Programming Mission: Let’s Fix the Fediverse Discovery Gap

Here’s a small but powerful challenge for #openweb builders – and a perfect #DIY project if you’re fed up with the current #geekproblem. I’ve been trying to find #Fediverse instances that actually cover my town, Oxford, UK, so I can help promote and grow them locally. You’d think this would be simple, right? But… nope.

Tried the standard “instance pickers”? Dead ends. Tried generic web searches? Useless #SEO sludge. Tried maps like this one, a good start https://umap.openstreetmap.fr/en/map/fediverse-near-me_828094#7/52.076/-1.714, but nothing covering Oxford.

Why is this happening? Because our current tools focus only on technical facts (server specs, software used, uptime, etc.) and ignore the uncontrolled (dangerous) metadata that actually makes discovery meaningful:

What’s the instance for?
Who does it serve?
What community does it represent?
Where is it rooted geographically or socially?

This is the #geekproblem in action: great code, but no way to find things people actually want to use. What’s the fix? Someone (maybe you?) could create a community-focused discovery tool that:

Encourages instance admins to tag with location, community, topics, etc.
Provides search/filter UI that works for real people, not sysadmins
Uses the Fediverse’s open standards (#ActivityPub + #microformats) to pull this info in
Maybe even integrates with OpenStreetMap or a simple opt-in geo-tagged registry
Outputs something friendly – like “Find your Fediverse community in your town”

This is not a hard project, it’s a weekend hack for someone who cares, but it has real social value as it helps bridge infrastructure to lived communities. That’s the core of the #openweb reboot.

So for people who can’t see why this matter. If we want the Fediverse to grow beyond techies and Twitter refugees, we need to help people find their people. Local discovery is key. Place-based communities are still powerful, especially when rebuilding trust, mutual aid, and shared media in a collapsing world.

So, want a simple mission? Build a tool that helps people find #Fediverse instances by town, city, or region. Start with Oxford, but make it global. Make it open. Make it federated. And when you do? I’ll be the first to push it out.

#Fediverse #OMN #openweb #4opens #FediverseDiscovery #programmingchallenge #Geekproblem #MutualAid #CodeForGood #FOSS #localweb #trustnotcontrol #KISS

Update: my suggestion of path, a simple UX:

A few dropdowns over the map,

Region (countries are regions, anti-nationalistic)
City/area (a county or city)
local (village, area in city)
Them maybe latter hyper local (but not for now)

Then we have subject – it would be normal to have a multi subject hashtag map, that updates on each click – adding the clicks to a list on the side – with “new button” to jump back to start.

Then you have advanced for the normal tech stuff… which currently is the front end on most pickers. This would also be displayed on the info box for each instance on the map, so still central, just not AT THE FRONT.

UPDATE: can just pull all the existing data out of the current sites like https://instances.social/list#lang=en&allowed=&prohibited=&min-users=&max-users= as these are all #4opens. So the projected site could be up and running with full data in little time. Yes, you would have to ask people to tag their installs to geolocate their instances. This could be done a hard way or a simple #KISS way like any admin in the instance adding a #hashtag with a geolocation hashtag after it. Then periodically go through the instance list and spider all admins on each instance if you find the hashtag – add the next hashtag as a geolocation or something as simple as this.

Ideas in comments, please.

Web search is a cesspit of algorithm-driven propaganda

The #dotcons have turned web searches into a cesspit of algorithm-driven consumerist and political ideological propaganda. What was a tool for discovery and connection is now a tightly controlled funnel, pushing people towards preordained narratives and commercialized echo chambers. Nowhere is this more obvious than on Google, the go-to gatekeeper of information, where what you find is shaped not by the richness of human knowledge, but by whatever serves the interests of the #nastyfew with power and capital.

This isn’t just an “inconvenience”; it’s a crisis for public knowledge and collective memory. When dissenting views, grassroots history, and alternative voices are buried under layers of #SEO spam, ad-driven results, and opaque censorship, we lose the ability to shape any understanding of the world. So what’s the plan to step outside this mess?

A real path is to build and use the #openweb to actively shift our habits to support networks, platforms and projects built on the #4opens principles – open source, open data, open process, and open standards. The #OMN (Open Media Network) is one path to reclaiming these collective narratives, by creating decentralized, community-driven archives where stories are curated by people, not algorithms.

With the #dotcons shift to #AI in everything, resisting this algorithmic trap is key, that the more people understand how these systems blind us, the less power they have. Building native #4opens tech is a very good first step, then teaching media literacy, by running workshops on the dangers of algorithmic control, and spreading knowledge about decentralized alternatives, so this can gradually chip away at the illusion of choice presented by the #closedweb paths.

This is a big step to #Rewilding the digital commons, the web was meant to be a messy, vibrant ecosystem, not a manicured, walled garden. We need to plant seeds in neglected corners of the internet, build hyperlocal networks, and use peer-to-peer tech to share knowledge directly. The more we create and share outside the #dotcons, the harder it becomes for them to control the narrative.

The next step is to create and nurture alternative search tools, we used to run an instance of #Searx which is #metasearch tool which works outside the algorithm as much as possible. But we had to shut this down due to lack of support, this lack of support is a real continuing issue we urgently need to overcome, we need users, contributors, and champions to increase usage of these tools and promote their development to build the infrastructure for an alternative discovery layer that need to bypass the #dotcons.

This is based on #KISS just do it, don’t wait for permission or a perfect alternative to emerge. Start archiving, writing, and sharing now. Build your own small-scale #4opens projects and connect them to others. The #OMN isn’t some grand centralized solution, it’s a framework for thousands of messy, local, independent nodes, each adding to a larger network of people-powered knowledge. This is a shovel-ready project. We don’t need to beg the #dotcons to change, and we certainly don’t need to play by their rules. Let’s get our hands dirty, compost the rotting remains of the algorithmic web, and start cultivating a truly human-centred internet again.

What will you plant today? 🌱

#openweb #OMN #4opens #DIY #digitalcommons #techresistance

Report back on #XR peertube/youtube video posting experiment

Report back on peertube/youtube video posting experiment. #XR video posted only to peertube got 18 views in 48 hours. Video posted only to youtube got 26 views in 24 hours so far. Both videos were nice fluffy #XR shared widely in meany #dotcons groups with 1-10k subscribers so in theory to 20-50k people based on “simple” subscription count.

Posted to peertube

Posted to youtube

Let’s look back for a moment. Last year posting similar video you #youtube would have received 100-250 views

10 years ago 2000-4000 views would be normal.

Thoughts on this the #dotcons algorithm affectively #BLOCK straight grassroots video reports – only by shaping your media to #SEO games can you get any views in the #dotcons. This behaviour has shifted popular radical messages/media makers to #deathcult agenders to have any hope of achieving personal “success” and will continue to malform our media if there is no working alternatives for them to use.

I think our “digital addictions” explains the failure of the videos to organically spread inside the #dotcons with views not being feed by the algorithms which prefers #clickbate and people have been trained to push #clickbate so no longer see the need to push straight content – “vanilla” radical grassroots content does not feed their digital addictions or the hole mainstream culture leaves inside us all.

On one hand, if we keep going down the #dotcons path our media will become more and more malformed to #deathcult agender simply to get views and attention. on the other “straight” grassroots coverage will be affectively BLOCKED.

A note here for the #fashionistas “Gaming” the algorithms is just SEO under a new path. Let’s worship the “cargo cult” mentality and not a helpful comment/reply please have a think on this point.

For the last 10 years I have been pushing anti-algorithm content to amplify the exclusion affect. Looking at these numbers I think we are starting to get peek exclusion as our visionontv youtube channel has 7k subscribers so to get only 26 views in 24 hours is notable bad, just on this subscribe base not to mention the #failbook groups embed postings etc.

Talking about the #deathcult is not advertising friendly no matter how fluffy some of your content is 🙂

To conclude. Two points for #openweb media we need to remove “advertising friendly” as criteria. Second we need to actively detox people from their digital addictions. We do the first one, but we have no real plan/implementation/ideas on the second.

The #OMN has PGA and #4opens as concrete foundations, so we have firm ground to build the second needed part down the line.

Yes. Lots of #NGO’sh people will want to add “common sense” #dotcons ideas and process to #openweb projects as they take off. There will be a pile of shit shovelling need to get past this “common sense” issue. We need good shovels #OMN

The reason we are building out the wide #OMN network to provide a space for our messages and to make compost out of our current shit pile;)

UPDATE: the youtube video got to 42 views in 2 days the peertube stayed at 19 views both are very poor numbers but the #openweb one is growing and the #dotcons one visible declining which is positive.