I am starting this thread in order to continue discussions that came out of a technical forum post that have wandered way off topic and this seemed like the most appropriate place to post.
Whilst I consider my response I am seeding the thread so others can post too without further filling up the original thread!
OK, letās do this - to start Iām going to post a separate comment for each paragraph of your reply as they seem to be distinct topics, and if they develop into anything we can create new threads/topics/whatever-they-term-it-here
I think a good place to start, if you want, is to post your thoughts as to how to create a healthy community.
Whateverās happened here I would certainly gain value from hearing as I spent almost 20 years in the Drupal community so can only really speak from what I saw there, much of which I can see here in some ways, hence why I am taking the initiative now to speak my voice as nobody has had the same experience as anyone else.
As for āprincipled understanding on how to create a healthy communityā I personally didnāt know there were principled understandings, I wouldāve thought it depends on context but perhaps Iām thinking too deep so let me know.
Iāll kick things off and encourage anyone else to as well, whatās the worst that can happen?! I am merely sitting on the sidelines throwing this into the air, I am not involved in keeping the lights on so my ideas are simply that, I have absolutely no idea what is going on commercially so I realise my ideas are ideals, doesnāt mean Iām going to stop voicing them though lol!
For me, itās putting people above companies/organisations/corporations. That means putting more effort behind helping non-techs getting involved as well as ensuring if anyoneās being a dick then theyāre dealt with effectively too. Whole world of difference between me typing this and actually doing it though.
āTalk is silver, code is goldā is a quote from the earlier Drupal days, and although I feel I did what I could to bridge the gap, for example creating a āDrupal Discovery Dayā event where the morning was more business-focused talks and the afternoon was a Drupal 101 workshop, and there have been thousands of people around the world making the system āeasierā over the years, itās still one of the most hated systems and if anything you need to be more technical than ever these days. That said, once people get to know it, they love it and the control it gives them to create through the UI. The big problem/barrier I see in the Drupal community is there is literally billions of dollars of business being made out of it not being easy for people to use.
As for Holochain, the only IRL events Iāve been to are at the Open Coop annual get-together in London where I met @dcatki and they had a pile of lego setups they were using for people to play with to get an understanding of what Holochain was which I thought was quite non-technical however as Iām 48 and started hacking on code when I was 9 I am not the best person to comment! I think the only way to get over this is for more people to speak up, not just wait for the self-fulfilling prophecy to fulfil itselfā¦
Iāve seen quite a few examples of non-tech people involved in all areas like the REA accounting, the project about hospitals, and a whole host of people who bought hardware a while back who donāt - and I hope they donāt take this in a bad way if they read it - seem to me to be very technical yet hungry and excited to give it a go and are loving it, being part of something new and exciting, feeling like theyāre doing their bit.
Iām trying to do my bit where I can - I came in a bit āguns a blazingā wanting to do awesome project X and super-duper world-changing code Y but the last couple of days Iāve spent using my Autistic/PDA wordplay skills to tidy up the gym training as Iāve been going through it myself and found it a bit confusing. Iām not the fastest person in the world and only done a few paragraphs so far but itās helping me learn more about the code and language, and hopefully going to be helping others as they want to learn more about the project too. Iāve tried to think of a wider audience too, ones who perhaps havenāt coded before - in the early days of Drupal there were some amazing contributions made from non-coders from all walks of life and I think this is one area that is highly important to protect as it empowers people from all over the world to use computing to do what they want, no matter what level of resources they have. Iām highly encouraged when I see the YouTube videos of creating an app in one line of Vue code, and in the forums when I see people bringing projects in for low-code which I saw the other day.
So I do think you had a shitty experience, and I donāt think that can be changed as itās in the past, and whilst Iāve seen it happen here and around, Iām not at the position where I think it is going to be the de facto way forward. I may be wrong, I hope not, itās my belief if we all just join in and create our own events, help others with theirs, talk about this stuff, and so on then perhaps the vision we see in our minds of how we all want this to be will be the future, it sure aināt gonna happen by us crossing our fingers & hoping.
If you can see past this crappy experience you had - I mean youāre still here so I presume thereās something keeping you around, then keep on doing what you did by replying to this thread and see if you can be part of the change that is obviously needed as you should not have been treated as you say you were for sure.
OK I will chip in a bit being a non-tech (basic html/.css/php only) who has been with the āprojectā for a while now and currently participating in the elemental chat using Holoports.
First Iām not good with ācommunitiesā. Iām much too self obsessed to see the other personās reality well enough and have been called a maverick as I will go my own way.
However, on this one I am happy to be on the outside of the tech and to wait for each stage to happen. Because they do happen. At least so far they have. I donāt really need an explanation of what is going on behing the curtain because I wouldnāt understand it anyway.
When the time comes Iām hopeful there will be some code to cut and paste that I can use to get a basic web page on a holoport - if I get that far I will be amazed!
LOL I love how you say non-tech followed by oh yeah but I know how to code 
I tried CSS once but it does my head in, Iām far more adept at logic stuff, and no front-end code has ever made any logic to me but thatās just me!
Thanks for posting your good experience with the project, itās encouraging and although Iāve only been vocal for a short time since I kinda said my āfinal goodbyesā to the last project I was supporting at the end of last year, Iāve been an avid fan of this one for quite a few years and itās been fantastic to see the pace picking up recently.
There are going to be issues growing any community and for me even if intentions arenāt what I hope they are, as long as the code is open then itās forkable, and for that reason I place more trust in the team.
Open Source projects enable me to leverage my talents in an indirect way in order to sustain the life I want, which is very much one of a hobbyist who likes to network a lot with people doing interesting stuff in the world. They give me something interesting to chat about, and through the relationships I grow I connect people with people, people with technology, and create wealth for myself and others, and it gives me time to do the computing stuff I love.
It also helps manage my expectations, because I donāt expect anything, and I am eternally grateful for the opportunity to not only play with and utilise awesome technology but also get to be āsociableā which doesnāt really happen much in the āreal worldā lol!
This was actually on my mind earlier when I was āworkingā on the gym docs - the thought crossed my mind āugh, thereās not even any points, why am I bothering - is this a wise use of my time? Really, is it?ā. The answer came to me pretty much in an instant: āYes, absolutely!ā. Not only am I spending hours obviously āin flowā as I read bits and realise quite how wrong what they are saying is, but Iām right there, changing it, dealing with my frustration and hopefully being productive more than sitting typing yet another long reply on the forum and seeing my picture on basically the entire page of latest forum posts lol.
Iām learning more about the API, more about Rust, more about how annoying the English language can be, more about how tricky it can be when you use the word āaddā when youāre writing a tutorial about the ācreateā function, and just how flippin hard it is to get documentation right so it flows. Todayās ānightmareā has been the word ācontentā used as a field name which Iāve now proposed changing to āgreeting_textā as I found it confusing.
Anyway, I feel actually itās quite good that there isnāt a defined system in place. In the Drupal world there wasnāt for years, then they brought in points, and it works - a bit, in issue queues people give each other credit for participating, itās starting to spread now to more non-tech stuff, but is also easily gamed, I donāt believe itās efficient in terms of things like the commercial side and like the street where they took all the traffic signs and markings out, people ended up taking more care.
Particularly in a project where thereās a lot of emphasis on the creation of new currencies I believe there will be mutual credit currencies and all sorts by the community and it may be an area you want to look into if you feel there is a need you want to address. I am sure there are, and Iāve thought a lot about this over the years but especially given whatās happened over the last year or so I honestly donāt think thereās anything more to do than connect with my heart and know that I am doing this for me, and the minute it becomes a burden and not fun is the minute I do something different. Thatās not going to be everyoneās cup of tea, but they have the freedom as you do to change it and create the world you want to see, not the one youāre waiting for that may never arrive, because it only exists in your mind and everyone has free will etc. etc.
In summary of this rant, much like the conversation that happened a few days ago talking about how value can be measured in commons-based peer production, forests, common resources, etc. I think people including myself are projecting their own beliefs and fear on things that are simply not clear, and by being open about these we can hopefully move on and past them in order to grow the healthy Holochain community!
I forgot to mention the main point here, the reciprocity I get is free awesome technology. I still canāt get over the fact I can download this stuff and build whatever I want with it.
My incentive is I get to live the life I choose to live. If anything, a point-based reality would do the opposite, Iād forever be Pacmanā¦!
I have been wondering if anyone is planning on building an art gallery?
How do you envisage a model that would foster a healthy Holochain community?
Lisa Welchman gave a keynote on Governance at the 2013 DrupalCon Prague and detailed a very important point about communities and how as they grow there is a point where they turn from being organic into being fixed, and what usually happens is because the community donāt stand up for themselves and ālay down the lawā so to speak then other entities do it for them, the opportunity is gone and all because we donāt like telling other people what to do necessarily whereas organisations and other interested parties have no problem in pushing their own agendas.
At the time Lisa said it would be awesome if the Drupal community could prove everyone wrong. They didnāt. Can we? Is it already too late and the story is as ādarkā as I feel from the way you express your experiences so far? In all honesty, it probably is, but I donāt think itās a given that it is 100% intended to be like that, it might be that another way hasnāt appeared or been created yet. This is our/your/everyoneās chance now, it sure aināt gonna happen automatically.
We have to learn how to collaborate more on both the code and the business side of things, people have been raised into a competitive environment and a service-to-self world whereas the future is in service-to-others. Not all over the world, for sure, thatās one thing I learned in my travels that once Iām out of the UK and especially in places across Europe thereās a lot more people collaborating.
Lisaās keynote was in 2013, ten years after I first started using Drupal and right up until I finally quit trying at the end of last year I kept being told they didnāt want to be a member of my business network. They never complained when I brought them profitable projects though.
Even the councils in the UK are starting to collaborate, we were holding meetings about that ten years ago and they werenāt listening to our efforts back then but nice to see theyāre finally sharing code. Bit late IMHO though. Still proud I got Brighton Council off Coldfusion onto Drupal though lol!
So, what do you, or anyone else reading this, see as a way forward - thereās no harm in posting ideas and dreams here. In the Drupal world you have the Drupal Association, for which back in 2012 I was the first ever community-elected Director of, and IMHO itās a top-down structure that in some ways helps - big corporations mostly, but also people tend to expect way too much of it, which is why I always wanted to build a Virtual Enterprise Network (a book by Ken Thompson, his work like Bioteams is based similarly on how nature works like the holochain project is). I feel similar will emerge here, and with the Holo-REA project I believe it will be different and far more effective, but it will take time and grow naturally as opposed to saying āwe need governance model Xā. But thatās just my 2p.
As far as I know itās a private company who are creating a hosting service which in turn helps to fund a purely code project run by a few mates and theyāre giving the code away for free. Maybe I am missing something but thatās a pretty cool thing to do for the world and the advancement of the human race. All I can think is if you think thereās something missing, well hereās the forums, you are as you have done, as able as I am to voice your opinion, suggest ideas and solutions and be part of what you see.
As above, if you believe itās a problem then post a solution. And keep on posting until either a) you decide the project is not for you, or b) you become part of co-creating what you see as from what I see thereās nothing intrinsically wrong with everything you say, it just hasnāt been done yet for one reason or another.
Why not? Itās happening because I brought up a topic and it triggered you into responding, and weāre developing it - that surely is the definition of growing a healthy Holochain community?!
Drupal has 20 years experience of building systems for issues, thereās currently 99,918 issues for Drupal Core. Thatās not to mention the few thousand modules, themes, and so on. This is not a unique issue. Again I say dive in, suggest a way forward. Propose a system for a problem you see, and if the response is ānaff off we donāt want your crazy talk of all this stuffā then for sure, complain, but at the moment I still havenāt seen much more than a crappy experience at an event and a current view of a community where youāre still around and interacting with after this crappy event and obviously with some knowledge and expertise and passion in these areas, so all I can suggest is keep on trying, create some posts with some actionable solutions, again I may be wrong and wasting my time, but Iām choosing like you to be here, so with that, itās now 3.20am and I think Iām gonna go try get some kip, thanks for your post, itās a step forward, weāre opening up discussions and even if itās a little āloudā then so be it, thereās obviously issues that need addressing and ignoring them isnāt going to make them disappear, the only thing that will disappear will be the community.
I agree it is a cool project, however being ācoolā doesnāt inoculate you from acting according to international business norms. Iāve attempted to solve my issues at the lowest levels possible and outside of written format because Iām a fan of the project.
Before being cut out of the Dev Camp and all other āopenā meetings, I was told āAs a white woman from a predominantly white organization, to you a white man; Iām asking you not to speak about Holochain in your African projects, we dont want you as the face of Holochain in Africa.ā Mind you this took place during the zeitgeist of the race protests of last year.
Flags should be raised any time someone is talking about their skin color or ethnic make up in a professional setting.
Upon reporting this to what āhigher ups,ā I was told the team doesnt not agree with āwhite saviors,ā and no foul was noted. So, you can preach how cool the project is till youāre blue in the face, but as long as skin color plays part of āunofficial policyā then I canāt follow you down your logic that fair play runs this community.
Iāve brought investors to this community that were blown offā¦all the while witnessing my āpeersā get special access and attention. Iāve asked for investor support in the forum to deaf ears, Iāve reached out to core team members for backing with investors and was told āanyone investing in a company with a business plan based on a product that doesnt exist is stupid.ā Iām not sure Sidās investors are dismissed in such as way.
If Iām on the āoutside,ā then that is evidence there is an āinside.ā
So, here I am up at 2am triggered again because I know my skin color and background put me at a disadvantage in this community that I canāt overcome. I have to operate with less information than my peers and have to overcome more obstacles than those who the team does agree with their skin color and where they work.
If past behavior is truly the best indicator of future behavior, raising this issue will only serve to further isolate me. Even less engagement, no chance at being invited to the ācool kidsā club.
I donāt think I said that, what I have been saying is it is what it is and we are fully aware of the fact we are on the outside and that there is an inside.
I agree there seems to be some answers needed for what you say has gone on, I am not sure how forthcoming they will be though.
It does make me wonder why youāre still sticking around though - if they did to me what you say theyāve done to you Iād be half way to Timbuktu by nowā¦
Im still around because this isnāt a hobbyāI have real communities that canāt manage waste, pay high health and wealth costs to have electricity, and can benefit from this tech.
Further, Iām was an early user of Palantirā¦which is a data-centric version of Holo-REA. My years of participating and building automated processes in that software gives me a vision of how apps will āevolveā over being developed from afar. The best hApps will come from intimate knowledge of the tools capabilities and the specific on the problem on the ground. Palantir developers would sit next to us in Afghanistan and the pentagon to automate our analysis process. Useful tools could never be generated from the HQ building and pushed to the frontlines. I dont see many people in the community that understand what REA is doing, much less have years experience working with a software that measures relationships. Understanding the value flows in such a system is what makes translating Game A investment dollars difficult into Game B terms.
Prioritizing the poor in tech was a bad strategy, this industry is notoriously centered upon solving their own problems. As a social scientist I sit back and reflect on how bad of an idea it was to present people of color to rural, high-altitude tech Americansā¦those are demographic hurtles I now see are too difficult to overcome.
Because the community is in direct competition with itself over limited resources of money and knowledgeānone of the āwokeā people that observed this all happen stood up for what was right and kept their doors open. They stand to gain from less competition in the community, which made them forget their values and follow along blindly.
The whole of what you wrote above has been troubling me, in particular:
As someone who spent most their adult life in very multicultural areas - being the only white person on the street in East London and having to deal with the stares as people thought I was breaking into my own home lol, living in Bradford and loving learning about cooking with spices, and most recently Brighton for almost a decade where you have to be pretty out there to be noticed as ānormalā lol I do not and cannot comprehend what it is like where you are talking about, so I donāt know the story.
I have experienced many different cultures also through the Open Source community, and I have seen examples, like really bad examples, of things that shouldnāt go on but do, and I feel it is better to discuss these out in the open and I respect you for doing that, itās obviously an issue but I still feel there is something a little amiss as whilst you keep referring to the race issue emotionally you state the gender issue in a factual way āsheā said this, and then you added in the next sentence a āmind youā, so we have a 95% āthis is really really badā and 5% ābut there is this small thing that might be a catalyst for saying this really really bad thingā.
Are you totally sure that this was meant as bad as it sounds or could it have been communicated in a really bad way at the time, or is it a general view and we do have a problem that should be addressed? Maybe Iām too much of a sucker, but I just get the feeling that this is a bad thing that happened that couldāve been handled better and perhaps some more education and closer communication in the future could help.
I know this is tough but we really are all one energy and must push through these issues that to me seem as if they need bringing to the light of day in order to show we can deal with them as a community, āinsideā or āoutsideā.
We also have to remember that people deal with people, and if people donāt get on thereās not much you can do to change that, itās not something that can be forced, but also not something you should hide in the background and ignore either.
The message was clear that I was kicked out because they have strong feelings about white people working in Africa. I had her put it in an email, which she softened the tone but you can tell it was total back-peddling. However, when reporting it up the chain, they did put in written form that they dont agree with āwhite saviorism.ā
the stereotype they maintain is known as the āDark Continentā stereotypeāthe belief that African societies are not capable of multiculturalism. That Africa is a place only for black peoplesāWhen in fact the continent is very diverse.
it was horrible when it happened and worse when I reported it and wasnāt taken seriously. What happened to believing people when they are victims of racism and exploitation? and now its in a public forum and still no response or engagement.
People of color (Iām Mexican and if you remember I brought a group of people of color to the Dev Camp) were excluded due to skin color and when it was reported no one believed those reporting and circled the wagons around those who committed the offense.
is anyone listening?
Yes, and eagerly awaiting some kind of response from someone else, because I agree, I donāt believe this would be a good way forward and unlike you although I love the idea of the technology, I cannot and will not support such raving lunacy as it seems completely opposite to the promoted intentions of the project.
But that would probably please them, ignoring is a well-used trait.
It would be good to hear the other side of the story though, as Iām sure anyone else reading this would like to know too, perhaps @bear or @dcatki or even @artbrock would be so kind as to comment, I find this highly disturbing.
Thanks!
In 2017 I interviewed Matt Shutte on my podcast. In the first quarter of 2018 I wrote a white paper of an energy use case using Holochain (seriously, who was writing Holochain white papers like that at that time?). My paper and efforts were ignored then and out came Red Gridāall white male team that never produced any electricity.
Why was Red Grid given special attention well after I presented my paper? Ohhh, again, their skin color matches the team and their worldview.
I hear you, but havenāt been involved in the interactions your referencing so canāt speak for the folks who were. Iāll look into it and find out more though.
