[Battlemesh] RFC: A mesh project proposal

[Rory Solomon]

Dear Battlemesh friends,

I write to solicit feedback about a project I am starting which will gather
together a repository of mesh projects, activities, and people into an open
access database. I'm conceiving of this as two subprojects.

– Subproject 1: A database in some form, operated in a "crowd-sourced" mode
in which everyone is welcome to submit entries for themselves or others,
and I (working with a research assistant) will moderate to ensure some
consistent quality of information in accordance with guidelines that I'd
like to establish with feedback from this community. I can commit to
hosting this, but I would be open to moving hosting to community-supported
infrastructure if such a thing were possible. I will maintain the database
in an open access mode online for anyone to use for any project.

– As an example of one such usage, I am also working on Subproject 2: a
data visualization that I am developing for release in concert with a book
on mesh that I hope to have published within the next 2-3 years. The data
visualization would draw selectively from the database to present certain
entries in relation to concepts from my book. This would be a personal
project, not subject to oversight from the community, although I would
certainly warmly welcome any feedback and comments. I would invite (and
even to a degree support) other folks working on similar such projects that
would draw from the database.

So far we are just collecting everything in a spreadsheet, and trying to
think about what kind of taxonomy / data model would be most appropriate
for representing all of these examples. We're collecting everything from
community network projects, to protocols and other software, as well as
hardware projects, and even individual people.

I present this here with 3 questions at the moment:

(1) Is this an appropriate forum for me to communicate with you all about
this? I'm not sure how active this mailing list is anymore and whether
there may be many more folks in the community now who are not on this list.
As I mentioned, I write to solicit feedback about any of the above, and at
some point would even like to host a workshop or discussion where others
might offer comments about things like: procedures, data models,
appropriate technologies for hosting, data & privacy, or any other
concerns. I saw that there was some mention of this at WBMv15 (
https://pad.cas.cat/WBMv15 – thanks, Paul!). Perhaps we could host such a
conversation at a future Battlemesh, though I plan to complete much work on
this before then.

(2) Is anyone aware of prior work that partly or fully achieves similar
goals?

(3) Would anyone like to be involved either by contributing information &
entries, or in some other capacity? As I've described, for me this is a mix
of a community and a personal project, but I do hope that the community
component can genuinely be so: a product of collective endeavor from
Battlemesh folks, and mesh network enthusiasts more widely.

Thank you kindly for reading and I look forward to any comments!

Kind regards,
Rory

--
*RORY SOLOMON, PhD* (he / him)
*ASSISTANT PROFESSOR*
*DIRECTOR OF CODE AS A LIBERAL ART*
EUGENE LANG COLLEGE
DEPARTMENT OF CULTURE & MEDIA
79 5th AVENUE, ROOM 532, NEW YORK, NY 10011
solomonr at newschool.edu | 646.229.2497 | @rorys <http://twitter.com/rorys>
[image: The New School]
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