#Tag
Because the web, and the world, needs a working example of what trust-based, open, collective media can be again.
We’ve tried the #dotcons way, and it’s killing both truth and community.
History isn’t something that happens to us; it’s something we make — or lose — together.
Right now, the same forces that buried our earlier waves — the #NGOs the “professionalisers,” the #dotcons — are at it again, turning commons into brands, movements into products. The #OMN is our refusal of that — a collective act of remembering and re-rooting, bringing back working practices and paths that actually functioned: open process, transparent code, affinity-based governance, and shared care for the commons.
Every generation inherits not just tools and systems, but narratives — who we think we are, what we believe possible. The #OMN project isn’t just technical; they are acts of imagination — working proof that people can build their own networks of trust and meaning outside of state and corporate control.
Because the web, and the world, needs a working example of what trust-based, open, collective media can be again.
We’ve tried the #dotcons way, and it’s killing both truth and community.
The #OMN, #OGB, and the #indymediaback reboot aren’t nostalgia — they’re the next generation of the commons defending itself.
Most digital projects today, even the “good” ones, are built on dependency — on funding cycles, closed standards, and hidden hierarchies. #OMN breaks that by building around the #4opens (open data, open code, open standards, open process). This isn’t just a technical stance — it’s the foundation for trust, for real community autonomy.
#OMN and its projects represent one of the few remaining native paths to rebuild a free, trustworthy, and cooperative grassroots #openweb — from the ground up, not from the boardroom down. In a time when every #dotcons platform, #NGO, and state initiative wants to manage people into compliance, #OMN offers the opposite: a framework where people manage themselves through open code, shared trust, and transparent governance.
Trust is the foundation of moderation in decentralised networks like the #OMN This is how moderation works in a decentralised network, not by pretending we’re neutral, but by showing up with care and accountability. https://hamishcampbell.com/trust-is-the-foundation-of-moderation-in-decentralised-networks-like-the-omn/
Trust is the foundation of moderation in decentralised networks like the #OMN This is how moderation works in a decentralised network, not by pretending we’re neutral, but by showing up with care and accountability. https://hamishcampbell.com/trust-is-the-foundation-of-moderation-in-decentralised-networks-like-the-omn/
These are likely the same people who pushed #blockchain, they need to be sacked for incompetence #KISS
I am drafting the technical view of the #OMN and its projects to work on https://unite.openworlds.info/Open-Media-Network/Open-Media-Network/wiki/Technical-Overview-%28engineering-focus%29
The #fashernista crew take and dispoal anything that starts to grow in the alt.
That’s the pattern: spot the spark, capture it, smooth the edges, and sell it back as lifestyle.
They move fast - faster than we do - and by the time you notice, what was radical has been turned into content, branding, and funding portfolios.
If you’re working on something that matters, an alt tech project, a grassroots network, a commons, mediation before they move in.
Defend your work, your world, and your dreams before they’re commodified into polite irrelevance.
Because make no mistake, it’s happening to something you care about right now.
#Indymedia Reboot: Remembering Our Roots
It’s good to remind ourselves that what we’re doing is not starting something new, but rebooting an existing project - Indymedia - as it was before being ripped apart by competing agendas and external pressures.
We already have the processes and working practices agreed upon from those early, strong years. The core idea is simple and enduring: wherever we face a choice between open and closed, we build a switch — On / Off / Moderate. We do not force one single way of being; instead, we choose a default and leave it to the trust or affinity groups who run each instance to decide where to set their switches.
The foundation project, the Open Media Network ( #OMN), and the example instance we’re rebooting as Indymedia, both stand firmly on two shared roots:
the #4opens — open data, open process, open source, open access
And the PGA (Peoples Global Action) hallmarks — horizontalism, direct democracy, and solidarity across struggles.
Together, these give us a simple, low-politics mission: To rebuild the grassroots media commons where people can publish, share, and collaborate.
This is about trust-based infrastructure - composting the old conflicts, avoiding the #NGO-style traps, and growing something alive again.
Talking to Our Left Friends
We need to have an honest conversation with our left friends.
Keep this simple:
Fear / control → right-wing
Trust / open → left-wing
That’s #KISS, everything else is noise.
To understand why we’re in such a mess, look at the loop we’ve been trapped in:
Fear of the right feeding a right-wing agenda to fight the right - which only feeds the fear.
That’s the mess of today’s politics. We’ve been running on it for decades, and it’s burning everything.
So ask yourself - look at your actions, your projects, your compromises over the last 10 years - Where is the left?
When did we stop building on trust?
When did we start mirroring the very control we said we were resisting?
It’s time to come back to first principles — trust, openness, and shared struggle.
If we can’t live them, we can’t build them.
The #fashernista crew take and dispoal anything that starts to grow in the alt.
That’s the pattern: spot the spark, capture it, smooth the edges, and sell it back as lifestyle.
They move fast - faster than we do - and by the time you notice, what was radical has been turned into content, branding, and funding portfolios.
If you’re working on something that matters, an alt tech project, a grassroots network, a commons, mediation before they move in.
Defend your work, your world, and your dreams before they’re commodified into polite irrelevance.
Because make no mistake, it’s happening to something you care about right now.
Talking to Our Left Friends
We need to have an honest conversation with our left friends.
Keep this simple:
Fear / control → right-wing
Trust / open → left-wing
That’s #KISS, everything else is noise.
To understand why we’re in such a mess, look at the loop we’ve been trapped in:
Fear of the right feeding a right-wing agenda to fight the right - which only feeds the fear.
That’s the mess of today’s politics. We’ve been running on it for decades, and it’s burning everything.
So ask yourself - look at your actions, your projects, your compromises over the last 10 years - Where is the left?
When did we stop building on trust?
When did we start mirroring the very control we said we were resisting?
It’s time to come back to first principles — trust, openness, and shared struggle.
If we can’t live them, we can’t build them.
#Indymedia Reboot: Remembering Our Roots
It’s good to remind ourselves that what we’re doing is not starting something new, but rebooting an existing project - Indymedia - as it was before being ripped apart by competing agendas and external pressures.
We already have the processes and working practices agreed upon from those early, strong years. The core idea is simple and enduring: wherever we face a choice between open and closed, we build a switch — On / Off / Moderate. We do not force one single way of being; instead, we choose a default and leave it to the trust or affinity groups who run each instance to decide where to set their switches.
The foundation project, the Open Media Network ( #OMN), and the example instance we’re rebooting as Indymedia, both stand firmly on two shared roots:
the #4opens — open data, open process, open source, open access
And the PGA (Peoples Global Action) hallmarks — horizontalism, direct democracy, and solidarity across struggles.
Together, these give us a simple, low-politics mission: To rebuild the grassroots media commons where people can publish, share, and collaborate.
This is about trust-based infrastructure - composting the old conflicts, avoiding the #NGO-style traps, and growing something alive again.
A space for Bonfire maintainers and contributors to communicate
