[Battlemesh] RFC: A mesh project proposal

[Leonardo Maccari]

On 09/11/23 20:41, Rory Solomon via Battlemesh wrote:
> Dear Battlemesh friends,
>

Hello Rory

> 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.

These are some sources you might want to dig into:
  - the netcommons.eu project has tons of material that I think you may 
be interested to. Here you find the deliverables [1]. If you are 
interested in the organizational part of CNs, check out WP1, there is an 
effort in trying to categorize them.
  - Before (and during) netCommons there were other research projects on 
the theme, like Clommunity, the already mentioned CONFINE, or RIFE, you 
can find them in the related projects link in the netCommons website. If 
some of them are not on-line anymore, I (or other people here) may have 
contacts to people that were involved.
  - I am sure you know APC has activities on CNs [2]. They even 
dedicated a whole GISWATCH to the topic in 2018 [3] that contains a list 
and discussion of CN experiences
  - This is a forum where people discuss about CNs: 
https://communitynetworks.group

I have been doing research on and with CNs for quite some time, and I'm 
happy to help if needed

Cheers,
Leonardo.


[1] https://netcommons.eu/index.html%3Fq=content%252Fdeliverables-page.html
[2] 
https://www.apc.org/en/project/connecting-unconnected-supporting-community-networks-and-other-community-based-connectivity
[3] https://www.giswatch.org/2018-community-networks

>
> 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>
> The New School
>
> _______________________________________________
> Battlemesh mailing list
> Battlemesh at ml.ninux.org
> https://ml.ninux.org/mailman/listinfo/battlemesh