Open-Media-Network
/
Open-Media-Network
5
1
Code Issues 21 Wiki

Updated Home (markdown)

master
OMN 2017-02-23 13:02:55 +00:00
parent a4e9390298
commit aa37a4adb0
1 changed files with 83 additions and 26 deletions
Show Stats Download Patch File Download Diff File Expand all files Collapse all files

109
Home.md

@ -1,51 +1,108 @@
It's about human co-operation working with machine aggregation tools.
Comments please and could do with some help to turn it into a coherent doc for outreach.
It's a stupidly simple social project using largly existing basic web technologies.
Many people ask what is the Open Media Network (OMN)
- RSS in and out via tag (with de-duping and field-matching).
For activists it might be useful to see it as a rebooting of a “indymedia” project from were it should have been 5 years ago when it died.
This is it for the technical side of the project.
A #4opens bounded network motivated by the PGA hallmarks.
Then there is the social side: open licences, open data, open source, open process.
At a basic level, Publish once and your article appears in many places linking back to your site/blog.
* open licences generally means creative commons for content and GPL for software.
User stories
Link to um (LINK)
* open data means that all the core data of the projects can be exported into other node databases. This can be done via the basic RSS in and out or with an export option to a basic XML file.
Tech
Its Many websites and a few aggregaters sharing a common open “data soup” built with people to people (trust) based tagging.
* open source: that all the core software of the project is free to be edited and be changed.
From this human community/data network many “new” radical powerful things can grow.
* open process means that the organising of the network is done in public wikis and using public tools. Activity streams makes projects transparent to user involvement.
Its builds KISS from the legacy web (RSS) and moves us into the per2per semantic web (GNU social)
The idea of the OMN is to re-build the vitality of the open web. The problem it hopes to overcome is HUGE.
Thought (LINK)
* Applications like Facebook and Twitter have closed off the majority of people's online interactions and privatised/controled them for private gain and social control.
Licensing – #4opens
* openweb tools have withered from lack of use and resources.
What is ethical aggregation?
There is currently little possibilty of an alternative to the polished world of google, facebook, twitter, amazon or e-bay etc. Many people are now talking about these issues, but the solutions they come up with are single sources, not networks. How do we make visible the value of cooperation?
Its networking other peoples content in a respectful way to build a network wide anufe to start to compete with the failing #dotcons
The technical side is relatively easy. It's the social side that is the biggest barrier to revitalising the open web. The problem with all the failed pre-open networks is complexity and their proprietorial nature, This together with a failure of social cohesion (co-operation) has lead to an almost complete meltdown in the radical media space.
* Sections/sidebars of OMN links should be prominently displayed on each members site, preferably on every page if small.
Why is the OMN different?
* There should be no no-follow tags on valid links to member sites.
This is in no way a new project. Its innovation is purely in an understanding of the limitations of past projects. Over the last 10 years there have been many projects that have attempted the same thing.
* The content is read (by link) on the original host site, comments are made on the original host site.
Why will this work now?
* This behaviour can be different for apps were the full content could be read in app. This should be agreed by both partys (can have a opt out tag for this as with many other parts of the network)
It is built with existing standards - nothing is new or untested. It has an understanding of the failure of the social side of such networks. And aims to overcome this:
* The original source (RSS feed site) is always shown under the content title as a live link
* the geek problem of "improving" projects and thus running the risk of breaking the simplicity is overcome by insisting that nodes support all of the open RSS standards to be part of the network. Thus if an improvement is useful it will spread and if it is not it will fade without breaking the underlying fallback tecnologies. The idea is that the network will be resistent to the failure of improvements and open to the sucess of innovation - while being robust if this for some reason fails.
* (Optional) the tags should be visible under the full article
* The social problem - the network is built by trust, thus will scale organically with no overarching control or hierarchy to block innovation or accress. There are no hardcoded APIs that limit and shape user involvement and data flow.
* For apps no adverts should be placed next to CC non commercial full content (with out agreement), fine to have ads on a page next to links.
* too big and distributed to fail - opendata and node redundancy will help the network to be robust and resistent to the failure of large nodes. Also, the trust nature of the network will keep nodes honest and reliable without a central controlling athority. One part's decline is actually an opportunity for another part's growth.
* A OMN badge is (optional) next to the link section and/or on the site about page – this can LINK to the OMN aggregate that the site gets its data flow from OR to the OMN project site.
* the issue of state repression. The network is a part of the open web using only open web standards. This makes it part of a project that is currently too big to fail. As long as the open web is needed by state actors and corporations the technology of the OMN cannot be shut down without shutting down the open web. If one node is shut down its job is simply taken up by another. Data duplication means that little, if anything, is lost.
If you haven’t realized yet the aggregating hubs/nodes are the new “indymedia” sites
* Too much concern with security limiting open process is a real danger. The unspoken question is: open process for whom? - currently we use facebook which is open procees for governments and corporations and fundamentally a closed process for the rest of us. Without open process, the trust which the network relies on is very limited. thus the growth of the network will be stunted, and it will likely wither. Open process will not appeal to everybody. But as it is fundamental, people unhappy with it should not get involved.
* These can be by subject, country, region or city etc.
For the more tech-motivated, here is an old write-tup:
* Much of the “centralizing” parts of the IMC network are no longer needed as this is inherently a “open” project, rather than a centralizing project. Sites that would like to see them selves as IMC can of course follow these “unneeded” parts if they desire – this will lead to a “natural” grouping of IMC focused sites with in the “open data soup”.
http://springofcode.org/organise/-/wiki/Main/Open+Media+Network
* Existing indymedia sites can continue “outside” the network as their content can be brought in via RSS if sites are interested in it. Just to repeat nobody has to do anything.
and here http://springofcode.org/organise/-/wiki/Main/Open+Media+Network+proposal
* Posting is generally via individual site/blogs, but can be through existent portal/silos like indymedia or existing group sites such as https://www.opendemocracy.net if users prefer to publish on them.
The function of “nodes” will organically grow
* Publishing sites are the source of content these will likely just input a RSS feed up to the next level.
* Aggregating site, these are subjects, locality etc they will take in feeds from publishing sites and output (trusted) quality feeds to the next level.
* News/link portals will be regional, national, big subject sites, these will mostly get their trusted feeds from aggregating (middle) sites and a few trusted publishing sites.
As you can see from this publishing is the hardiest job as you need to create the content, second is aggregation as the is much work quality controlling and adding semantic data (tags) to the flow of content.
The easeast to setup and run are the “top” sites to add value to these will be more of a challenge. One way could be to create articles of linking overviews covering stores from the flows – this content can of course be feed back into the lower sites.
Every thing links to everything else.
What do these “nodes” do to be part of the OMN?
* They host flows of content based on tags from other OMN sites on subject that interest them.
* This content is brought in vier RSS from external sites and by atompub from OMN sites.
* They can tag/retag this flow of objects to direct it to other nodes/site sidebars.
* Other sites can get taged based flows (with embed codes if needed) from there chosen “nodes”
* (Optionally) they can archive this content if they like.
KISS meta-taging
This will seem stupid to many geeks, lets use simple text “twitter” tags to do the categorization of data objects in the OMN flow.
* @ before a tag means a person, that is, a RSS object with an enclosure that is a file contenting a open “contact” format file.
* # before tag is means a bookmark link to a site, the title will be the link.
(optional) Need a “symbol” for video, audio, photo etc.
These objects are tagged just like any other object and are stored/flow through the network just like text articles.
(optional) Can try having a different publish pages for each format that automatically add these tags?
It would be normal to create a new format to for each part of the OMN and geeks/fashernistas have done this over many times over the last 10 years.
Its KISS "stupid" for good, empowering, "normal" people to work on and create new products/services/connections in a "data common soup"
Geek talk - The future of OMN content flows
What has power is the non branded, non owned, KISS implementation of the #OMN that its not part of the “geek problem” and only tangentially connected to the #fashernista agenda’s.
Move to mobile is key for real growth of atl/grassroots media. This is relatively easy as the will be a “open data pool” of semantically enriched content to dip into for quality new, video and audio content flow for building apps. But content is not king in this case, what has real power is the ability to publish direct from mobiles photos, video, audio and text direct to a node of the OMN (this could also be your source, blog/site/portal) in this we empower a move away from “journalism” on the #dotcons and back onto the “openweb”.
Get people (CMS's) to publish in "markup" (as well at html/corporate silos formats) so that content can be loaded/displayed natively on aggregating sites/apps in the formating of the aggregate site/app and display cross site comments – all from the original host. In this we are not only sharing links we are sharing content and discussion across the OMN.
There is nothing original in this all the #dotcons are doing this already and the are many open standards (mark-up being one) that allow this. The originality is in the “just doing it” and the KISS implementation of this push.
I don’t see this as radical, though I see the outcome as revolutionary.