obvious look at #failbook and Google both “geek” projects of domination/control, and yes you are right it’s geek culture shaped by capital in both cases.
What does #openweb geek culture look like? Looking back at early #couchsurfing and #indymedia you have healthy non “problem” examples. Look at both projects late in their decline, we have strong examples of the “problem”.
#techcurn the world is full of me to projects, everyone has the same ideas, few if anyone links.
#nothingnew is a question, do we need this codeing project.
#techshit is when people do not ask this question and build it anyway agen and agen
#encryptionists are in the end way too often about artificial scarcity (web03), this is not actually needed. To be clear this is a minority need for this technology, but as a limited use case not as a dominant way of thinking, codeing. #encryptionists is about the feeling of total control that encryption gives the #geekproblem this is key because all good progressive society are based on trust, which is about giving up this desire. The problem in geek is the problem of socialization… a known geek issue 🙂 in itself is fine, am not judging. BUT this is embedded in code that shapes society, it becomes a “problem”. Good to think a bit more on this one. With power comes responsibility.
This list only touches on the meanings and subjects. Next question, what is the story and world-view that these #hashtags embody?
Q. these things are kinda hopelessly expensive. You have to worship the #deathcult to attend… Hard to know what to do with these two track approaches… Kinda can’t be #openweb are the any that are happening outside the temples of death #XR
Ps this is a metaphor 🙂
A. I think that’s a complicated way of saying you can’t afford to go?
Q. is a social comment about events like this, there are a lot of them. How can non #mainstreaming people get involved in #openweb events like this, a good subject for you to bring up, if you would, thanks. Ps. Not #stupidindividualism I should not have to say that.
A. My opinion is that you can’t have your cake and eat it? You can’t live outside the mainstream, throw rocks at it, and then complain when it doesn’t accommodate you?
Q. yep, I have spent my whole life outside the #mainstreaming, much of it building up and working on #openweb projects and content. Do you not find what you just said cruel and dismissive? Good to think on this and hopefully bring it up at the event. Not picking on you here, or attacking you, social commentary is not a bad thing on the #openweb
A. Social commentary is not what you’re doing here. You’re just replying to me to reinforce your worldview. So no, I don’t think I’m being cruel and dismissive. Perhaps you should think about your theory of change about how you’re going to build a constituency of people to change the world? It’s certaintly not by being a reply-guy 🙄
Q. dismissive and curl second time. Now this is just being a prat “It’s certainly not by being a reply-guy” OK, please have a think about how to bring the #openweb away from the current #mainstreaming that events like this embody (due to cost) as we are heading for social/environmental disaster fast, the is no good outcome from the #deathcult we all worship, we do need a working #openweb for a better outcome.
A. So you reply to me with the #deathcult hashtag after I share excitement about going to an event? And I’m being unreasonable? I’ve never had a positive interaction with you, Hamish. You might wear that as a badge of honour, but I’ve finally realised it’s time to mute you. Good luck.
Q. OK, please have a think about how to bring the #openweb away from the current #mainstreaming that events like this embody (due to cost) as we are heading for social/environmental disaster fast, the is no good outcome from the #deathcult we all worship, we do need a working #openweb for a better outcome.
Anyone interested in doing a sexy site for the #4opens think people need “official” look and feel to make use of this powerful tool to fight the #techshit#techcurn and help to reboot the #openweb
Q. I think we need a 5th open: #openAccess. If you have the #4opens, but the project is jailed in the #walledGarden of #gitlab.com (which blocks some people from participation), the 4 opens are hindered by reduced/suppressed participation. E.g. some people cannot (or will not) file bug reports. So, can we get #5opens?
A. The #4opens is only designed to deal with 95% of the #techshit the rest is open to our creativity. Am interested in a #4opens review of GitHub
What we are likely to find is that GitHub is still inside the world of open source development, this is both good and bad, good in the sense of Microsoft moving away from its closed source roots, bad in the sense that they are doing it in the attempt to co-opt and extinguish.
The #4opens are not a way of keeping them out, but they are a way of mediating and stopping the extinguish bit when used as a tool to aggressively block that move.
A. aha just noticed this was gitlab not GitHub, don’t know much about that, so a #4opens review would be good.
It would help to think about society rather than individuals – for diversity as a healthy path. As long as they have opendata and open “Industrial” standards, you can move your work in and out… Openprocess makes easier as the documentation can be created to help people do this.
The open licence keeps you in control of your work, while promoting social use
Am interested in how #openacess adds over the other #4opens as I think you end up with “open access” from the outcome of the first 4 can we think about this?
Was thinking about this when reading other tweets and the #4opens gives you open access already, so we don’t need a 5th open #KISS
Good to have a chance to think these things though, thanks for the question.
The #fediverse is an “accidental” #openweb reboot by the #fashernistas, so it’s herding cats to get anything done, not a bad thing, not a good thing It’s what it is.
One way to move away from this mess is #OGB grassroots #DIY producer governance.
Otherwise, live (and die) with the mess, and try to stop people bowing down and praying to the #deathcult is a step to keep the #openweb in place.
Are you tired of shouting into the void on social media? Frustrated with the endless noise and the lack of impact? It’s time to harness the power of 
The 