Posted Nov 28 (updated: 10:21 AM 11/29/2020) Hi everyone, My intent has been to post here on a weekly basis, but last weekend I was too busy. I have also noted that there have not been many other posts either. I do hope to hear more from others. In particular, I would like people here to answer these questions: ----------------------------------- questions (for everyone) ----------------------------------- (1) What brought you to this forum? What would you like to see here? Why? (2) What kinds of development or evolution would you expect to see (and/or hope to see) on social media platforms over the next 10 years? ----------------------------------- my answers to these questions ----------------------------------- Here are my answers to these questions: (1) I intend to write simple scripts to make it possible for activists to have public conversations that are easier to follow. I would like, for this purpose, to have people I can bounce ideas off of. Related to this, it would be helpful to have people who can (a) offer suggestions when I run into technical problems and (b) give encouragement and moral support, so I do not feel alone in my efforts. (2) I expect, in the next 10 years, to see many projects experiment with better ways of doing social media. ------------------------------------------------------ what kinds of projects am I interested in working on? ------------------------------------------------------ In general, I divide projects into two categories. I call these green projects and red projects. Red projects are for modest execution. Green projects are where we can dream ambitiously. Red projects are things that are relatively simple, and could be done relatively quickly. Green projects are a bit more like daydreaming. Green projects may be beyond our ability to do, but may be worthwhile to think about--to help lay the foundation for potential future work. Personally, I have no doubt that social media will emerge which is not run by greedy corporations--or by governments which represent the interests of the exploiting social class. I want more people to understand why this is inevitable. Examples of red and green projects could be: ----------------------------------- Red project # 1: ----------------------------------- an editable chart with a list of articles to be reviewed by a weekly show (such as TheMarxistLine, on Twitch each Sunday) which keeps viewers up-to-date on the work of various marxist organizations. This chart would have a row for each article, and columns for the opinions of each reviewer. So, for example, for each article, I could see a 3-sentence summary of the article by Art and a 3-sentence summary by Andrew (each would have their own column). By looking at this chart, someone like me could decide if the article is worth reading. This chart would also make it possible for someone like me to add my own 3-sentence summary. This chart would be interactive so that I could sort and filter by topic, organization, date or any combination of the above. ----------------------------------- Red project # 2: ----------------------------------- an aggregation of articles from marxist organizations (ie: hosting the articles in a common format, not just giving links to the articles on their originating website). The idea here would be to implement a common database as is described in the "Thread Manifesto". This common database would include links to public discussion threads (on twitter, facebook, reddit, or anywhere) that discuss the article. If such a database existed, it would make it possible for readers anywhere in the world who like (or dislike) a particular article to link up with one another in a way that would be easier and more practical than what exists now. ----------------------------------- Red project # 3: ----------------------------------- This could be something like this forum--but where each user could choose to make a post public. This would save time for someone like me. I am (for example) posting this here, on this forum, as well as on node 4012 and Reddit (which involves extra work). ----------------------------------- Green project # 1: ----------------------------------- This would be a spec (of sorts) written in simple language, from the perspective of a user (and content creator) for a universal social media platform. It is not too early, in my humble opinion, to dream about this. ----------------------------------- Green project # 2: ----------------------------------- This would be a forum that makes it easier to follow discussion threads when there are many users involved. I will give an example of why this is needed: Two or three years ago, there was a facebook thread on the situation in Syria that became flooded with lots of interesting and useful comments. The dictator in Syria, Bashar al-Assad, has murdered probably about four hundred thousand people there. To make matters worse, much of "the left" is so bankrupt and confused that it has actually supported him. In this situation, the facebook thread attracted so many useful comments that it became impractical to follow the conversation--the thread itself became too tangled and confusing. People would get lost and not be able to find the comment they had started to read and wanted to finish reading and reply to. The facebook structure was simply not setup for something complex like that. There are many ways to structure things better. For example, when slashdot first appeared (ie: before it sold out to commercial interests) it made use of innovative features that allowed users to better sort and navigate complex threads. I have many ideas for how modern technology can cut through the confusion like Alexander the Great cut the Gordian knot. I would like to explain some of these ideas if anyone here is interested. So let me know, ok? That's it for now. If anyone has any questions for me--please speak up. I am willing to contribute to this list, but please note: I cannot do everything by myself. We are a community. Everyone here has the ability to contribute to the life of this discussion, and the effort of humanity to create social media that refines knowledge instead of amplifying ignorance. So make your voice heard! All the best, Ben Seattle All power to the public domain http://communism.org/node/4012