Human suffering on an immense scale has been an inseparable part of how we got here. It's not new, but still impacts us so strongly that seeing people in pain or learning about possible future issues can numb us into paralysis ("there's nothing I can do", "let me think about something else") or provoke us into finding solutions ("what can I do?", "how do I make a difference?").

I went through a short period considering myself an activist when I was helping organize events and student initiatives to raise awareness about various issues: this was a time when I shared news and political outrage on social media, using whatever platform I had to publicly call out hypocrisy in anger, often shouting into the void; saying it this way is not meant to demean anyone who does similar-seeming things, but a way to acknowledge my own misalignment of intentions as I operated under confusion without realizing—I thought that's what my response needed to be.

With a greater understanding of how power works and propagates itself, I now focus on things that bring me satisfaction. Dealing with root causes rather than symptoms is harder because it's invisible and not a job for one person, or even a group of people: it really requires humanity overall to be more cooperative. So every time I feel the real and consequential urgency of moral injury, and find myself thrown into deciphering a problem larger than myself while I brush my teeth anxiously or lie in bed unable to sleep, I try to remember that my individualized frenzy is misplaced: it's not just me that will solve this—it's the whole planet working together. How can this be accomplished? Is it even possible? Or a good idea? I don't have all the answers but trust in figuring that out collectively, and rather than joining a group or starting one, I've chosen to create bridges between them.

Part of bringing people together involves being inclusive and seeing diverse forms of contribution as useful and necessary: what's needed isn't always visible, vocal, and popular forms of 'activism', or what is considered as such either by 'activists' or the people who claim to disdain them. Everything is politics. I like how this analogy of the spear describes a spectrum of contributions coming together:

• Direct action is the tiniest tip of a spear's blade: sharp and vital for making a mark, but not powerful on its own.
• The metal part between tip and handle represents organizing around that, showing up, and substantiating the above with food, calls, gatherings, emotional support, bail, paperwork, etc…: everything here enables the tip to have some kind of impact and is often considered activism, but the result is very acute (and seen as fringe) without further support from a larger populace.
• Supporters of a movement inhabit the much longer portion of a spear's handle, and represents a diversity of perspectives, some of which may not feel satisfactory to the metal and tip; it doesn't get as much attention as the other parts even though it's what creates leverage and forward movement for deep impact. At the very end of the handle you might find people who show up to take a selfie and leave: this is considered 'merely performative' by some but is also important for bringing ideas out of the fringe and into normal discussion, shifting thought.

To find my own place within this sphere, I avoid doing things that make me feel replaceable, where the result would be comparable if someone else was in my place, and prefer activities where the outcome drastically changes because I'm there. This leads me to spend most of my time on personal projects, which often provokes a comparison about whether I'm doing 'enough' or 'my part' in times of crisis, probably because it's not how most people get to spend their days. Yet, every time I question myself, the deliberations lead me circling back to the same place: my projects will likely not save a life or end that bad problem over there, but without hesitation I feel and understand my actions to be completely holistic.

How do conversations on Strolling help? After a period of global political unrest and binary views on how things should be, I observed divisions everywhere, and saw myself as part of the problem that divided communities into red and blue. Dissatisfied that greater powers continue to flourish and profit as we squabble over our teams and rip apart the world's social fabric with our own hands, I recognized that dialogue is critical to overcoming conflict and disagreement, and have I've tried to repair what I can by learning to disagree productively, fostering discussion, being a bridge, reconnecting, calling in, reaching out. Strolling tries to honour dialogue and what is possible through merely conversing, and perhaps also expose people to ideas they wouldn't come across anywhere else or be open to; I've been in a bubble so far recording mostly with people who share adjacent perspectives, but on occasions where I disagree, I practice being conducive instead of reactionary.

How do apps help? Technology underpins everything today, and its companies with massive resources would rather profit from transforming us into consumers of their addictive platform fodder than help us cultivate greater agency. I don't believe technology will or can solve all our problems, but if we want a different future, it must involve changing our technology. I participate here because I have specific skills and feel it's under-addressed, as: 1. most of the world does not have the space to develop technical expertise to infiltrate the castles of confusion erected by programmers; and 2. most of those who do have expertise see it as a job or fun hobby without attempting to change why it works the way it does; without criticism towards either, I believe this is the reality and it's not sufficient. My involvement has always tried to help close this gap by documenting for beginners, or decentering the English language in app development (maximum localization), or incorporating non-techie friends into the world of alternative technology. I've also written about agency, separation of data from apps, interoperability, and antipatterns, often with accessible language and minimal jargon, to help more people realize what could be possible.

How does music on Vibrations help? It's my formation and one place where I might hold a deeper credibility. I publish music mostly for myself as a way to recover from the narrow-minded upbringings of my training, and send a message about how different the concept of music could be. People seem to enjoy what I share, and that has taught me to care less about being considered 'professional' (a former pain point) and more about doing meaningful things. I consider music one of the deepest, most underrated forms of social change, and it's completely invisible to most people; I might write later about how [[music is not what's on your streaming platform]]. Daryl Davis talks about reflexes as a musician to 'create harmony' as he reformed over 200 KKK members, and although he mentions it in passing as if light spiritual humour, I think music manifests a capacity to create synergy, and on a practical level help coordinate multiple things in parallel.

In summary: I have some skills, see where it could make a difference, and try to enjoy the process; this may lead to discomfort or financial instability if it's not seen as useful by the institutions of society, but I've learned to harden myself against comparisons and counterproductive thoughts as long as I believe in what I'm doing. The range of 'music, technology, and conversations' might seem disparate and perhaps selfish, but I see it all as complementary and emancipatory: there's no question to me that it's holistic, which fills me with confidence to go forward 100% even as the dumpster fire burns higher.

I'm also proud to have received feedback that my presence had an unlocking and enabling effect on some people, without trying to persuade them to do things the way I do; I believe changing something about your life merely by feeling inspired is actually quite powerful and was my catalyst for many initiatives and habits.

When you think 'nothing I do matters' consider this: in all those stories of time travel, you step out of your time machine into a moment of the past, maybe feeling uneasy about touching anything or making even the slightest change to your surrounding environment, out of fear that any difference would create a cascading effect with unforeseeable consequences as time progresses with the result of your actions; now bring yourself back to the present and realize that the same power is held by each of us, right now. So… What would you like to do today?

---

Thanks to Heddi for encouraging me to put in words here something that I've often said to myself and others, but never considered writing.

Human suffering on an immense scale has been an inseparable part of how we got here. It's not new, but still impacts us so strongly that seeing people in pain or learning about possible future issues can numb us into paralysis ("there's nothing I can do", "let me think about something else") or provoke us into finding solutions ("what can I do?", "how do I make a difference?").

I went through a short period considering myself an activist when I was helping organize events and student initiatives to raise awareness about various issues: this was a time when I shared news and political outrage on social media, using whatever platform I had to publicly call out hypocrisy in anger, often shouting into the void; saying it this way is not meant to demean anyone who does similar-seeming things, but a way to acknowledge my own misalignment of intentions as I operated under confusion without realizing—I thought that's what my response needed to be.

With a greater understanding of how power works and propagates itself, I now focus on things that bring me satisfaction. Dealing with root causes rather than symptoms is harder because it's invisible and not a job for one person, or even a group of people: it really requires humanity overall to be more cooperative. So every time I feel the real and consequential urgency of moral injury, and find myself thrown into deciphering a problem larger than myself while I brush my teeth anxiously or lie in bed unable to sleep, I try to remember that my individualized frenzy is misplaced: it's not just me that will solve this—it's the whole planet working together. How can this be accomplished? Is it even possible? Or a good idea? I don't have all the answers but trust in figuring that out collectively, and rather than joining a group or starting one, I've chosen to create bridges between them.

Part of bringing people together involves being inclusive and seeing diverse forms of contribution as useful and necessary: what's needed isn't always visible, vocal, and popular forms of 'activism', or what is considered as such either by 'activists' or the people who claim to disdain them. Everything is politics. I like how this analogy of the spear describes a spectrum of contributions coming together:

• Direct action is the tiniest tip of a spear's blade: sharp and vital for making a mark, but not powerful on its own.
• The metal part between tip and handle represents organizing around that, showing up, and substantiating the above with food, calls, gatherings, emotional support, bail, paperwork, etc…: everything here enables the tip to have some kind of impact and is often considered activism, but the result is very acute (and seen as fringe) without further support from a larger populace.
• Supporters of a movement inhabit the much longer portion of a spear's handle, and represents a diversity of perspectives, some of which may not feel satisfactory to the metal and tip; it doesn't get as much attention as the other parts even though it's what creates leverage and forward movement for deep impact. At the very end of the handle you might find people who show up to take a selfie and leave: this is considered 'merely performative' by some but is also important for bringing ideas out of the fringe and into normal discussion, shifting thought.

To find my own place within this sphere, I avoid doing things that make me feel replaceable, where the result would be comparable if someone else was in my place, and prefer activities where the outcome drastically changes because I'm there. This leads me to spend most of my time on personal projects, which often provokes a comparison about whether I'm doing 'enough' or 'my part' in times of crisis, probably because it's not how most people get to spend their days. Yet, every time I question myself, the deliberations lead me circling back to the same place: my projects will likely not save a life or end that bad problem over there, but without hesitation I feel and understand my actions to be completely holistic.

How do conversations on Strolling help? After a period of global political unrest and binary views on how things should be, I observed divisions everywhere, and saw myself as part of the problem that divided communities into red and blue. Dissatisfied that greater powers continue to flourish and profit as we squabble over our teams and rip apart the world's social fabric with our own hands, I recognized that dialogue is critical to overcoming conflict and disagreement, and have I've tried to repair what I can by learning to disagree productively, fostering discussion, being a bridge, reconnecting, calling in, reaching out. Strolling tries to honour dialogue and what is possible through merely conversing, and perhaps also expose people to ideas they wouldn't come across anywhere else or be open to; I've been in a bubble so far recording mostly with people who share adjacent perspectives, but on occasions where I disagree, I practice being conducive instead of reactionary.

How do apps help? Technology underpins everything today, and its companies with massive resources would rather profit from transforming us into consumers of their addictive platform fodder than help us cultivate greater agency. I don't believe technology will or can solve all our problems, but if we want a different future, it must involve changing our technology. I participate here because I have specific skills and feel it's under-addressed, as: 1. most of the world does not have the space to develop technical expertise to infiltrate the castles of confusion erected by programmers; and 2. most of those who do have expertise see it as a job or fun hobby without attempting to change why it works the way it does; without criticism towards either, I believe this is the reality and it's not sufficient. My involvement has always tried to help close this gap by documenting for beginners, or decentering the English language in app development (maximum localization), or incorporating non-techie friends into the world of alternative technology. I've also written about agency, separation of data from apps, interoperability, and antipatterns, often with accessible language and minimal jargon, to help more people realize what could be possible.

How does music on Vibrations help? It's my formation and one place where I might hold a deeper credibility. I publish music mostly for myself as a way to recover from the narrow-minded upbringings of my training, and send a message about how different the concept of music could be. People seem to enjoy what I share, and that has taught me to care less about being considered 'professional' (a former pain point) and more about doing meaningful things. I consider music one of the deepest, most underrated forms of social change, and it's completely invisible to most people; I might write later about how [[music is not what's on your streaming platform]]. Daryl Davis talks about reflexes as a musician to 'create harmony' as he reformed over 200 KKK members, and although he mentions it in passing as if light spiritual humour, I think music manifests a capacity to create synergy, and on a practical level help coordinate multiple things in parallel.

In summary: I have some skills, see where it could make a difference, and try to enjoy the process; this may lead to discomfort or financial instability if it's not seen as useful by the institutions of society, but I've learned to harden myself against comparisons and counterproductive thoughts as long as I believe in what I'm doing. The range of 'music, technology, and conversations' might seem disparate and perhaps selfish, but I see it all as complementary and emancipatory: there's no question to me that it's holistic, which fills me with confidence to go forward 100% even as the dumpster fire burns higher.

I'm also proud to have received feedback that my presence had an unlocking and enabling effect on some people, without trying to persuade them to do things the way I do; I believe changing something about your life merely by feeling inspired is actually quite powerful and was my catalyst for many initiatives and habits.

When you think 'nothing I do matters' consider this: in all those stories of time travel, you step out of your time machine into a moment of the past, maybe feeling uneasy about touching anything or making even the slightest change to your surrounding environment, out of fear that any difference would create a cascading effect with unforeseeable consequences as time progresses with the result of your actions; now bring yourself back to the present and realize that the same power is held by each of us, right now. So… What would you like to do today?

---

Thanks to Heddi for encouraging me to put in words here something that I've often said to myself and others, but never considered writing.

I tend to describe modern life as 'fragmented'. Lacking a 'canonical place' to create continuity from shared experiences, people rarely collide on a regular basis and end up separated from one another, despite wishing otherwise.

Although there is an abundance of spaces, events, and communities, they tend to lack continuity unless you are a part of groups specific to work, school, clubs, activities—I'm not aware of something that spans all of these contexts, other than places of worship. I re-encounter people mostly 'by chance' (it so happens we showed up to the same thing at the same time) or 'by appointment' (we booked a one-off time to meet and honoured it)—with luck, it might happen more than once, but continuity is a struggle. Committing to a recurring schedule is challenged by modern forces, including but not limited to: 'survival' responsibilities (like work, family, self-care, etc…); a culture of busyness; the feeling of limited time to pursue one's own interests; the idea that recurring meetings stagnate the dynamic (perhaps there won't be enough to talk about); compartmentalized living creates friction to knowing one's neighbours…

I might not be seeing past my personal difficulties in dealing with this, or maybe I'm just hoping to recreate something I felt was lost when I left the church, but I'm sure other people also struggle with these impediments, or worse, feel like they have no place to go.

What's missing

I grew up inside the church and it was a significant part of my life until adulthood, so it's the context I'm most familiar with. After spending the more recent portion of my life mostly in secular spaces, I notice things that I miss and would like to have as part of my experience:

• it happens every week, but it's okay to miss it; even if people attend different time slots than you, you might catch them between services and have a chance to connect; you can pass various stages of your life there, or possibly all of it.
• 'everybody' is there; a mix of friends, colleagues, coworkers, family, acquaintances; across interests, age groups, levels of education, and physical or mental capacities.
• low barriers to participation encourage the previous point; being a 'professional' is not necessary; there are no entry fees or technical requirements; 'non-believers' are usually welcome.
• community space where other things happen during the week; probably a local, physical place, but various aspects could be translated online; there's probably one near you.
• not cohort-based like schools; people may leave, but not on a schedule; it's natural for different waves and generations to interact over time.
• 'everyone' doing something together, perhaps through music or rites; there are various roles for people to participate (singing, reading, communion, announcements, organizing, training, collection); kind of a giant communal moment where all participate.

There are likely plenty of structural issues to consider, but I'm focusing on the parts that would be useful in other contexts. The result is a microcosm or universe with many subgroups and intersections, and a great serendipity generator.

Defragmentation possibilities

I'm not sure what to propose as a way to cultivate these properties in a secular context, but I have seen some ideas hinting at 'broader ranges' of people together on a regular basis.

The Sunday Assembly might be a literal translation: a weekly gathering of people who listen to talks and sing popular music together.

Places devoted to social lubricants like coffee or alcohol are probably more accessible and prevalent these days. I like the way Emmet Shear describes how congregation in these places have decreased with technological change:

Vienna in the 1900s, was famous for its café culture. And one of the big drivers of that café culture was expensive newspapers that were hard to get, and as a result, people would go to the café and read the shared copy there. And once they're in the cafe, they meet the other people also reading the same newspaper, they converse, they exchange ideas and they form a community. In a similar way, TV and cable used to be more expensive, and so you might not watch the game at home. Instead you'd go to the local bar and cheer along with your fellow sports fans there. But as the price of media continues to fall over time thanks to technology, this shared necessity that used to bring our communities together falls away. We have so many amazing options for our entertainment, and yet it's easier than ever for us to wind up consuming those options alone. Our communities are bearing the consequences. For example, the number of people who report having at least two close friends is at an all-time low. I believe that one of the major contributing causes to this is that our entertainment today allows us to be separate.

Online communities may have some potential as they are always-on and can bring together the largest possible quantity of people, but molding the technology to avoid chaos or context collapse is a challenge. I'm most optimistic about decentralized communities around writing (longing for the blogosphere days), and deeper conversations with a diverse range of people (as might happen in Interintellect). Social networks each have subsets of 'your people' depending on how they relate to technology, and I've been trying to get around this by starting a weekly thing, creating affordances for more participation, and leveraging specific platforms to increase sustainability.

My hope

I would most like to see lifelong communities built around continuous learning, as described in this post about Free Schools:

Communal spaces (and schools) should be like this: always open, welcoming, and safe. A space like this, provides a place for people to learn, build, get practical experience, and express themselves.

Imagine schools or libraries as plentiful, and run by people within their own communities. Normalizing the desire to learn and grow would give anyone a common 'place to go', regardless of what they believe. How can this be encouraged today?

If you're thinking about ways to defragment society, please share your thoughts here with me, or in your public square.

I tend to describe modern life as 'fragmented'. Lacking a 'canonical place' to create continuity from shared experiences, people rarely collide on a regular basis and end up separated from one another, despite wishing otherwise.

Although there is an abundance of spaces, events, and communities, they tend to lack continuity unless you are a part of groups specific to work, school, clubs, activities—I'm not aware of something that spans all of these contexts, other than places of worship. I re-encounter people mostly 'by chance' (it so happens we showed up to the same thing at the same time) or 'by appointment' (we booked a one-off time to meet and honoured it)—with luck, it might happen more than once, but continuity is a struggle. Committing to a recurring schedule is challenged by modern forces, including but not limited to: 'survival' responsibilities (like work, family, self-care, etc…); a culture of busyness; the feeling of limited time to pursue one's own interests; the idea that recurring meetings stagnate the dynamic (perhaps there won't be enough to talk about); compartmentalized living creates friction to knowing one's neighbours…

I might not be seeing past my personal difficulties in dealing with this, or maybe I'm just hoping to recreate something I felt was lost when I left the church, but I'm sure other people also struggle with these impediments, or worse, feel like they have no place to go.

What's missing

I grew up inside the church and it was a significant part of my life until adulthood, so it's the context I'm most familiar with. After spending the more recent portion of my life mostly in secular spaces, I notice things that I miss and would like to have as part of my experience:

• it happens every week, but it's okay to miss it; even if people attend different time slots than you, you might catch them between services and have a chance to connect; you can pass various stages of your life there, or possibly all of it.
• 'everybody' is there; a mix of friends, colleagues, coworkers, family, acquaintances; across interests, age groups, levels of education, and physical or mental capacities.
• low barriers to participation encourage the previous point; being a 'professional' is not necessary; there are no entry fees or technical requirements; 'non-believers' are usually welcome.
• community space where other things happen during the week; probably a local, physical place, but various aspects could be translated online; there's probably one near you.
• not cohort-based like schools; people may leave, but not on a schedule; it's natural for different waves and generations to interact over time.
• 'everyone' doing something together, perhaps through music or rites; there are various roles for people to participate (singing, reading, communion, announcements, organizing, training, collection); kind of a giant communal moment where all participate.

There are likely plenty of structural issues to consider, but I'm focusing on the parts that would be useful in other contexts. The result is a microcosm or universe with many subgroups and intersections, and a great serendipity generator.

Defragmentation possibilities

I'm not sure what to propose as a way to cultivate these properties in a secular context, but I have seen some ideas hinting at 'broader ranges' of people together on a regular basis.

The Sunday Assembly might be a literal translation: a weekly gathering of people who listen to talks and sing popular music together.

Places devoted to social lubricants like coffee or alcohol are probably more accessible and prevalent these days. I like the way Emmet Shear describes how congregation in these places have decreased with technological change:

Vienna in the 1900s, was famous for its café culture. And one of the big drivers of that café culture was expensive newspapers that were hard to get, and as a result, people would go to the café and read the shared copy there. And once they're in the cafe, they meet the other people also reading the same newspaper, they converse, they exchange ideas and they form a community. In a similar way, TV and cable used to be more expensive, and so you might not watch the game at home. Instead you'd go to the local bar and cheer along with your fellow sports fans there. But as the price of media continues to fall over time thanks to technology, this shared necessity that used to bring our communities together falls away. We have so many amazing options for our entertainment, and yet it's easier than ever for us to wind up consuming those options alone. Our communities are bearing the consequences. For example, the number of people who report having at least two close friends is at an all-time low. I believe that one of the major contributing causes to this is that our entertainment today allows us to be separate.

Online communities may have some potential as they are always-on and can bring together the largest possible quantity of people, but molding the technology to avoid chaos or context collapse is a challenge. I'm most optimistic about decentralized communities around writing (longing for the blogosphere days), and deeper conversations with a diverse range of people (as might happen in Interintellect). Social networks each have subsets of 'your people' depending on how they relate to technology, and I've been trying to get around this by starting a weekly thing, creating affordances for more participation, and leveraging specific platforms to increase sustainability.

My hope

I would most like to see lifelong communities built around continuous learning, as described in this post about Free Schools:

Communal spaces (and schools) should be like this: always open, welcoming, and safe. A space like this, provides a place for people to learn, build, get practical experience, and express themselves.

Imagine schools or libraries as plentiful, and run by people within their own communities. Normalizing the desire to learn and grow would give anyone a common 'place to go', regardless of what they believe. How can this be encouraged today?

If you're thinking about ways to defragment society, please share your thoughts here with me, or in your public square.

Thinking about how to integrate multiple systems while building community and sustainable income.

---

This year, I started to prioritize community building, which led to the creation of the Ephemerata newsletter and The Café forum (see My mother's gift for some origins). Seeking a hub to house everything and make it accessible with one account, I was determined to make it work with forum software and published the newsletter there as a way to have 'something' happening; it's been nice to see people sign up and share comments without me inviting anyone, but it could be more active, and I should invest there once I feel comfortable doing less in other communities. Seeking also to explore patronage or voluntary contributions as a way to fund what I do, I was determined to use a homegrown payment system or an Open Collective profile, but neither are well integrated with community space or the unlocking of 'perks'. Since beginning these experiments, I have become more aware of other platforms and am trying to reconcile the benefits of each one with the properties I would like to have in my toolkit. It's possible for me to 'build my own system' but that would take time from doing what it's designed to support, especially as a single-person operation; this might be a case where it's better to use existing parts and close gaps by creating plugins or automating with tools like Zapier or n8n. Let's review the existing systems…

Community (Talking together)

Discourse is modern forum software that onboards people to participate, encourages reading, and nudges the right things. It's an exciting set of tools and primitives on an open-source foundation—an increasingly common extensible language—and even can be accessed with a native app to see notifications from all servers in one place. It's good for asynchronous communication, giving people badges, and a comments layer for content written elsewhere. As much as I hoped to do everything here and leverage its various affordances for community, it demands more effort (or friction) for people to post, and it's not so elegant as a 'home' for long-form writing (see Evolution one).

I have despised Discord for its chaotic arcade-like approach to communication, but after learning of a unified notifications pane which doesn't require me to click and bounce around dozens of channels to keep up, it's more manageable for me. The main advantage is that it's low-friction, either when signing up (as one account is shared across multiple communities) or when posting ('easily posting quick things' is not just for 'less dedicated people' but also makes it simpler for your tribe to participate); people can sign up and move from passive to more active at their own pace. It's better for synchronous communication—which I generally avoid as it can be anxiety-inducing—giving people a sense of 'together, now'. It's not good if you avoid proprietary systems (the only closed-source project on this page), vendor lock-in and its network effects, information overload from over-notification noise, or chronologically-emphasized systems which are inherently Designed to disappear. I would be open to using this if the messages delete automatically after a certain period, thus making it easier to change platforms later.

These posts talk more about the tradeoffs of both and how to integrate them better:

• Discord and Discourse - Better Together
• Effectively using Discourse together with group chat
• You should use forums rather than Slack/Discord to support developer community

As an honourable mention, I like the ideas in Luma: events require email addresses to attend, thus providing a sense of how many people are interested, while also building a mailing list and offering a discussion space for people to connect in between. You can also accept donations or charge money for things, which relates to the next section. Too proprietary for me, but I think it's well-made and can help you to grow faster.

Funding (Sustainable income)

Thinking about the best long-term solution for funding my work, I started at the outset by building my own payments system and integrating it into my apps (see the fund button): this enables direct integration with my apps (unlocking of features), while supporting both Paypal and Stripe. The novel idea behind this is that there is no data stored by me (everything is embedded in the transaction, which is stored by the payment processor) and people can use 'their own accounts' (but the 0data concept is so early that most people don't have one yet). It lacks a more elegant 'manage your subscription' mechanism, which means that although it's possible to modify and cancel at any time, it might feel cryptic. Another major flaw is the design decision to not collect contact information of the subscriber: anonymity has its merits, but I think if people pay me subscription money, I would prefer to have a communications channel in both directions in case anything goes wrong. In short: my system is functional, but might be a fail.

Open Collective is a new way to crowdfund on a recurring basis. Unlike more popular patronage platforms, it promotes transparency and implements fiscal hosting so that one doesn't need a legal entity to receive payments. The visual design lacks warmth (figures-oriented, as if for accountants) and only makes it faintly visible when it's possible to 'give more than the minimum' (non-techies might miss this option entirely)–I believe both of these things decrease the income potential. I was avoiding it for those reasons, but after trying it out, I think the ideals make sense, and so far it's more 'financially successful' than my other avenues even though contributors aren't getting something material in return (yet).

Ghost has made me turn my head several times in the last few months: own your newsletter and your subscriber payment data; patron-only content; passwordless signup via email and magic links; nice external and internal design; integration with automation systems; easy to host it yourself… Their 'Portal' (a slicker alternative to my own fund button) is super compelling: seamlessly handles free and paid memberships (but no PayPal), offers an elegant 'manage your subscription' interface, and (perhaps not so well-known) you can embed it on other sites. I wish it were less 'broadcast and business'-oriented, but I think you don't have to use it that way—might be better to combine it with other platforms. There are some great interface patterns that could become a common language across the web, and active development is supported by a sustainably-funded team.

The ideal solution

Seeing as none of these individual projects span both community and payments, my imagined ideal system would have these properties:

• own your community data; badges; asynchronous conversation; extensible (like Discourse)
• own your subscriber data and payment relationship; patron-only content; nice interfaces everywhere (like Ghost)
• bring your own account (like my fund button, 0data, or Delta Chat)
• transparency and fiscal hosts (like Open Collective)
• passive signup and synchronous conversation (like Discord), but ephemeral messages

To work towards this, I think I will try a mix of all these tools, but I'm inclined to put Ghost closer to the center. Despite working on my fund button for about half a year, I might switch to the Ghost 'Portal' as it is a pattern language people understand, has a more robust account system that's passwordless, and can be embedded on any site–it should also simplify the programming integration while giving a better experience for people using my apps. Stay tuned over the course of next year to see how all this evolves.

---

Thanks to Boris for the prompt to write about this.

Thinking about how to integrate multiple systems while building community and sustainable income.

---

This year, I started to prioritize community building, which led to the creation of the Ephemerata newsletter and The Café forum (see My mother's gift for some origins). Seeking a hub to house everything and make it accessible with one account, I was determined to make it work with forum software and published the newsletter there as a way to have 'something' happening; it's been nice to see people sign up and share comments without me inviting anyone, but it could be more active, and I should invest there once I feel comfortable doing less in other communities. Seeking also to explore patronage or voluntary contributions as a way to fund what I do, I was determined to use a homegrown payment system or an Open Collective profile, but neither are well integrated with community space or the unlocking of 'perks'. Since beginning these experiments, I have become more aware of other platforms and am trying to reconcile the benefits of each one with the properties I would like to have in my toolkit. It's possible for me to 'build my own system' but that would take time from doing what it's designed to support, especially as a single-person operation; this might be a case where it's better to use existing parts and close gaps by creating plugins or automating with tools like Zapier or n8n. Let's review the existing systems…

Community (Talking together)

Discourse is modern forum software that onboards people to participate, encourages reading, and nudges the right things. It's an exciting set of tools and primitives on an open-source foundation—an increasingly common extensible language—and even can be accessed with a native app to see notifications from all servers in one place. It's good for asynchronous communication, giving people badges, and a comments layer for content written elsewhere. As much as I hoped to do everything here and leverage its various affordances for community, it demands more effort (or friction) for people to post, and it's not so elegant as a 'home' for long-form writing (see Evolution one).

I have despised Discord for its chaotic arcade-like approach to communication, but after learning of a unified notifications pane which doesn't require me to click and bounce around dozens of channels to keep up, it's more manageable for me. The main advantage is that it's low-friction, either when signing up (as one account is shared across multiple communities) or when posting ('easily posting quick things' is not just for 'less dedicated people' but also makes it simpler for your tribe to participate); people can sign up and move from passive to more active at their own pace. It's better for synchronous communication—which I generally avoid as it can be anxiety-inducing—giving people a sense of 'together, now'. It's not good if you avoid proprietary systems (the only closed-source project on this page), vendor lock-in and its network effects, information overload from over-notification noise, or chronologically-emphasized systems which are inherently Designed to disappear. I would be open to using this if the messages delete automatically after a certain period, thus making it easier to change platforms later.

These posts talk more about the tradeoffs of both and how to integrate them better:

• Discord and Discourse - Better Together
• Effectively using Discourse together with group chat
• You should use forums rather than Slack/Discord to support developer community

As an honourable mention, I like the ideas in Luma: events require email addresses to attend, thus providing a sense of how many people are interested, while also building a mailing list and offering a discussion space for people to connect in between. You can also accept donations or charge money for things, which relates to the next section. Too proprietary for me, but I think it's well-made and can help you to grow faster.

Funding (Sustainable income)

Thinking about the best long-term solution for funding my work, I started at the outset by building my own payments system and integrating it into my apps (see the fund button): this enables direct integration with my apps (unlocking of features), while supporting both Paypal and Stripe. The novel idea behind this is that there is no data stored by me (everything is embedded in the transaction, which is stored by the payment processor) and people can use 'their own accounts' (but the 0data concept is so early that most people don't have one yet). It lacks a more elegant 'manage your subscription' mechanism, which means that although it's possible to modify and cancel at any time, it might feel cryptic. Another major flaw is the design decision to not collect contact information of the subscriber: anonymity has its merits, but I think if people pay me subscription money, I would prefer to have a communications channel in both directions in case anything goes wrong. In short: my system is functional, but might be a fail.

Open Collective is a new way to crowdfund on a recurring basis. Unlike more popular patronage platforms, it promotes transparency and implements fiscal hosting so that one doesn't need a legal entity to receive payments. The visual design lacks warmth (figures-oriented, as if for accountants) and only makes it faintly visible when it's possible to 'give more than the minimum' (non-techies might miss this option entirely)–I believe both of these things decrease the income potential. I was avoiding it for those reasons, but after trying it out, I think the ideals make sense, and so far it's more 'financially successful' than my other avenues even though contributors aren't getting something material in return (yet).

Ghost has made me turn my head several times in the last few months: own your newsletter and your subscriber payment data; patron-only content; passwordless signup via email and magic links; nice external and internal design; integration with automation systems; easy to host it yourself… Their 'Portal' (a slicker alternative to my own fund button) is super compelling: seamlessly handles free and paid memberships (but no PayPal), offers an elegant 'manage your subscription' interface, and (perhaps not so well-known) you can embed it on other sites. I wish it were less 'broadcast and business'-oriented, but I think you don't have to use it that way—might be better to combine it with other platforms. There are some great interface patterns that could become a common language across the web, and active development is supported by a sustainably-funded team.

The ideal solution

Seeing as none of these individual projects span both community and payments, my imagined ideal system would have these properties:

• own your community data; badges; asynchronous conversation; extensible (like Discourse)
• own your subscriber data and payment relationship; patron-only content; nice interfaces everywhere (like Ghost)
• bring your own account (like my fund button, 0data, or Delta Chat)
• transparency and fiscal hosts (like Open Collective)
• passive signup and synchronous conversation (like Discord), but ephemeral messages

To work towards this, I think I will try a mix of all these tools, but I'm inclined to put Ghost closer to the center. Despite working on my fund button for about half a year, I might switch to the Ghost 'Portal' as it is a pattern language people understand, has a more robust account system that's passwordless, and can be embedded on any site–it should also simplify the programming integration while giving a better experience for people using my apps. Stay tuned over the course of next year to see how all this evolves.

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Thanks to Boris for the prompt to write about this.

Reflecting on why events are work, I realize that the exhaustion comes from doing too much on my own. And in thinking about how to be more collaborative in what I do, I'm starting to notice an issue in my way of thinking: I start from the perspective of "X, Y, and Z are all important to the project's success, and since there doesn't seem to be anyone volunteering, I guess I'll just do it." It might be the case that I'm taking initiative or being proactive, but it seems as if my vision of involving others is to start by completing the work of six people, and then wait until individuals appear to fill particular roles (like promoting, note-taking, audiovisual editing, logistics coordinating, etc…). This is perhaps a bit backwards in this context, creating a failure mode where people would contribute in my way as opposed to theirs, thus not seeing themselves in the collaboration, thus likely not even getting involved to begin with. Rather than having pre-defined slots that someone can conform to, a more vibrant community approach would enable people to create their own possibilities for contribution.

In thriving communities like Precious Plastic or Interintellect, it seems like the leaders activate others to become leaders as opposed to doing everything solo. Compare "doing narrowly-scoped tasks in someone's project" with "starting a recycling centre" or "self-organizing an event for group conversation". What does it take to afford someone maximally radiating their individual expression within a shared purpose? One way I'm exploring this is to have a constant reminder near my to-do lists which encourages me to [somewhat extremely] "avoid doing anything unless it involves another person." I don't recommend that framing for everyone, it certainly has its issues, but I'm ready to try something really different after being in a solo phase for such a long time.

My long-standing unawareness of these dynamics may have something to do with being a digital native or 'very online', as I might be more susceptible to the ways in which technology can mislead. Only now do I understand that the 'forum' or 'chat' is not 'where the community is'. This might be obvious to many readers, but it's tempting for people like me to interpret platform metrics as an indicator of community-ness: a place may seem to have few posts or little public activity, but things might be happening in private channels or offline, and a place with a flurry of interaction risks being superficial or spammy. Content is not community in the same way that the map is not the territory.

To understand where the essence of community is, I found it useful to imagine a more low-tech approach to organizing events, perhaps for an offline in-person gathering. "Let's get together and go into that thing that gets us going." You might reach out to people you know via phone calls, or while running into them somewhere along your way, and ask them to also invite others in the same manner. No announcements, no notifications, no social media posts, no recording, no summary, no place to leave a comment: just whatever happens together. In this scenario, the community exists in interactions with one another, with no digital representations that can imply otherwise. Despite being a very online community, Interintellect exemplifies this well as, the 'substance' of it doesn't really have a digital representation: you need to attend a salon and experience the interactions with other members to understand the essence of it.

Let's contrast this with a high-tech approach like the GitHub platform, where an enormous amount of software is being built collaboratively. Although many projects successfully advance with collective effort, much of the long tail suffers from lack of contributions, or burnout from too many contributions and interface anti-patterns; collaboration begins via "Issues" (reporting a problem) or "Pull Requests" (suggesting changes you made), as opposed to making a personal connection. When everything is a digital representation and it's rare to have moments together, the essence is in the back-and-forth of discussion threads and editing files, which is a bit more abstract than 'getting to know one another' or 'inviting the people who would make it more meaningful'. It has been a struggle for me to model the methods of collaboration incentivized by this platform in my own projects, until I realized that it's better to just ignore all of them and start somewhere more interpersonal, perhaps fill the togetherness void with my own solution. What are good affordances for community in a platform like this? And what is the software encouraging? If the basis of community is relating to one another, I think it happens on GitHub in spite of the software, not because of it. For me, considering more analog approaches helps me interact more meaningfully in this kind of pure digital space.

I don't have a clear conclusion to all this at the moment, but these reflections are giving me a new perspective on community essence. Letting people come as they are and share what they have to offer allows for them to be better represented in the process. I would avoid paying too much attention to what software wants you to do, think, or feel, and start with personal connection, perhaps considering how it would come about without the Internet. Community is a verb and it exists in doing with others, more-so than in its representations.

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Originally published in Ephemerata #020.

Reflecting on why events are work, I realize that the exhaustion comes from doing too much on my own. And in thinking about how to be more collaborative in what I do, I'm starting to notice an issue in my way of thinking: I start from the perspective of "X, Y, and Z are all important to the project's success, and since there doesn't seem to be anyone volunteering, I guess I'll just do it." It might be the case that I'm taking initiative or being proactive, but it seems as if my vision of involving others is to start by completing the work of six people, and then wait until individuals appear to fill particular roles (like promoting, note-taking, audiovisual editing, logistics coordinating, etc…). This is perhaps a bit backwards in this context, creating a failure mode where people would contribute in my way as opposed to theirs, thus not seeing themselves in the collaboration, thus likely not even getting involved to begin with. Rather than having pre-defined slots that someone can conform to, a more vibrant community approach would enable people to create their own possibilities for contribution.

In thriving communities like Precious Plastic or Interintellect, it seems like the leaders activate others to become leaders as opposed to doing everything solo. Compare "doing narrowly-scoped tasks in someone's project" with "starting a recycling centre" or "self-organizing an event for group conversation". What does it take to afford someone maximally radiating their individual expression within a shared purpose? One way I'm exploring this is to have a constant reminder near my to-do lists which encourages me to [somewhat extremely] "avoid doing anything unless it involves another person." I don't recommend that framing for everyone, it certainly has its issues, but I'm ready to try something really different after being in a solo phase for such a long time.

My long-standing unawareness of these dynamics may have something to do with being a digital native or 'very online', as I might be more susceptible to the ways in which technology can mislead. Only now do I understand that the 'forum' or 'chat' is not 'where the community is'. This might be obvious to many readers, but it's tempting for people like me to interpret platform metrics as an indicator of community-ness: a place may seem to have few posts or little public activity, but things might be happening in private channels or offline, and a place with a flurry of interaction risks being superficial or spammy. Content is not community in the same way that the map is not the territory.

To understand where the essence of community is, I found it useful to imagine a more low-tech approach to organizing events, perhaps for an offline in-person gathering. "Let's get together and go into that thing that gets us going." You might reach out to people you know via phone calls, or while running into them somewhere along your way, and ask them to also invite others in the same manner. No announcements, no notifications, no social media posts, no recording, no summary, no place to leave a comment: just whatever happens together. In this scenario, the community exists in interactions with one another, with no digital representations that can imply otherwise. Despite being a very online community, Interintellect exemplifies this well as, the 'substance' of it doesn't really have a digital representation: you need to attend a salon and experience the interactions with other members to understand the essence of it.

Let's contrast this with a high-tech approach like the GitHub platform, where an enormous amount of software is being built collaboratively. Although many projects successfully advance with collective effort, much of the long tail suffers from lack of contributions, or burnout from too many contributions and interface anti-patterns; collaboration begins via "Issues" (reporting a problem) or "Pull Requests" (suggesting changes you made), as opposed to making a personal connection. When everything is a digital representation and it's rare to have moments together, the essence is in the back-and-forth of discussion threads and editing files, which is a bit more abstract than 'getting to know one another' or 'inviting the people who would make it more meaningful'. It has been a struggle for me to model the methods of collaboration incentivized by this platform in my own projects, until I realized that it's better to just ignore all of them and start somewhere more interpersonal, perhaps fill the togetherness void with my own solution. What are good affordances for community in a platform like this? And what is the software encouraging? If the basis of community is relating to one another, I think it happens on GitHub in spite of the software, not because of it. For me, considering more analog approaches helps me interact more meaningfully in this kind of pure digital space.

I don't have a clear conclusion to all this at the moment, but these reflections are giving me a new perspective on community essence. Letting people come as they are and share what they have to offer allows for them to be better represented in the process. I would avoid paying too much attention to what software wants you to do, think, or feel, and start with personal connection, perhaps considering how it would come about without the Internet. Community is a verb and it exists in doing with others, more-so than in its representations.

---

Originally published in Ephemerata #020.

This year has marked the beginning of a shift in my approach: from doing virtually everything solo towards more collectivity and collaboration; the transition has barely begun and is still quite slow as I rewire myself to avoid what has become natural and automatic after over a decade's practice. I have been thinking and learning about community for longer, but started taking concrete steps around May 9th with the creation of a forum and this newsletter, places with potential to become larger than me.

An important part of this shift has been to bring people together in the form of events, so I looked around me to see where I could contribute. remoteStorage is one of the primary technologies I use in my apps, so I began hosting monthly hangouts. Zero Data seems to be flying away from my nest and turning into a community project, so I started to facilitate some swap meets. I also enjoy getting to know Interintellect, which is a community of people that come together in self-organized group conversations (salons) about eclectic topics, and so I have strived to regularly host my own salons.

Although I have some prior experience with running events, I somehow didn't anticipate how overwhelmed and fatigued I would eventually feel by doing so many of these. I remember thinking to myself: "it's just conversations about stuff I'm immersed in, all I have to do is show up and do my thing, no big deal." To give a sense of the work, from before to after: pre-event involves coordination with others, documenting and framing with text that others can understand, letting interested people know, making announcements at specific times before the event, calming any mental anguish about zero people possibly attending; the event itself involves mentally preparing and blocking out time in the day, being present and ideally taking notes on the conversation, remembering to hit the record button if that's a thing, hopefully add something insightful to the discussion; post-event involves thanking and outreach, summarizing the notes, editing the recording, publishing in multiple relevant places and sharing that. What I thought of as one hour of spontaneous conversation implies about two days of preparation and two days of recapitulation, and as this happens about three times a month, it feels like three out of four weeks in each month are write-offs, with time and energy only for random unrelated things that need to get done and not much for making apps or advancing on projects.

In reflecting on how to remedy this imbalance, I think it makes sense (for now) to just keep doing the events. One form of stress comes from always feeling like I'm 'supposed' to be doing my 'real work' on projects, which went from receiving 'All Available Daylight Hours' to 'Not Even One Iota' for consecutive weeks—as someone used to having freedom over how I spend my time, this was hard to grapple with. But I thought recently: maybe it's fine for my 'primary commitment' of app-making to be supplanted by something else for a while. Maybe this makes getting other people involved an imperative to progress. After years of working so hard on the same thing, perhaps it would be good to do something different for a while.

A friend rightly reminded me how new this is: a couple of months ago I wanted to be more social and collective, and now I'm putting it into action; it's worth taking time to acknowledge this progress, maybe even celebrate. I've certainly been enjoying meeting new people and creating spaces where new things can be said. The skills and experience are both useful, but I'd still prefer to delegate so much more, so please reach out if you'd like to get involved in any of this: I could use a hand.

P.S. Mad respect to @boris for trying to do this kind of thing weekly with Fission Tech Talks.

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Originally published in Ephemerata #018.

This year has marked the beginning of a shift in my approach: from doing virtually everything solo towards more collectivity and collaboration; the transition has barely begun and is still quite slow as I rewire myself to avoid what has become natural and automatic after over a decade's practice. I have been thinking and learning about community for longer, but started taking concrete steps around May 9th with the creation of a forum and this newsletter, places with potential to become larger than me.

An important part of this shift has been to bring people together in the form of events, so I looked around me to see where I could contribute. remoteStorage is one of the primary technologies I use in my apps, so I began hosting monthly hangouts. Zero Data seems to be flying away from my nest and turning into a community project, so I started to facilitate some swap meets. I also enjoy getting to know Interintellect, which is a community of people that come together in self-organized group conversations (salons) about eclectic topics, and so I have strived to regularly host my own salons.

Although I have some prior experience with running events, I somehow didn't anticipate how overwhelmed and fatigued I would eventually feel by doing so many of these. I remember thinking to myself: "it's just conversations about stuff I'm immersed in, all I have to do is show up and do my thing, no big deal." To give a sense of the work, from before to after: pre-event involves coordination with others, documenting and framing with text that others can understand, letting interested people know, making announcements at specific times before the event, calming any mental anguish about zero people possibly attending; the event itself involves mentally preparing and blocking out time in the day, being present and ideally taking notes on the conversation, remembering to hit the record button if that's a thing, hopefully add something insightful to the discussion; post-event involves thanking and outreach, summarizing the notes, editing the recording, publishing in multiple relevant places and sharing that. What I thought of as one hour of spontaneous conversation implies about two days of preparation and two days of recapitulation, and as this happens about three times a month, it feels like three out of four weeks in each month are write-offs, with time and energy only for random unrelated things that need to get done and not much for making apps or advancing on projects.

In reflecting on how to remedy this imbalance, I think it makes sense (for now) to just keep doing the events. One form of stress comes from always feeling like I'm 'supposed' to be doing my 'real work' on projects, which went from receiving 'All Available Daylight Hours' to 'Not Even One Iota' for consecutive weeks—as someone used to having freedom over how I spend my time, this was hard to grapple with. But I thought recently: maybe it's fine for my 'primary commitment' of app-making to be supplanted by something else for a while. Maybe this makes getting other people involved an imperative to progress. After years of working so hard on the same thing, perhaps it would be good to do something different for a while.

A friend rightly reminded me how new this is: a couple of months ago I wanted to be more social and collective, and now I'm putting it into action; it's worth taking time to acknowledge this progress, maybe even celebrate. I've certainly been enjoying meeting new people and creating spaces where new things can be said. The skills and experience are both useful, but I'd still prefer to delegate so much more, so please reach out if you'd like to get involved in any of this: I could use a hand.

P.S. Mad respect to @boris for trying to do this kind of thing weekly with Fission Tech Talks.

---

Originally published in Ephemerata #018.

Communities all over the world are being divided according to their polital ideologies. Despite intentions that 'technology will bring us closer together', the echo chambers fueled by social networks, mainstream media, and divisive politicians, are not helping us collectively advance on impactful and existential issues like inequality, injustice, and climate change.

A counteraction is talking to people outside your bubble. This is easier said than done, but it might be less intimidating when pursued with one or more deliberate motivations (intentions), for example:

• 'to further your political objectives' – if you 'succeed' it puts more force behind your movement, if you 'fail' it was feedback for the next attempt. Nothing was lost.
• 'to embody the alternative' – you might be the only person someone encounters who thinks a certain way, and they might not ever be exposed to certain ideas or perspectives otherwise.
• 'to discover common language, shared values' – with practice you develop trust and a larger space in which to connect and exchange.

These approaches treat interactions as a process, not about specific outcomes. Each interaction makes you better for the next one, similar to fire mindset.

[[Cancelling breaks social fabric, call in over call out.]]

Examples

• Beau of the Fifth Column speaking simultaneously to american progressives and conservatives
• Contrapoints addressing contentious topics on the Internet and speaking (indirectly) to trolls
• Anthony Bourdain breaking bread and having fun with people whose beliefs strongly differ from his
• More extreme example that I forget the specific details of: 'A politician inviting herself to have dinner at the home of her haters as a means to build trust and foster dialogue'

Communities all over the world are being divided according to their polital ideologies. Despite intentions that 'technology will bring us closer together', the echo chambers fueled by social networks, mainstream media, and divisive politicians, are not helping us collectively advance on impactful and existential issues like inequality, injustice, and climate change.

A counteraction is talking to people outside your bubble. This is easier said than done, but it might be less intimidating when pursued with one or more deliberate motivations (intentions), for example:

• 'to further your political objectives' – if you 'succeed' it puts more force behind your movement, if you 'fail' it was feedback for the next attempt. Nothing was lost.
• 'to embody the alternative' – you might be the only person someone encounters who thinks a certain way, and they might not ever be exposed to certain ideas or perspectives otherwise.
• 'to discover common language, shared values' – with practice you develop trust and a larger space in which to connect and exchange.

These approaches treat interactions as a process, not about specific outcomes. Each interaction makes you better for the next one, similar to fire mindset.

[[Cancelling breaks social fabric, call in over call out.]]

Examples

• Beau of the Fifth Column speaking simultaneously to american progressives and conservatives
• Contrapoints addressing contentious topics on the Internet and speaking (indirectly) to trolls
• Anthony Bourdain breaking bread and having fun with people whose beliefs strongly differ from his
• More extreme example that I forget the specific details of: 'A politician inviting herself to have dinner at the home of her haters as a means to build trust and foster dialogue'

Divide social activity in digital spaces into two categories: discussion and reference.

Most activity is discussion: news or blog updates, shared links, forum discussions, microblogging hot takes, comments, private or group messages, livestreaming, newsletters. They speak to a particular moment in time.

Examples of reference can include: wikis, git repositories, project documentation, question/answer sites or FAQs, indexes. These resources are not directly concerned with specific moments in time — they attempt to be organized according to context and relevance.

Discussion begins to fade the moment it is published. It can be temporarily revived (bumped) by some kind of activity or update, but this itself is a form of discussion that begins to fade on arrival.

The effect of this 'fading' is that whatever was gained through discourse becomes more difficult to find with time, as newer content takes precedence — the reverse-chronological organization of most technology makes things designed to disappear, and digital systems generally do not remind us that there is a cost to keeping things forever. Technology is inconsiderate.

Combat this ephemerality by

• capturing ideas into reference as often as possible
• deliberately making older content less accessible
• warning about any false sense of findability

Something needs to be lost, there must be some cost to keep things around. As an example, an engineer at Stripe talks about how

they automatically delete chat messages older than a few weeks to discourage relying on it for long-term archival. In retrospectives, team members often reflect on whether they chose the right medium (email, chat, or forum) for various conversations.

Discussion is necessary for exploring possibilities without friction. Reference gives longevity to the results.

Compare the possibilities enabled by these scenarios

discussion	reference
send a quote of an article to a friend or post it on your timeline	compile similar resources and build a larger idea from small disparate pieces
search for an idea by scrolling through a reverse-chronological archive	browse by context and stumble upon something related but unexpected

The Wikum project is a web-based platform that integrates discussion and collaborative summarization.

Divide social activity in digital spaces into two categories: discussion and reference.

Most activity is discussion: news or blog updates, shared links, forum discussions, microblogging hot takes, comments, private or group messages, livestreaming, newsletters. They speak to a particular moment in time.

Examples of reference can include: wikis, git repositories, project documentation, question/answer sites or FAQs, indexes. These resources are not directly concerned with specific moments in time — they attempt to be organized according to context and relevance.

Discussion begins to fade the moment it is published. It can be temporarily revived (bumped) by some kind of activity or update, but this itself is a form of discussion that begins to fade on arrival.

The effect of this 'fading' is that whatever was gained through discourse becomes more difficult to find with time, as newer content takes precedence — the reverse-chronological organization of most technology makes things designed to disappear, and digital systems generally do not remind us that there is a cost to keeping things forever. Technology is inconsiderate.

Combat this ephemerality by

• capturing ideas into reference as often as possible
• deliberately making older content less accessible
• warning about any false sense of findability

Something needs to be lost, there must be some cost to keep things around. As an example, an engineer at Stripe talks about how

they automatically delete chat messages older than a few weeks to discourage relying on it for long-term archival. In retrospectives, team members often reflect on whether they chose the right medium (email, chat, or forum) for various conversations.

Discussion is necessary for exploring possibilities without friction. Reference gives longevity to the results.

Compare the possibilities enabled by these scenarios

discussion	reference
send a quote of an article to a friend or post it on your timeline	compile similar resources and build a larger idea from small disparate pieces
search for an idea by scrolling through a reverse-chronological archive	browse by context and stumble upon something related but unexpected

The Wikum project is a web-based platform that integrates discussion and collaborative summarization.