Today I joined the OSM Foundation. I think I must be on an organisation-joining spree, what with paying my dues to WMUK last month. It’s just a matter of showing support though, and wanting to give a tiny bit to the groovy people who enable my various geeky hobbies.
It really matters, I think, that there are organisations like this, working for the general good of all people.
OSM needs new machines to “serve the planet”.
OpenStreetMap is run and supported by volunteers like you. With more and more people helping to make great maps, we need bigger and faster servers to keep up with the demand. If you enjoy using or contributing to OpenStreetMap, please consider making a donation.
Today I joined Wikimedia Australia.
I am trying to get my head around all of the various places that Fremantle features (regularly, topically) on the Web. I want to figure out where the Fremantle Society’s website fits in, and what it might be used for (what might be missing from elsewhere).
So I started from the outside, yesterday, and moved inwards…
Wikipedia, a first port of call for general info about anywhere, gives a reasonable overview to Freo from an outsider’s perspective. The Fremantle category has the subcategories show in the graph at right (which comes from the catgraph tool by User:Dapete). Obviously, this categorisation isn’t complete, and needs to be improved to reflect what’s actually important in Freo. (More on this later…)
I got my information about these plans from the presentation that Jen Valesini (Coordinator of the Fremantle Volunteer Service; is that right? perhaps not; anyway, she was part of the Precinct Review) gave to last week’s Freo Society meeting; and the Precinct Group Report.
There’s more to be looked at, but in a general sense I think there is room for a ‘reference’ website about Fremantle. An open site for the stories and detail of Freo, rather like Wikipedia but with ‘non-notable’ topics permitted (not notable in a global perspective, that is). Somewhere that will record, preserve, and make available the minutiae of what goes on here. Is the Freo Society the best organisation to provide this? I don’t know. I’m talking about something more than just the straight ‘history’ of the City (for that one might say that the Local History Centre would be the best coordinator). This would be a site that accepts photos of caravans on South Beach in the ’40s as well as contemporary cafe reviews. It would have a comprehensive calendar of events, and essays on life in Fremantle…
Perhaps I’m getting a bit carried away. Certainly it’s time to stop writing, and head down to Kulcha….
A big audience this evening for Richard Stallman at the Hyatt in Perth: a sharp divide between the suits and the t-shirts. RMS does not seem to quite gel with the ACS! In fact, David Clarke, in introducing him, said that he had no idea that the talk would be of interest to so many people.
I came away this evening encouraged about Free software, and inspired to continue to care about the issues involved — but also rather disheartened at the conservatism of the ICT sector (although it might just be Perth; it certainly wasn’t so strong in the Canberra ACS). I sat next to a chap who didn’t even want to clap at the end.
One last note: I love RMS’s rebuttal to so many questions put to him tonight: “I don’t know what you mean by that; that doesn’t even make any sense!”
The documenting of how we live, where we live, what we do — that’s what I’m interested in. And it’s a waste of time, really, in that it doesn’t contribute to any of those things (oh, of course that’s simplifying it too much; oh well). It’s also necessary to live, to be of the world, to construct and do.
Being an observer is quite entertaining in its own right. Sitting, looking, writing; it’s a nice enough way to pass the time. I used to do it, alone and with fountain pen and Moleskine, on a street corner; that was good, but around 2001 I found this whole world of people doing and thinking similar things with ‘description’, out here on the web. Such excitement to be found in this throng! So now, I work at documenting and recording, editing wikis and building catalogues — not failing to recognise the recursive, self-modifying way that these activities impact how they’re done, but still aiming at something called ‘neutrality’, or ‘objectivity’ — and slowly watching things take shape. I’d give up, convince myself that this is actually stupid, if it weren’t for the many other people — the bloggers, Wikipedians, urbexers, hipsters — working in a similar vein. It’s the community, engaged with or not, that makes it worth it. (You should, of course, laugh at me for saying this; it’s cliqué and daftness, I know.)
But that’s not always enough, so I step back from the digital agglomeration: being an observer is exhausting, and seems to dull one’s concern about how one’s own life is lead. So, making steps in, for me, and I sew and work wood and brew beer and bake bread; worldly things, bringing sanity.
Anyway, I’m just once again trying to muddle through this dicotomy, and what I say probably isn’t quite on the mark. Unfortunately, the more I think about it, the less I can see a way through; probably not unpredictable, that. Oh well.