AVOIDING BOTTLENECKS AND HIERARCHIES
I'm often wavering between whether I should only post neutral messages here
on the NCN main list - summarizing what people are doing, gentle calls for
participation, questions that make people think, etc., or if I should more
proactively put out my own possibly controversial and radical ideas and
opinions.
See, there is this dillemma of NCN and my relation to it. NCN is supposed
to be a self-organizing structure where everybody has equal opportunity to
participate. It isn't meant to be any hierarchy where an elite group
decides what goes. So, there's a bit of a contradiction in the fact that I
control what goes out on the main mailing list here. Seems a bit unfair
that I can push my ideas and interpretations on everybody if nobody else
can. Not that I receive many complaints. Most feedback I get is very
positive. But NCN is not about what I say or write or think. It's not about
what I think goes. I'd really know nothing better than being able to make
myself superfluous so I could go on vacation for a couple of months and
nobody would notice.
INFRASTRUCTURE VISION
There's a vision that was present when NCN was born that still hasn't
materialized. It is a vision that, if implemented, will sort out my own
problem with NCN, as well as many problems with electronic communication
that we all experience. How do we participate in exactly what we want to
participate in? How do we avoid being overwhelmed by too many messages or
too much information? How do we avoid missing out on all the stuff we
really do want to know about? How do we sort the wheat from the chaff? How
do we collaborate online in such a way that we actually get somewhere?
A number of people have had similar visions and proposed different kinds of
models. Long-time dedicated NCN member Roan Carratu (who's right now in the
hospital after a heart attack - please send him your very best wishes)
proposed a model called the GeoNet.
WHAT I'M LOOKING FOR
Let me roughly present my idea of what is needed for an electronic
infrastructure. I think the time is right for implementing it. I'm looking
for collaborators, most specifically experienced programmers who are
willing to actually create it with me. I've attempted to get that going a
couple of times before and interesting discussions have ensued. However,
I'm not very interested in just talking about it. I'd like to do it. This
is not only what will serve NCN, but it would also be of general use on the
Internet and have significant commercial potential.
The following is general, but might sound too technical for some. So I'm
mainly writing to those who are somewhat technically oriented and who might
be able or willing to participate in developing it.
When Max Sandor set up the first newciv.org server we spent quite some time
brainstorming on structures for online interaction. Our working title for
the proposed project was SPRAWL. As I remember it stood for something
ambitious like: "Synergetic People & Resource Architecture for World
Liberation".
Anyway, what we're talking about looks at first glance like a conferencing
system or a groupware application. Some existing systems have different of
the features I have in mind, but not quite, not all in the same place.
CommunityWare (http://www.communityware.com/), InterMix
(http://www.intermix.org/), SixDegrees (http://www.sixdegrees.com) and
Yahoo Clubs (http://clubs.yahoo.com/) are all very nice, but not quite it.
One would fill in a profile, like in the NCN member directory. One would
also be able to create lists of one's contacts and one would be able to
group them into different circles, as different types of contacts. Several
people would also be able to form a group or team or community together.
There would be a space one can post messages into, like a web forum or
bulletin board. You can choose who your intended audience is, what group it
is directed at, what subject it is related to.
One would be able to set criteria and filters for what messages one wants
to see. That could be based on who they're from, what groups they're posted
in, what subjects they're about, etc.
Messages might be private or public, intended for anyone, intended for a
particular group, or for an individual.
One might receive messages by going to a webpage or by getting them in
e-mail, like a mailing list, depending on one's preference.
One can also upload articles, ideas, questions, links, pictures and
information of any sort.
Items that are posted are classified by the poster as to whether it is a
comment, an article, an idea, a question, an event, a piece of fiction, etc.
Other people who look at or read posted messages or other items can rate
them as to how interesting or useful they are, or as to how much they agree.
Anybody can also link items or messages together. You can add value to the
overall knowledge database by providing connections between different
pieces. Or by classifying what is there.
Pathways, as of neurons, form based on how trafficked various connections
are. The more people agree that a certain item is relevant, the more
prominently it will appear to everybody else who's interested.
Certain types of message have behaviors that go with them. E.g. a question
or a task might be marked as being 'open' until it has been answered or
done.
A group or team has certain facilities at its disposal automatically. The
ability to post messages only to the group members. A chat room. A
calendar. A place to upload files. Facilities for voting, for keeping track
of agendas, issues, open questions, subjects, resolutions, etc.
What makes this all different is that it is all integrated together.
Several other components might make it even more significantly useful, like
an integrated local currency / barter exchange system.
Everything that is posted publically becomes part of a database of
knowledge that one can search in. Not just a search like a web search
engine where you list everything that contains certain words, without any
assurance that the most useful pieces are close to the top. More likely
you're following pathways that have been established by the collective
intelligence of everybody else who have been there before, or possibly by
only the people who's advice you actually care about.
The structure of this system would be distributed. That is, there could be
any number of servers acting as hubs or homes for different groups of
people, and they would work together so one could search for stuff across
several servers. It might also have hooks tying it to other systems that
deal with members and messages.
There is no central authority in this scenario. Anybody can set up their
own space, their own preferences, and they can post whatever they feel
like, to anybody they choose. But everybody else can also choose what they
wish to receive, from whom, and how. So, if you're boring or offensive you
might find that very few people are paying attention. Anybody can set
themselves up as a judge of what is good or bad, and if others agree they
might align themselves with that person's choices and save themselves
wading through all the same stuff.
The foundation for all of this is rather simple. It is a structure and a
database of people, groupings of people, messages, subjects,
classifications, links between things, and preferences and filters. The
trick is to tie these together in a structure that remains simple and
self-organizing. If the inner design is kept elegant, a couple of smart
programmers could make this thing start working after just a few weeks of
programming. If not, it could easily be a mess that would require hundreds
of people several years to even start holding together. Some of the
solutions on the market have after all cost millions of dollars to develop,
without getting it right.
THE PROJECT
Some of you will start telling me about programs or services that already
exist that do parts of this, that provide bulletin boards, or forums for
closed groups, or calendars, or rating or links, or something. All are
great, I'm sure, and I know a lot of them already. But the idea here is not
just to put a few canned pieces together. The idea is to discover a quantum
leap in what is possible on the Internet.
All programmers are optimists, and, well, I'm a programmer. So, I might
underestimate what it takes to create the online infrastructure I see quite
clearly in my mind. Computer programs aren't exactly built by nice
generalities. All the details and complexities need to be addressed very
specifically.
However, I think that a key legacy that NCN might leave behind would be
exactly such a structure that allows any number of people to interact
electronically in more meaningful and coherent ways. We obviously need it
here, and the rest of the Internet need it as well. The Internet is indeed
changing the world by making people and information more available. But it
is also increasingly an overwhelming mess. We need it to move to the next
level, to function more like a group mind or a global brain.
I wrote a business plan with my partner Julie Solheim for our company
Synchronicity Networks that has at its core this kind of infrastructure. It
looks like it might be financed before long, which would certainly make it
easier to get somewhere with it, in that the programmers would be paid
along the way. But, with or without that, I'm still looking for people who
would be willing to be serious about implementing it.
I'm not necessarily attached to doing it my way and I'd be happy to
cooperate with others developing similar things. And it would be fine to
use components that already exist, rather than having to re-invent
everything. But I AM talking about another level of integration than what
I'm aware of exists already.
If I've been too vague about it, but you're interested, let me know, and
we'll get into more detail together.
There's a mailing list for collaborations on this project. Send a message
to majordomo@newciv.org with the message 'subscribe sprawl-L'.
- Flemming
o o
/ \------------------ Flemming A. Funch -------------------/ \
/ * \ New Civilization Network / Synchronicity Networks / * \
/ * * \ ffunch@newciv.org / * * \
o-------o----------- http://www.worldtrans.org/ -----------o-------o
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Thu Dec 07 2000 - 23:22:13 PST