The solution to the #geekproblem

One of the reasons the technology world is in such a mess is the chronic failure to fund the social side of the #openweb. Where funding does exist, it is too often captured by parasitic NGOs that absorb resources while delivering little meaningful change. At the same time, most technical funding is narrowly aimed at “functional” coding, reinforcing the #geekproblem by never moving beyond basic infrastructure or questioning what that infrastructure is for.

This leaves a growing pile of #techshit for others to deal with. People with shovels do the cleanup work – maintaining communities, mediating conflict, building trust, and keeping projects alive – but almost no one funds them. The uncomfortable question remains: who pays for the work that actually makes technology socially usable?

Technology now underpins nearly every aspect of daily life: communication, education, work, culture, and care. Yet many of the systems we rely on are failing, not because they are poorly engineered, but because they are built on the wrong foundations.

Most dominant software today is built on a logic of control. Developers focus on regulating user behaviour: what people see, how they interact, how long they stay, and how value is extracted from them. But functional societies are not built on control, they are built on trust. This trust enables cooperation, shared responsibility, and collective problem-solving.

The commercial tech model systematically undermines this. #Dotcons produce systems people do not trust, run by institutions they do not trust, for goals that are openly extractive. The result is alienation, social fragmentation, and an accelerating ecological and social breakdown. This is not an accidental side effect – it is the predictable outcome of designing systems around domination rather than care.

The problem is compounded by the tech sector’s inability to communicate beyond its own narrow culture. Developers trained within the #geekproblem are trapped in there narrow vision, jargon, abstraction, and technical obsession. They struggle to explain why their systems exist, who they serve, or how they fit into broader social realities. This gap between technical capability and social meaning is where many projects quietly fail.

One obvious response is to fund the social layer of technology: the human work of governance, community, usability, mediation, and trust-building. When this layer is healthy, technical systems become resilient and meaningful. When it is neglected, even the best code rots.

Yet very few institutions fund this work. What funding does exist is often routed through NGOs that neither understand the technical realities nor care about building long-term trust. These organisations specialise in reports, branding, and “stakeholder engagement,” not in maintaining living systems. The result is more process, more abstraction, and more #techshit.

If we continue like this, we will keep feeding the same mess. What’s needed is funding that supports both technical competence and social intelligence. We need to invest in projects that integrate open code with open governance, technical infrastructure with human care. Initiatives like the #OMN and the #4opens matter because they centre communication, cooperation, and trust, the things that actually make technology usable in the real world.

The solution to the #geekproblem is not more control, better metrics, or smarter algorithms. It is the recognition that good societies are built on social trust, and that our technologies must reflect that reality. Until we start funding the social foundations of the #openweb, we will keep rebuilding the same broken systems and wondering why they fail.

Liberal trolls – are often not WHO they think they are

DRAFT to be edited

http://hamishcampbell.com/2023/02/14/archiving-the-openweb-in-a-personal-way/

http://hamishcampbell.com/2023/02/12/thinking-about-why-openweb-projects-fail/

It’s hard to get a thried out of mastodon, hopeful this is in the right order and not missing bits. As usually, if you would like to be anonymous with no linking please say so, thanks.

Made a blog post, if you reply your text might be added to this if you don’t tell me not to 🙂

We are talking about this blog post http://hamishcampbell.com/2023/02/12/thinking-about-why-openweb-projects-fail/ I sent to the people I had archived the conversation as a seed for a blog post, the guys jump in with limited good faith.

@bob Note that my posts are CC-BY-NC. If you’re quoting me, then you need attribution, otherwise it looks like your own work.

The blog is to take transitory content “a toot” and make it more long-lasting and link it into a flow of social memory. I would love a codebase that had this built into its #UX Now, if someone made code to automate credit and archiving work just as well, I would be happy to use it.

@elplatt yes, in general it’s good practice to quote or block quote and attribute. Right now, it’s not clear who said what

I don’t tend to do “good practice” as I do this #DIY and don’t get paid for my time. I have two ways to “anonymize” text, if I keep the flow then I take the names out and put Q. and A. as the voices, if it’s out of the flow I just put “from the #openweb” this makes it quick and simple to archive things I value without jumping though impossible conversations each time. If people won’t credit and ask, I add it, it’s the polite thing to do.

Then nuttyness starts – from @elplatt I’d prefer not to be associated with plagiarism. Please remove my content. Thanks.

It says from the #openweb in BOLD, so it’s not plagiarism (Plagiarism is the fraudulent representation of another person’s language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions as one’s own original work.) . But happy to remove stuff if people don’t won’t it archived. (I updated the blog post to add bob as he asked to be, then move the FROM THE OPENWEB under bob. Have a look and tell me what you won’t http://hamishcampbell.com/2023/02/12/thinking-about-why-openweb-projects-fail/

whaw that is bad behaver: @elplatt #GreatjusticeNet has blocked campaign.openworlds.info for plagiarizing fediverse content [IMAGE] lie about someone then block their instance.

Q. Interesting to think about, if this was an argument, should I keep the stuff online or remove it if asked? What’s the good path for this?

@bob Friendly reminder to always credit people for their work. Avoid making it look as if you wrote something, which you didn’t. This is really just courtesy, or treating people with care. Saying “this came from the internet” isn’t sufficient. There can also be cases where people request to remain anonymous, but that is typically rare.

That is way too much work is the problem, in grassroots activism the are to meany borderline nutters, so my work practice is a reflection of this. Good to remember all #OMN projects are #4opens CC licence and not for profit, so with this understanding its best just to hold the nuttiness and talk as a first step. People to people, not law/rights/property etc 🙂

@bob Well, in the case of plagiarism this isn’t really a law thing it’s just an act of courtesy to say who quotes originate from. (we get a bit lost here as it’s nothing to do with plagiarism, it is about a liberal troll) Ripping people off is what BigTech does. We need to be better, and treat people well. (its not about ripping people off it is about a liberal troll)

Nobody is doing plagiarism, nobody is stealing. Nobody is ripping anyone off, we are talking in good faith, I hope. Best to put bad words and judgments to one side https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plagiarism it is not, now what else is the issue?

To @bob you are missing the point of what we/am talking about, and pushing a liberal private property view agenst a #4opens “commons” view.

Now this does bring up the issue of licence, my instance is the same as bobs CC-BY-NC so in theory I have the right to reuse content without asking as my blog is also CC-BY-NC, but I am polite and go a stage further if I am unshore if a person wants to be linked I initially publish post with “from the #openweb” post the URL to get feedback.

@bob This isn’t a stage further. It’s the BY part of the CC license. It doesn’t necessarily require links, but some indication of who the content is by.

Morally, you would be in most cases wrong to push this, but legally you are right. Now comes the issue of me making this into a blog post. I need to quote him in the post, but it would likely increase the bad feeling if I did this with name and LINK, under CC-BY-NC I have the right to use his post, he can’t say NO but morlay should I name and shame him or just leave the mess as an anonymous example of working practice?

@bob Under CC-BY-NC I have the right to use his post, but not without attribution.

I can see no copyright notice https://greatjustice.net/about But his personal sight is https://elplatt.com/ CC so let’s assume for now. Added the link though it feels like trolling, very happy to remove it

For the blog post, would likely need to look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use as am pretty sure at this stage he would say no text, but the is no story without the text, and he has already given me the right to use the text under CC-BY-NC if I link to him, the instance blocking and CC licencing cross site is icing on the cake.

NEED TO CHECK THIS

Thinking more about this, I likely did not need to have this conversation at all, as a journalist criticizing a “work” is a clear case of fair use. I anonymize the text so that I can freely reinterpret it, which is what the archives are for, and labaled (FROM THE OPENWEB) to stop people thinking it was my work TICK then it’s just a working document and a good example of a clash of Liberal ideas.

The CC side of the conversation is not wrong, it’s just NOT what my actions are based on, OK, this makes more sense. This conversation is ltraly a liberal troll storm in a tea cup, that’s what happens if you talk to people about archiving 🙂

This is based on the idea that this is a working document (which all my blog posts are, they get updated and reused all the time) So it’s not an act of publishing (which in this case it was not as I was still drafting, asking if people wonted attribution)

But would be when I mythically called it finished… round in circals in the #4opens world. The second story on the post is more finished, the text there is changed/transformed, so from the #openweb is OK.

http://hamishcampbell.com/2023/02/12/

Archiving the #openweb in a personal way

I spend a bit of time copying conversations off transient communication, microblogging, #failbook, chat etc. and archive this on my blog. I don’t tend to do “good practice” in this as I do it #DIY and don’t get paid for my time 🙂

I have two ways to “anonymize” text, if I keep the flow then I take the names out and put Q. and A. as the voices, if it’s out of the flow I just put “from the #openweb” this makes it quick and simple to archive things of value without jumping though impossible conversations each time. If people won’t credit and ask, I add it, it’s the polite thing to do.

Now if someone made code to automate credit and archiving work just as well, I would be happy to use it 🙂

Talking about grassroots media as a step away from the current #techshit

Hamish Campbell on the #openweb and rebooting indymedia

Hamish Campbell, a veteran of radical media for more than 30 years, argues that mainstream technology and culture are failing us. The rise of the #dotcon platforms has commodified our lives: closed silos like #Facebook and #Instagram harvest our attention and data, locking us into systems that serve profit, not people.

Attempts to build alternatives around an #encryptionist agenda have gone nowhere. As a result, the tech giants dominate. For Campbell, the answer lies in the #openweb – once born open, but now slowly suffocated over the past two decades. His solution is to reboot grassroots media.

Drawing on the example of Oxford #IMC, Campbell shows how a simple federated network can thrive: content is shared through trusted link flows, moderation happens collectively, and mistakes can be rolled back. Unlike the #closedweb, the beauty of the #openweb is its free-flowing links, its openness to serendipity and collaboration.

For Campbell, the #OMN project is most powerful not for what it does, but for what it refuses to do: it rejects capture, centralisation, and gatekeeping. Change begins with small, practical steps, rebooting grassroots media as a living example.

What You Can Do

In recent years, events in the US, Portugal, and Madrid have explored the idea of #rebooting #Indymedia. So far, the history of Indymedia has been told mainly by academics, often through a narrow, American lens. To truly revive it, we need to retell those stories more widely, and more honestly.

A successful reboot means returning to Indymedia’s open and serendipitous roots, not the bureaucratic, closed structures it later became. The good news is that most of the technical tools we need already exist, from federated protocols like ActivityPub to peer-to-peer networks like dat.

To keep its radical, grassroots character intact, any reboot must follow the #4opens: open data, open process, open access, and open source. These principles ensure transparency, accessibility, and trust.

If you want to get involved, search for #indymediaback or “reboot Indymedia” to find links, projects, and discussions around the #OMN.

The problem with institutions funding the social side of #openweb tech

Almost all our #geekproblem software fails because they are building “control”, where all good societies are built on “trust”. We keep making piles of #techshit because we can’t communicate about this simple understanding #techchurn one way to address this is to fund the social side of tech.

The problem which we need to solve is the institutions funding of the social side of #openweb tech, if we do this now most of this funding will feed parasite #NGO’s rather than anything useful. This is also a problem of the existing funding for coding, it pushes the #geekproblem when it funds anything outside the basics.

We have a mess because our world is messy, current funding plays little role in composting this mess.

That’s the job of people with shovels – who funds them.

Most of our software fails because it is built with a focus on “control”, rather than “trust”, which is the foundation of a good society. This leads to an endless cycle of creating useless technology that we can’t communicate about. To address this problem, we need to invest in the social side of technology.

The challenge lies in funding the social aspect of #openweb technology. Currently, most funding goes to non-governmental organizations (#NGOs) that are not always effective. Additionally, the existing funding for coding primarily focuses on the basics, which perpetuates the problem of the #geekproblem.

Our world is messy, and the current funding plays little role in cleaning up this mess. People with shovels – those who do the work – need funding to make a difference.

Thinking about why #openweb projects fail.

Many #openweb projects have failed over the years, and there are reasons, first is the challenge of sustaining a project that is built on open-source principles and relies on community involvement and collaboration. In capitalism, without a clear and consistent funding model, it can be difficult to keep projects going over the long term.

Another factor is the competition from proprietary technology that is always better funded and more easily accessible to the public. This can create a challenging environment for open-source projects that struggle to keep up with the pushing of “innovation” in the tech industry.

There are also ideological differences between different groups within the open-source community that leads to conflicts and disagreements over the direction of projects. This can result in splintering and fragmentation of the community, making it difficult to achieve a shared goal.

Non “standard” #UX is a big issue as well, nice to make something you like, but better to do something the user community likes.

From @bob@epicyon.libreserver.org Irreconcilable musical differences, someone in charge of donations taking it to Vegas, becoming a parent or getting a new job, burnout, unrealistic expectations based on hegemonic BigTech systems, illness, an excess of technical debt and trolling can all result in failures of open source projects.

Most projects are one or two people with occasional driveby patches. Projects with more volunteers than that are rare exceptions. Most maintainers are not people on six-figure salaries going on slides at Google. Usually they are barely making rent.

Another factor is that often accessibility is not as good as it could be. The big companies can dedicate a department to just ensuring accessibility meets a minimum standard, but open source projects often don’t have the knowledge and are regularly criticized for accessibility problems.

From the #openweb

(https://elplatt.com/) happy to remove this link if asked

The main challenges I’ve experienced in projects I’ve been a part of:
* Tendency for potential contributors to start new projects from scratch
* Lack of communication within the user community and between users and maintainers
* Contributions driven by prestige or excitement, prioritizing new features over maintenance
* Lack of funding

It’s a good list, maybe we need a post writing up covering them all.

(This is why I work #KISS whaw that is bad behaver, lie about someone then blocked their instance. #GreatjusticeNet has blocked campaign.openworlds.info for plagiarizing fediverse content. In this post, it says “From the #openweb” in BOLD, so clearly it’s not plagiarism. But happy to remove stuff if people don’t won’t it archived)

Over the years, many #openweb projects have failed due to various reasons. The first challenge is to sustain a project that is built on open-source principles and relies on community involvement and collaboration. In a capitalist society, without a clear and consistent funding model, it becomes difficult to keep the project going over the long term.

Another factor is the competition from proprietary technology that is better funded and more easily accessible to the public. This creates a challenging environment for open-source projects that struggle to keep up with the “innovation” pushed by the tech industry.

Ideological differences within the open-source community leads to conflicts and disagreements over project direction, resulting in splintering and fragmentation of the community, making it challenging to achieve shared goals.

Non-standard #UX is also a significant issue, as it’s better to create something the user community likes than something just the developer likes.

Some ideas on this from the #openweb, irreconcilable musical differences, individuals in charge of donations taking it to Vegas, becoming a parent, getting a new job, burnout, unrealistic expectations based on hegemonic BigTech systems, illness, an excess of technical debt, and trolling can all result in open-source project failures.

Most projects have only one or two people, with occasional drive-by patches. Projects with more volunteers are rare exceptions, and maintainers are typically not people on six-figure salaries going on slides at Google. Usually, they barely make rent.

To sum up, the main challenges experienced in the projects that the author has been a part of include the tendency for potential contributors to start new projects from scratch, lack of communication within the user community and between users and maintainers, contributions driven by prestige or excitement, prioritizing new features over maintenance, and lack of funding.

Additionally, accessibility is often not as good as it could be, as big companies can dedicate a department to ensure accessibility meets a minimum standard, but open-source projects often lack the knowledge and are regularly criticized for accessibility problems.

In conclusion, a post covering all these challenges would be useful.

Libertarian #Fediverse “cats”

This story is about a group of libertarian #Fediverse “cats” who convinced one of the largest and most bureaucratic institutions, the European Union, to embrace decentralized and #openweb technologies. Through outreach efforts, EU-sponsored events and advocating to policy-makers, they raised awareness of the benefits of decentralized models of the internet and the positive impact this has on creating a more equitable and sustainable online environment for European citizens.

As the #Fediverse, #Mastodon, and #ActivityPub continues to rapidly grow in popularity, the #openweb cultural values at the heart of this outreach have been validated. Through continued grassroots community building and outreach efforts, radical activist have the potential to empower users and promote an inclusive, equitable, and sustainable online environment for all of us.

Please help tell this real life story https://socialhub.activitypub.rocks/t/eu-outreach-if-we-dont-tell-our-story-am-not-sure-who-will/2950

A little about #openweb projects, the Fediverse

The Federated Web, or #Fediverse, is a decentralized #openweb project that allows people to communicate and share content across different servers.

* Decentralization: In a centralized platform, all data is stored and controlled by a single entity, which can lead to issues such as censorship, data breaches, and loss of control over data. In a half decentralized network like the Fediverse, no single entity controls all the network or the data.

* Privacy: Fediverse platforms generally place a strong emphasis on privacy and security, this is always a white lie, as it’s a #4opens project.

* Freedom of expression: In the Fediverse, there is no centralized authority that can censor content, so people have greater freedom of expression and can express themselves with less fear of censorship.

* Control over data: In the Fediverse, users have some control over their data and can choose to move it from one platform to another if they choose to do so.

* Customization: Fediverse platforms can be customized to suit the needs and preferences of uses, allowing for a more community infrastructure use.

Why European Social Democracy for some people is a path to a just and sustainable future

For decades, European social democracy has stood as a counterweight to the relentless logic of capitalism, proving that societies can thrive when they prioritize people and planet over profit. Yet in recent years, these ideals have been swept away by the rise of #neoliberalism and the slow creep of corporate capture. For some people it’s worth revisited the core principles, not as relics of a bygone era, but as seeds for the future? Let’s look at potential benefits of this approach, and why reclaiming its best elements might be help in rebuilding our world in the face of #climatechaos and growing inequality.

Reduced income inequality by challenging the hoarders of wealth, Social democracy actively fights against the extreme wealth inequality that fuels the #deathcult path of capitalism. By implementing progressive taxation on the ultra-rich and corporations, wealth redistribution to fund public services and social programs, outs limits on wealth accumulation to prevent runaway hoarding. This old #mainstreaming path treats wealth not as a private treasure, but as a collective resource. It challenges the idea that billionaires should exist at all while millions live in poverty, and asserts that the role of the state is to level the playing field, not deepen the divides.

Improved standard of living, a life of dignity for all, not only trying to mitigate suffering, this works to actively uplift people’s quality of life through: Universal healthcare that prioritizes public well-being over profit. Free or affordable education as a path to empowerment. Robust public services like transport, libraries, and childcare. By ensuring everyone has access to the essentials for a good life, social democracy shows that collective care leads to individual flourishing. It breaks the narrative that people must “earn” the right to exist and replaces it with the belief that dignity is a human right.

Stronger safety nets with protection from capitalist precarity, where markets rule, people are left vulnerable to constant boom-and-bust cycles. Social democracy disrupts this instability by creating social safety nets that catch people when they fall. Unemployment benefits to prevent destitution during job loss, Disability and sickness support for those unable to work, Public pensions to ensure people can retire in dignity. These policies directly challenge the capitalist threat that without endless labour, people deserve to suffer. Instead, they affirm the belief that societies are strongest when no one is left behind.

Greater economic security with power to the workers, social democracy strengthens workers’ rights and provides economic stability: Job protections & fair dismissal laws, living wage policies tied to actual living costs, Support for unions & collective bargaining. This redistribution of power away from corporate greed towards the workers who actually produce value is a radical shift from the top-down hierarchies of capitalism. It proves that economies don’t need to run on exploitation, they can be collaborative systems where workers share in the prosperity they create.

Increased political representation by reclaiming democracy, deepened democracy where people have a real say in how their societies function through, proportional representation to ensure every vote counts, publicly funded elections to reduce corporate influence, citizen assemblies and referenda for direct democracy. This expands democracy beyond just voting every few years, empowering people to shape the decisions that shape and impact their lives. It challenges the idea that politics is the domain of #nastyfew elitists and replaces it with the radical belief that people can and should govern themselves.

Environmental protection by defending the future from #climatechaos. Social democracy recognizes that the health of the planet is inseparable from the well-being of people. That’s why this path champions investment in renewable energy & public green infrastructure, strict environmental regulations & corporate accountability, sustainable development policies that balance human and ecological needs. Rather than treating nature as a resource to be exploited, this path sees the environment as a common inheritance that must be preserved for future generations. It directly challenges the short-termism of capitalism, which sacrifices the future for the sake of immediate profits.

Investment in public goods for the collective good, instead of pouring public money into private profit machines, social democracy reinvests in the public commons through infrastructure development for sustainable transport and energy, public research & innovation for collective progress, cultural and community spaces to foster connection and creativity. This long-term public investment shows that societies thrive when they share resources, not when they sell them off to the highest bidder. It dismantles the myth that privatization is more “efficient”, and proves that public ownership can build lasting prosperity.

What this means for radical media and the #openweb, The principles of solidarity, collective ownership, and democratic control, overlap the values that grassroots projects like the #OMN and #indymediaback embody. But instead of waiting for governments to catch up, we can start building these systems and paths now. Decentralized media platforms to break corporate control of information, open-source technologies governed by communities, not corporations, digital commons where people can share, learn, and organize freely.

The #4opens already provide the blueprint for a more democratic and sustainable digital ecosystem. It’s an easy path that by combining the best aspects of the older #mainstreaming social democracy with the “new” power of decentralized tech, we can bypass broken #deathcult institutions and start creating the future from the ground up. The old story of social democracy showed us a path, now it’s time to take it further http://hamishcampbell.com

#SocialDemocracy #WorkersRights #PublicGood #ClimateJustice #OpenWeb #ReclaimTheFuture

Please share this #openweb project widly thanks

The #OGB is focused on decentralized and autonomous models of governance for the #fediverse and #openweb groups. It aims to resist the imposition of traditional top down power structures and promote social change and challenge by involving community members in decision-making and empowering them to shape their “producer” communities.

The project will leverage existing open-source technologies and the #fediverse infrastructure, and will balance structure and flexibility to promote creativity, innovation, and sustainability. The project has three main subjects of discussion: 1) the tradition of working activist grassroots organizing, 2) the use of technological federation and ActivityPub, and 3) original thinking for grassroots #openweb producer governance. The project is bound by the #4opens and #PGA principles and will be conducted using #KISS online tools.

#ActivityPub is a protocol for decentralized social networking that is based on #openweb standards. It provides client and server APIs for creating, exchanging, and receiving content, as well as notifications and other activities. The protocol uses the #ActivityStreams vocabulary and defines key concepts such as Actors (profiles), Objects (content), Inbox, and Outbox to facilitate communication and interaction between users in a decentralized network.

Story about our EU outreach

Mastodon is a free, #4opens, decentralized microblogging platform that is part of the #Fediverse.

The outreach of these technologies to the European Union started as a way to promote alternative models of the internet that were more inclusive, equitable, and empowering for users. The EU was seen as a natural fit due to its commitment to promoting human rights, privacy, and data protection online.

The outreach effort focused on raising awareness of the benefits of decentralized and #openweb models of the internet and how these technologies could be used to create a more equitable and sustainable “native” European online environment. The libertarian “cats” of the #fediverse participating in EU-sponsored events, such as hackathons and tech conferences, as well as engaging with policy-makers and stakeholders through direct outreach and advocacy campaigns.

https://socialhub.activitypub.rocks/search?expanded=true&q=EU+workshop

NEED a hashtag link to this outreach.

As the outreach effort continued, a minority of people in the #EU became interested in these technologies and began to adopt them in a soft rollout of “official” services. The Fediverse and Mastodon rapidly grew in popularity due to the #twittermigration, attracting a diverse and vibrant community of users from across the EU. This growth helped to validate the importance of decentralized and autonomous European model of the internet.

Today, ActivityPub, Fediverse, and Mastodon continue to be important players in the EU’s efforts to promote a more decentralized and autonomous internet. Through continued grassroots outreach and community-building efforts, these technologies can empower users and citizens to create a more inclusive, equitable, and sustainable online environment for all.

UPDATE: the cats who made this happen scattered and the fallow up did not happen.

Talking about the #indymediaback project

Q. A few comments on your excellent video.

Your page layout is driven by desktop. Nowadays, people think mobile first.

The rollback: an interesting idea.

A. Yep it’s the #nothingnew part of the project, the original IMC was ripped apart buy internal arguments and bad process, so we are rebooting the project before this happened so making minimal changes outa the box of UX and process, the needed changes can then come FROM “consensus” of the fresh crew running the rebooted instances.

The mobile expirence is swipe sideways to each of the menu items as columns. This is a reasonable compromise, as the original project had no mobile interface.

This is an example https://indymedia.hs2rebellion.earth/users/news you have to click past the SSL error to see the site, on mobile a single column interface, but the swiping is not implemented, so you have to click on the menu at the top. This test site is a RSS/AP aggregator #indymediaback

Q. Well, that is interesting. Seeing something is so much more impressive than just a video. What is the software platform? What web server are you using?
It is pretty easy to do https.
Is anyone actually using the software?

A. sadly, the 2-year working project was killed off by covid just as we were going to start the outreach at protest camps. The codebase is now abandoned, was based on epycion, but dev on this folk is now stopped/blocked.

What we had is a good expirence though, Imagen if the swiping worked. The RSS and AP side works for input, the AP output does not work, none of the tagging was implemented on these rollout test sites, we are still running 3 but needs a committed crew to restart #indymediaback

Was 6 months work for 3 people to put this working code together #DIY and a wider collective to do the work on the text and process to bring the original #indymeda back in the spirit of #nothingnew but the stress of dev and covid broke this as we were getting close to test rollout, been dormant since then.

We need to chose a new codebase and find a coding crew, most of the hard work is done, all the existing design, process and outreach text is in place to push this out agen as the “news” part of the #fediverse

But its another year of nonpaid #openweb work… phwww… fighting agenst the pointlessness of the #mainstreaming is a hard sell, even though it’s blatantly and obviously needed.