#makinghistory — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #makinghistory, aggregated by home.social.
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A personal story, a normal path
I have to be clear about where I’m coming from, as I’m standing in what might generously be called an undefined position. Not because I have no position, but because I’ve spent a very long time in the messy bit of history that nobody has ever managed to define: grassroots DIY direct action. It’s a long history, a lot of people have been building things, breaking things, occupying things, squatting things, filming things, publishing things, arguing about things and occasionally setting […]https://hamishcampbell.com/a-personal-story-a-universal-path/
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Don't only try to convince people about the #OMN in the abstract, show them.
If a #fashernista sees shiny stuff growing on real soil, they'll drift toward it because it works.
If the #geekproblem finds a simple tool, they'll tinker because they can get their hands dirty.
The #mainstreamers will wait until it looks inevitable. Fine, don't build for them, build something useful. Build it in the open.
That's the #4opens: open data, open source, open standards, open process.
A working #OMN node. A working #MakingHistory flow. News moving. Archives useful. Trust built through participation.
We don't need better marketing, we need better examples.
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The old system is already compost, the question is what we grow from this mess
We need to stop talking about “climate change” as though we are discussing a slightly inconvenient change in the weather. Climate change is too soft, too neutral. Climate change makes it sound as though something simply happened to us. It didn't, we pushed this mess, we built an economic system that treats the living world as raw material, turns everything into property, pushes everything through markets and then calls the resulting destruction “growth”. The next twenty years will be […]https://hamishcampbell.com/the-old-system-is-already-compost-the-question-is-what-we-grow-from-it/
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#OMN isn't social media, this distinction is important. Projects like #MakingHistory are not another social-media platform, they are primarily about news and archiving, with governance further down the road.
The basic model is closer to the old #Indymedia newswire, but rebuilt as a federated archive. Media objects come into the system. Communities curate those objects into Stories. Those Stories become objects that can flow back through the network.
This means the system doesn't need to revolve around individual posting and popularity. The important objects are the news events, stories and the relationships between them.
That changes the whole architecture.
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So the mess we've made doesn't have to define us. We can learn from it, reuse it and turn it into fertile ground for something better.
A world where communities are connected and empowered, where the web is open, where technology serves people rather than extracting from them.
The mess is real, so is our capacity to compost it. Let's get the shovels out.
#OMN #openweb #4opens #MakingHistory #FOSS #Fediverse #commons #socialtechnology #decentralisation #OGB #indymediaback
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This is the Web 1.5
This is the web 1.5 idea, with the #OMN people ask whether this is just rebuilding Web 2.0, the answer should be no. We are trying to undo some of the damage Web 2.0 did to Web 1.0 while keeping the useful things we learned from it. Web 1.0 openness.Web 2.0 UX.Fediverse federation.#4opens process.Community trust.News and archives first.Governance further down the road. That is the rough shape of Web 1.5, it isn't about making another giant platform, it is building infrastructure where media […] -
The expertise problem
Technical expertise matters, the problem begins when technical expertise is treated as the only legitimate way of understanding a social problem. This is the trap of technocracy: taking a useful tool for understanding parts of the world and turning it into a complete worldview. The expertise problem "We need more technical expertise in government." But that is half the answer. The mistake is to jump from "politicians need technical expertise" to "technical experts should make decisions." That […] -
The Politics of Ignorance
One of the important ideas in the sociology of science is also one of the easiest to misunderstand: knowledge is socially produced. This does not mean that scientists simply make things up, it means something much more practical. Science is a human activity, it requires people, institutions, money, equipment, archives, universities, laboratories, communities and time. What we choose to investigate - and what we choose not to investigate - is therefore shaped by society. That means there is […] -
The language around #climatechaos is changing
For years, climate breakdown was treated as distant, a problem for activists, scientists, future generations or places somewhere else. That blinded view is now harder to sustain. Heat, fires, floods, crop failures, infrastructure disruption, rising insurance costs and the growing difficulty of simply keeping homes and communities safe are making climate disruption part of our everyday life. As we are talking about tech on this site - the important question for the #OMN is therefore not only […]https://hamishcampbell.com/the-language-around-climatechaos-is-changing/
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Religion, mystery and the #openweb
I am not religious, but that does not mean religion is something that can only be dismissed as irrational, stupid or obsolete. There is a useful distinction between believing in a religion and understanding the social, cultural and philosophical work that religion has historically done. This matters for the #OMN because we are interested in how human beings make meaning, build communities and organise themselves when they don't have complete knowledge of the world. We don't know everything - […]https://hamishcampbell.com/religion-mystery-and-the-openweb/
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OMN: Activity, culture and why Soviet experiments matter
One of the interesting things about the history of the #Fediverse is how many of its ideas come from places that, at first glance, seem completely unrelated to social media or network technology. #ActivityPub is a good example - the word activity carries a much older intellectual history, including the work of Soviet psychologist Alexei Leontiev, who developed what became known as activity theory. His work grew out of the cultural-historical psychology of Lev Vygotsky and Alexander Luria, and […]https://hamishcampbell.com/omn-activity-culture-and-why-soviet-experiments-matter/
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The individual, is not, the starting point for the #OMN
One of the most useful ways to understand the mess we are in today is to ask a deceptively simple question - what comes first - the individual or the network? #Mainstreaming economics startes with the individual, were sociology, anthropology and related traditions start somewhere else - with relationships, institutions, communities and the social structures into which individuals are born. This difference matters enormously, when we start thinking about technology, politics, economics and […]https://hamishcampbell.com/the-individual-is-not-the-starting-point-for-the-omn/
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Here is an excellent, thoughtful look at the chances of Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez getting elected as the next president of the United States:
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/14/opinion/aoc-president-woman-egg-freezing.html
Spoiler: her chances look good. One more quote:
"As we learned in 2008, when history says it’s your time, it’s your time."
copy: @renewedresistance #politics #MakingHistory #progress -
The #KISS #OMN path is about building practical, commons-based media tools now, not waiting for the perfect future.
Much of the mess - and endless #blocking - comes from ownership and control. We can sidestep some of this by putting media infrastructure firmly in the commons under the #4opens.
It won't fix #mainstreaming overnight, but it gives us space to build alternatives before the old systems catch up.
If you have resources, fund development. If you're technical, code. If you know UX, design. If you make media, tell the story.
This isn't theory. It's practical work for better social outcomes. Keep it simple. Keep it open. Build and use it.
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The #openweb needs diversity, not monoculture
The problems we face in the #openweb are often presented as technology problems. Which protocol, platform, licence, federation path, software? Which standard? These questions matter, but they are not the foundations of the problem. A lot of what we are seeing is really a cultural clash. Different parts of the alternative tech world have different ideas about what technology is for, who it should serve, how much control is acceptable, how open something needs to be, and how much compromise is […]https://hamishcampbell.com/the-openweb-needs-diversity-not-monoculture/
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This summer #climatechaos
This summer, heat, fires, the soon to come winter floods and insurance withdrawals will make #climatechaos harder to treat as something happening somewhere else. For years, climate breakdown was framed as an activist issue, something discussed by environmental groups while mainstream politics carried on with business as usual. That is changing, people are experiencing the consequences: extreme heat, flooding, damaged homes, rising insurance costs, failing infrastructure and growing […]https://hamishcampbell.com/this-summer-climatechaos-is-mainstream/
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Grassroots #openweb infrastructure is need for a different future
For 50 years we have worshipped the #deathcult - endless growth, extraction, competition and individualism - and now we are living with the damage that this has done to our society and the living world. The current hard shift to the right won't fix any of this, it simply empowers the #nastyfew to surf the apocalypse while more and more of us are left fighting over the scraps. Blind hatred and political ignorance are not solutions. Neither is pretending that the past 50 years of "common […]https://hamishcampbell.com/grassroots-openweb-infrastructure-is-need-for-a-different-future/
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20 years of #dotcons selling libertarian individualism has pushed aside the collective politics that once made the #openweb revolutionary.
For 20 years the #geekproblem helped turn "left tech" into the #closedweb. That's a disaster we can't keep repeating.
No prat fights, we need alternatives: #IndymediaBack, #OMN, #OGB, #MakingHistory. To rebuild collective power.
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@setsly I might have put it back as a draft as have been storing up articles to publish when we start active dev of #makinghistory have 42 drafts ready in the cue - to create buzz and focus around the coding... so am free to focus on the UX and standards. Making tools we need #OMN
there are meany other articles you can read on the site https://hamishcampbell.com/engagement/
Or the site might just be overloaded, need funders to upgrade the server https://opencollective.com/open-media-network/projects/hcampbell
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UPDATE: I have now drafted 42 posts to come out in the autumn when we are coding #makinghistory they will come out under the #AskQ hashtag
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A seed for rebuilding, #makinghistory an example workflow https://hamishcampbell.com/makinghistory-an-example-workflow/
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The Fediverse is fun and growing, but it seems to kinda be on autopilot at the moment
Q, The #Fediverse seams to kinda be on autopilot at the moment - I miss the days when the community was more focused....A. I'd say it's growing and changing. From my window, there's a LOT happening. Many people are excited by the new stuff that's landing, while others are afraid of how those changes may rock the boat they're on. My solution is to build a bigger boat, because everyone needs the opportunity to be here. But that's understandably scary for those who want a very small, exclusive […] -
Compost the #techshit. Don't throw everything away—salvage what works.
Reuse code, protocols and knowledge instead of chasing endless #techchurn.
Build commons infrastructure. Simple, federated tools that communities can actually run themselves.
This is where the #OMN works: open standards, transparent governance, human moderation and shared ownership.
Document what works. Projects like #MakingHistory matter because movements lose hard-won knowledge when people move on. Living archives help communities avoid starting from zero.
Value maintenance over novelty. Healthy ecosystems need gardeners more than inventors. Keeping useful things working is often more important than creating new things.
Practice cooperation. Small habits - sharing work, documenting decisions, mentoring, resolving conflict - are how trust grows. Technology can support that, but it can't replace it.
Accept the long timescale. If dominant assumptions are changing, it will likely be gradual. Cultural shifts often happen over decades rather than months.
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How liberal media tries to “fix” liberal media
The current mess in media isn't that journalism has become biased, its always been, the problem is that the "progressive" #mainstreaming institutions trying to solve the crisis are still inside the assumptions that created it. Take the current liberal darling project Ground News, their promise is attractive: escape your filter bubble, compare left and right, become a more informed citizen. But notice the framing, the solution to broken media is… another layer of liberal media […]https://hamishcampbell.com/lets-look-at-how-liberal-media-tries-to-fix-liberal-media/
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We need to revive and maintain simple, reliable tools for metadata, feeds, trust and moderation - think old-school #Indymedia with modern plumbing.
One project is #MakingHistory: collaborative, living archives of communities. Not just news, but versioned storyboards.
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The mess, the Commons, and the Paths Out of Mess
https://hamishcampbell.com/the-deathcult-is-a-historical-metaphor/ We spend a lot of time talking about crises as if they're sudden events, they rarely are, crises are the outcome of decades of accumulated social, political, economic and technological choices. The challenge isn't simply understanding why societies enter periods of instability, it's understanding how they find their way back out again. History suggests something important - entering crisis is often easier than leaving it - […]https://hamishcampbell.com/the-mess-the-commons-and-the-paths-out-of-mess/
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Add this to the last article: hy Stories Matter on the #OMN
Facts matter, technology matters, governance matters. But people rarely change because they read theory, a specification or a list of features. People change because of stories, this is why storytelling is central to the #OMN path. A story gives people somewhere to stand, it connects ideas to lived experience.
Instead of explaining the #4opens as an abstract framework, tell the story of a community escaping a #dotcons platform by building trust on the #openweb. Instead of arguing about governance, tell the story of how a group solved a conflict through #OpenProcess. Instead of listing technical features, tell the story of someone who regained control of their community tech after years of platform lock-in.
Stories carry values, the last forty years of #mainstreaming have been held together by stories about competition, consumption and individual success. These stories have normalised the #deathcult, making extraction and enclosure feel like "common sense." We now need better stories about cooperation instead of competition, commons balancing ownership, about trust instead of surveillance. Stories about building rather than consuming.
The #Fediverse itself is a story, an accidental reboot of the #openweb that proves another internet is possible. It isn't perfect, but it demonstrates that people can build social infrastructure without billionaires directing the conversation.
The challenge is that the academics or the #geekproblem tell stories only to other, academics or geeks, technical and academic paths are important, but they don't inspire people to act, so we need stories that people can understand:
A neighbourhood rebuilding local media.
Boaters organising to defend the waterways as a commons.
Communities escaping the #dotcons.
Volunteers composting #techchurn into useful tools.
Ordinary people discovering that they can build infrastructure together.
These stories become shared memory, shared memory becomes culture, culture shapes "common sense." and changing common sense is how lasting social change happens. So don't just build software or academic theory, tell stories that help people imagine themselves as part of a healthier #openweb.
#OMN #FOSS #openweb #4opens #ActivityPub #Fediverse #commons #DIY #makinghistory
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Why #FOSS matters socially
The internet didn't become broken overnight, it drifted from being a network of communities into a marketplace dominated by platforms whose purpose is extracting value. This is the logic of #dotcons most of us invested our lives and community into. How did we get into this mess? The problem isn't only bad companies, it's that our digital lives depend entirely on proprietary #dotcons paths and software, commercial interests end up controlling our reality. This is why #FOSS (Free and Open […] -
Social justice movements don’t start from the top. They grow from the ground, from people and communities affected by injustice who organise, experiment and build change.
To grow these movements wider, we need spaces that allow open and unexpected connections. The #openweb and #fediverse matter because they create room for communication, outside corporate and state control.
Projects like #OMN and #indymediaback are about rebuilding these grassroots networks as commons.
History matters too. Movements need memory. If we forget past struggles, working practices and victories, every generation has to start again. Projects like #makinghistory preserve the knowledge that lets future movements learn and grow.
There is also the constant challenge of co-option. Funding and institutions slowly reshape movements, changing their culture and priorities. Staying independent is difficult - but history shows it is possible.
We need both the spiky and the fluffy paths, change comes from growing alternatives while pushing back against the systems that create the problems.
#OMN #indymediaback #4opens #openweb #fediverse #commons #activism #socialjustice
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Mit der Initiative „FAU sucht Frau“ versuchte die anarcho-syndikalistische Gewerkschaft Freie Arbeiter*innen-Union Anfang der 2000er Jahre, mehr Frauen* in den eigenen Reihen zu organisieren. Vera Bianchi stellt die die Initiative vor und diskutiert die Bedeutung linker Geschichte.
Ihr Buchbeitrag erschien 2025 im Sammelband „Making History, Zur Geschichte von links und zur Geschichte von Linken“.
FAU sucht Frau – Making History am Beispiel einer Initiative der 2000er Jahre
Vortrag und Diskussion mit Vera Bianchi
Freitag, 18 Uhr, Raum 1
» https://abm26.anarchie-mannheim.de/de/abm26/public/events/10
#abm2026 #Anarchismus #Mannheim #AnarchistischeBuchmesse #FAU #Frauen #Rückblick #MakingHistory #Anarchosyndicalismus #VeraBianchi