MakingHistory/README.md

# Making History

## Synopsis

The MakingHistory project is a collaborative initiative to create
a decentralized, participatory network for documenting and sharing grassroots
movements, historical events, and underrepresented narratives. Rooted in the
ethos of the #openweb and leveraging Fediverse technologies like ActivityPub,
the project empowers communities to take control of their stories, ensuring
they are preserved and amplified outside corporate-controlled paths.

The project focuses on enabling user-generated timelines, multimedia
integration, and collaborative curation to document history in real-time or
retrospectively. By prioritizing transparency, inclusivity, and grassroots
participation, it provides tools for meany voices to be heard and for diverse
perspectives to be shared. It combines modern federated tech with the
collective spirit of earlier grassroots media movements.


## Experience

I have been involved in projects that align with the ethos and goals of the
MakingHistory project, particularly through my work with Indymedia and the
Open Media Network (#OMN).

### Indymedia: Building the Foundations for Grassroots Media

I was an active participant in the global network, a pioneering grassroots
media project launched in the late 1990s. Indymedia provided a decentralized
platform for activists, communities, and independent journalists to report on
issues overlooked by mainstream media. It was one of the first major digital
efforts to democratize media creation and distribution, fostering
participatory and collective storytelling. This work underpins much of the
MakingHistory vision, highlighting the importance of grassroots participation,
robust federated technologies, and transparent governance. I bring 20+ years
of experience to this native path of open, community-driven initiatives,
blending technical expertise with a deep commitment to empowering
underrepresented voices.  MakingHistory is the next step in a long journey to
reclaim narrative power and ensure our collective history is preserved and
accessible for future generations.


## Usage

The MakingHistory project’s requested budget is strategically allocated to
ensure its success, focusing on building the infrastructure, fostering
community engagement, and maintaining sustainable growth. Below is a breakdown
of how the budget will be utilized, along with a discussion of funding
sources:


## Budget Allocation

### Technical Development

#### Platform Infrastructure

Funding will support server hosting, domain management, and storage for
federated platforms that form the backbone of MakingHistory.

#### Software Development

Resources will be allocated to improving and customizing tools, the Federated
Wiki and other ActivityPub systems to meet the project’s goals.

#### Testing and Maintenance

Ongoing efforts to ensure platform stability, security, and scalability as the
user base grows.

### Content Creation and Archiving

#### Collaborative Storytelling Tools

Developing features to empower communities to collaboratively document and
share historical narratives, aligning with the MakingHistory vision.

#### Digital Archiving

Ensuring long-term preservation of user-generated content, with open access to
historical narratives and multimedia resources.

### Community Engagement and Education

#### Workshops and Training

Organizing events and online sessions to onboard contributors and familiarize
them with the platform and principles of decentralized storytelling.

#### Outreach Campaigns

Promoting the project within the Fediverse and other relevant networks to
build a diverse and engaged user base.

### Administrative and Governance Support

#### Project Coordination

Supporting a small team to manage the day-to-day operations, oversee
development, and facilitate community governance.

#### Documentation and Reporting

Creating transparent records of decision-making processes and project progress
in alignment with the #4opens framework.

### Contingency and Scaling

Allocating funds for unexpected challenges and ensuring the project can scale
effectively as adoption increases.


## Funding Sources

### Past and Present

The project has drawn inspiration and lessons from prior initiatives like
Indymedia and OMN, which were largely self-funded and supported through
volunteer efforts. While MakingHistory does not currently have additional
external funding sources, it builds on a history of successful resource
pooling and community-driven contributions.

### Key Historical Context

Indymedia relied heavily on grassroots funding models, including small
donations from community members and solidarity events.

The Open Media Network (#OMN) has been developed on a minimal funding
approach, emphasizing open-source collaboration and volunteer labor to
maintain independence.

### Future Plans

The project aims to diversify funding sources by:

- Pursuing small grants from organizations aligned with open culture and
  grassroots storytelling
- Encouraging direct community contributions through crowdfunding campaigns
  and donation drives
- Partnering with like-minded initiatives within the Fediverse to share
  resources and minimize overhead costs.

The budget will enable the project to blend technical excellence with
grassroots participation, ensuring the MakingHistory network becomes
a sustainable and impactful resource for communities worldwide. This path
emphasizes independence and aligns with the principles of transparency,
collaboration, and decentralization.


## Comparison

The MakingHistory project stands apart from traditional #NGO-funded efforts by
addressing the systemic failures that have often plagued similar initiatives,
while also building on the successes and lessons from historical grassroots
and open-source projects.

Comparison of MakingHistory focusing on how it diverges from typical #NGO
approaches and aligns with the ethos of the #openweb and #4opens principles.

### Historical Example

Indymedia was a pioneering grassroots initiative that provided a decentralized
platform for citizen journalism and activism during the early 2000s. It
thrived on community-driven content and a federated approach to publishing.
Strengths: Empowered local voices, operated transparently, and embraced
grassroots values.

#### Weaknesses

Over time, Indymedia struggled with sustainability, internal conflicts, and
adapting to technological shifts, leading to fragmentation and decline.
MakingHistory builds on Indymedia’s ethos of storytelling but modernizes the
approach with ActivityPub based technology, collaborative wiki tools, and
stronger focus on sustainability through decentralized governance.

### Comparison with Typical #NGO-Funded Paths: Top-Down Structures

Many #NGO-funded media initiatives operate within rigid, hierarchical
structures.  Decision-making is centralized and driven by donor priorities
rather than community needs.

#### Result

This approach frequently alienates grassroots participants,
undermining the authenticity and trust necessary for lasting impact.

### MakingHistory Difference

Operates on a bottom-up, decentralized governance model, allowing communities
to shape their own narratives and priorities. It values trust and humanity
over external control.  Funding Dependency: #NGO projects are heavily reliant
on external funding, which leads to shifts in focus, bureaucratic
inefficiencies, and an overemphasis on metrics that satisfy donors rather than
serving people.

#### Result

Projects fail to adapt once funding dries up or priorities change, leaving
behind fragmented and abandoned ecosystems.

### Overemphasis on Professionalization

#NGO efforts prioritize professional content creation and institutional
partnerships, sidelining grassroots contributors and reducing community
engagement.  Result: The platforms may appear polished but lack genuine
participation and long-term relevance to their target communities.
MakingHistory Difference: Prioritizes participatory storytelling, encouraging
communities to create and share their own historical narratives. The focus is
on tools that are accessible to everyone, regardless of technical expertise.

### Technological Approaches

Many #NGO-funded media projects adopt proprietary or siloed technologies,
limiting interoperability and peoples autonomy. These systems tend to mimic
corporate #dotcons paths, prioritizing control over collaboration. Result:
This creates dependency on centralized systems, contradicting the principles
of decentralization and the #openweb.  MakingHistory Difference: Built
entirely on open standards and federated technologies like ActivityPub,
ensuring interoperability and communerty control. It actively resists the
commodification of user data and narratives.

### Why Historical #NGO Paths Fail

#### Mission Drift

Over time, #NGO projects shift away from their original grassroots objectives
due to donor pressure and institutional inertia.

#### Lack of Community Ownership

Decision-making and content creation are often detached from the communities
they aim to serve, resulting in low engagement and eventual obsolescence.

#### Inability to Adapt

Tied to rigid funding cycles and institutional agendas, projects struggle to
respond to changing technological and social landscapes.


### Conclusion

The MakingHistory project avoids these pitfalls by embracing
a grassroots-first approach, rooted in transparency, participation, and
adaptability. It rejects the typical #NGO path of hierarchical control and
funding dependency, focusing instead on empowering communities to
collaboratively document their own histories. By leveraging modern federated
technologies and the lessons of historical efforts like Indymedia and the
#OMN, MakingHistory creates a sustainable and impactful #openweb native path
that reflects the diversity and richness of grassroots storytelling. This path
ensures the project remains relevant, resilient, and rooted #KISS


## Challenges

The MakingHistory project faces significant (social) technical challenges,
many of which are intertwined with the development and implementation of
overlapping initiatives such as the Ibis Wiki, Indymediaback, the Open Media
Network (#OMN), and the Open Governance Body (#OGB). These challenges arise
from the #KISS goal of creating a cohesive path that supports decentralized
storytelling, collaboration, and governance while addressing the limitations
of existing tools and technologies.

### Key Technical Challenges

- Seamless Integration of Federated Tools:

    The MakingHistory project will utilize ActivityPub to enable federated
    communication between platforms, such as wikis, blogs, and media
    repositories.  Challenge: Ensuring compatibility and seamless data
    exchange across diverse platforms in the Fediverse, while maintaining high
    performance and user-friendly interfaces.  Solution: Building upon the
    open standards demonstrated in Ibis Wiki, integrating its federated wiki
    approach with other #OMN tools for decentralized content creation and
    sharing.

- Decentralized Content Management:

    Like Indymediaback, the project requires a robust system for managing
    decentralized content, including publishing, moderation, and archiving.
    Challenge: Implementing decentralized moderation and curation tools that
    respect user autonomy while maintaining trust and quality within the
    network.  Solution: Leveraging mastodons dynamic federated design and
    adapting it for the needs of grassroots media communities.

- Scalability and Resilience:

    The system must scale to accommodate growing user bases and diverse use
    cases, while ensuring resilience against platform failures or external
    attacks.  Challenge: Designing systems that balance decentralization with
    scalability, ensuring reliable performance even in resource-limited
    environments.  Solution: Building lightweight, modular tools inspired by
    existing Fediverse codebase and architecture, optimized for grassroots
    deployments. Most of the solutions already exist.

- User Experience for Non-Technical Audiences:

    Engaging grassroots communities requires networks that are easy to use,
    even for people with limited technical expertise.  Challenge: Simplifying
    complex federated technologies like ActivityPub into intuitive interfaces
    and workflows.  Solution: Enhancing exiting fedivers codebase #UX
    usability to integrate accessible tools for storytelling and
    collaboration, making a practical path for community organizers and
    activists.

- Interoperability Across Projects:

    The MakingHistory project shares common goals and infrastructure with
    Indymediaback, #OMN, and #OGB. Creating a unified codeing ecosystem.
    Challenge: Coordinating development across projects to avoid duplication,
    resolve conflicts, and maximize synergy.  Solution: Developing shared APIs
    and data models, ensuring interoperability and a cohesive user experience
    across all initiatives.

- Governance and Trust Models:

    Governance structures must align with #OGB principles of transparency,
    inclusivity, and grassroots control.  Challenge: Implementing governance
    mechanisms that can operate effectively in a federated environment,
    balancing peoples autonomy with collective decision-making.  Solution:
    Using the OGB framework to prototype and test governance models within
    MakingHistory, adapting them to meet the needs of federated storytelling
    communities.

- Preservation and Archiving:

    As with Indymediaback, preserving the history created by people and
    commneties is essential for future generations.  Challenge: Developing
    decentralized archiving methods that ensure content longevity without
    relying on centralized infrastructure.  Solution: Utilizing distributed
    redundant storage solutions and metadata tagging for efficient archiving
    and retrieval.

### Overlap and Synergies

The MakingHistory project serves as a bridge between Indymediaback, #OMN, and
#OGB, leveraging shared infrastructure and principles:

    From Ibis Wiki: A federated, collaborative wiki system that lays the
    foundation for decentralized storytelling.  From Indymediaback: Grassroots
    media publishing tools and workflows for content creation and moderation.
    From #OMN: A federated media ecosystem rooted in the #4opens principles of
    transparency, inclusivity, and collaboration.  From #OGB: Governance
    models that empower communities to take ownership of their narratives.

By addressing these challenges, MakingHistory will provide an effective tool
for documenting grassroots stories but also strengthen the broader ecosystem
of decentralized and federated media, demonstrating a scalable, trust-based
model for community-driven storytelling, simply put making history.


## Ecosystem

The ecosystem of the MakingHistory is rooted in the broader framework of the
Open Media Network (#OMN) and the decentralized social web of the Fediverse.
Combining principles of openness, decentralization, and grassroots engagement,
MakingHistory creates a vibrant and interconnected path for collaborative
storytelling and historical documentation. This ecosystem will leverage
existing platforms, tools, and communities while fostering new connections to
build a sustainable network for grassroots DIY media.

### Ecosystem Overview

#### Core Components

##### OMN

A federated media network built on the #4opens principles of open data, open
source, open processes, and open standards. MakingHistory will integrate
seamlessly with #OMN tools to allow decentralized content sharing and
collaboration.

##### Fediverse

Using ActivityPub and other open standards, the project will connect with
established platforms like Mastodon, PeerTube, WriteFreely, and Ibis Wiki to
ensure compatibility and engagement across the decentralized web.

##### Grassroots Media

Building on the ethos of Indymedia, the project will provide tools for
activists, journalists, and communities to document and share their history
without reliance on centralized platforms or corporate control.

#### Key Actors

##### Grassroots Communities

Local organizations, activists, and storytellers who document and share their
narratives. Fediverse Developers and Admins: Collaborating with developers and
instance administrators to ensure technical interoperability and promote the
project within the Fediverse.

##### Allies in the FOSS Ecosystem

Engaging with free and open-source software projects that share the goals of
decentralization and people empowerment.

##### Educational and Historical Institutions

Partnering with groups interested in archiving and preserving grassroots
stories for future generations.


## Engagement Strategies

### Community Outreach

Host workshops, webinars, and meetups within grassroots networks and Fediverse
communities to introduce MakingHistory and its tools.  Collaborate with
existing activist networks to co-develop and test features that meet their
specific needs.

### Promotion on the Fediverse

Actively use Fediverse platforms like Mastodon and Lemmy to share updates,
gather feedback, and engage with the wider decentralized social web. Publish
guides and tutorials to encourage adoption by Fediverse users and admins.

### Collaboration with Developers

Work with ActivityPub crew and SocialHub communities to align technical
development with existing standards and best practices. Share code,
documentation, and progress transparently on platforms like federated Git’s to
invite contributions from the wider FOSS ecosystem.

### Building Trust Through #4opens

Promote the project’s adherence to the #4opens principles to build trust and
credibility among users and partners. Use open processes for decision-making
and feature prioritization to ensure inclusivity and accountability.

### Showcasing Outcomes

Develop case studies and success stories from pilot deployments to demonstrate
the project’s impact and potential. Highlight how MakingHistory complements
and extends the capabilities of existing Fediverse and #OMN tools.


## Promoting Outcomes

### Federation with Existing Tools

Integrate with platforms like Mastodon (for updates), PeerTube (for video
storytelling), and WriteFreely (for blogs) etc to ensure content is accessible
and sharable across the Fediverse. Collaborate with other #OMN initiatives,
such as Indymediaback and OGB, to strengthen the ecosystem and amplify shared
goals.

### Grassroots Campaigns

Encourage communities to create and share content, documenting local histories
and movements, to build awareness and participation organically.

By nurturing a collaborative and inclusive ecosystem, MakingHistory amplifies
the voices of grassroots actors and create a sustainable foundation for
decentralized storytelling, aligned with the wider OMN and Fediverse vision
#KISS

---

## The Witches Cauldron: Making History

An open activist archive project that aims to create a data commons based on
the [#4opens](#add-link) framework and motivated by the
[PGA hallmarks](#add-link).

The project aims to create a metadata-enriched digital collection of items
hosted on a redundant and federated network of hosts and servers around the
world, starting with hosting the majority of the content on the
[Internet Archive](https://archive.org).

The project is open to anyone who wants to be a part of the federated network
and will be built using the tools of the Open Media Network (OMN) and the KISS
principle to facilitate DIY working.

The project emphasizes on the importance of simplicity and human scale, and
reject solutions that move away from the core KISS and DIY ethos. The
Resistance Exhibition is the UK flow of data for this project, and the outcome
of the project is to create a open collection of original material from across
European countries as a first step, uploaded and stored in an open distributed
repository.