If you are in the greater or lesser NYC area, there is a conference on IP and circulation that has a pretty nifty line-up as well as a international perspective. If you are in the Montreal area, IP reformer James Love will be giving a talk “NGO efforts to reform the World Intellectual Property Organization and there is a semester long series (almost over) sponsored by the Columbia Society Fellows on IP with a fantastic line-up

Memefactory! :

What do you get when you combine a lecture, vaudeville and Double Dare? Memefactory! Three gentlemen with five computers and three projectors take the audience on a fast-paced, whirlwind tour of every major Internet meme, famous piece of Internet media and YouTube footage imaginable. The modus is not depth, but breadth, and constant audience participation is required. Over the course of the evening, the audience will produce an entry for every internet phenomenon possible, including but not limited to: LOLCats, Bouncing GIFs, Me Singing [blank], Reaction Videos, Folk Covers of Hip Hop Classics, FAILs, Redubbed music videos, and more. Some will become famous like Boxxy, most will drink beers and a brave few will be nude.

The more stuff like this happens, the harder it will be to pass this stuff.

Expectations:

A little over a week ago I participated in a camp/event/conference/ that threw together 12 different networked based-groups/phenomenon/organizations. They got to do what many often can’t do: spend some time working face-to-face as well as thinking about about questions of un(organizational) growth/ungrowth. Some of us spent some time learning about the nature of networked coordinations and organizations from these groups. There is a lot I could write about but, in part because I was in Amsterdam for a week, I am now playing serious catch up, but there are a few things that really struck me both of which relate to expectations, which I thought worth jotting down.

Generally present were the following types of groups: open source projects (such as Blender), tech-oriented activist projects (Dyne), non-tech oriented projects (such as Free Dimensional), artistic-tech projects (such as GOTO10), artistic projects (Upgrade), academic-activist (Edu Factory) and others which are harder to classify (such as Gender Changes, and FLOSS Manuals).

One thing that came out during the plenary sessions, which is when we got together as a large group to debate and discuss, is that technically oriented open source projects are at times singled out for not being “inclusive.” That is, people pointed out that most projects expect you to contribute technically in order to participate (and don’t necessarily offer people the training/capacity so you can participate). I have heard a version of this many many and many times before and find it to be a curious (and generally unproductive) accusation, though I understand why the confusions arises.

I say confusion because most of these projects are not overtly set up to be inclusive/technically pedagogical, and this is perhaps the key point —they don’t purport to be though many folks think this is part of their overall message/mission. Because these free software projects are open source, this, for some, somehow automatically translates into the political projects of inclusivity (that is, training folks so that they can become part of this world). And yet some other projects, such as Edu Factory and GoTo10, which are run as tight-knit of collectives, are rarely accused of not being inclusive. Why should this be?

I raise this mostly because I find it interesting, pointing to the way certain terms or phrases (Freedom, Openness) combined with the visibility of FLOSS projects, automatically generate other expectations and meanings even if they don’t actually exist. I also raise it because I think it is an unfair expectation to have of these communities only in so far as most of them are full of folks busy hacking up technology and this in and of itself, as I have written about before is worthwhile politically. And yet If one wants to make them more inclusive, then one can go ahead and bring into being such a project for most of them are quite open to various initiatives to enlarge the scope of participation. These projects can be internal to projects or external to them. That is, self-initiative goes a long way in this world, and has helped changed the terrain of participation and inclusivity and I am sure will continue to do so.

Which brings me to my second point about expectations. Many people complain that open source is not easy to use. While this was entirely, 1000% true prior to 1998, every passing day makes this statement harder to stand by. I imagine in another 10 years, there will be many many programs that are as usable for the novice user as proprietary software. They had to play serious catch-up and I think have done a decent job. In some regards, all that was and is needed is time because time has already shown that usability has improved leaps and bounds. And yet there is still something odd about the accusations, which my friend tulpje but in the following way “One would never accuse the Zapatistas for not having their military might/shit together like the US army, so why accuse open source for not being the mightiest software our there?) While I actually think that free software has already and will continue to give proprietary firms a run for their money in a way that a rag-tag guerrilla army can’t do with a national army, it is nonetheless important to couch one’s responses and accusations in terms of the constraints and realities of these projects.

That said, I still think such expectations reflect important hopes and desires. They show us just how profoundly free software/open source has, simply by virtue of its existence, inspired many to follow suite politically, turning to FLOSS as a beacon of possibility.

I have a long list (it exists only in my head unfortunately) of various ethnographic projects I would like to conduct. I might start the real list soon but in the meantime, I will just through the half-baked ideas here and perhaps it will inspire others to take it on. I am currently reading a fantastic book, The Case Against Perfection, and am on a section on hyperparenting and well, while I think at a common sense level we know what psychological havoc such controlled parenting can cause, I think an ethnography of some of the practices and institutions of hyperparenting would, nonetheless, make for a fascinating read. If anyone knows of anything that even resembles this, do drop me a line.

Update: Not exactly an ethnography but certainly fun to read.

Copyright Digital Slider and the Spinner

As an die hard anthropologist, I never thought I would cavort so much with legal types. But given the nature of my project, it is pretty much impossible to avoid. Thankfully, the legal crowd dealing with digital issues, is pretty entertaining, interesting, and fun to listen to. And probably one of my favorite legal thinkers is coming to NYU to give a talk this coming Monday. If you are into this sort of thing and have not heard FVL speak, do make the time to join.

The title of this book makes me realize how much a good and catchy title matters for a book. This one really caught my attention as I am fond of both irony and technics. Never thought of putting them together but someone surely has and it sounds like he has written a pretty nifty philosophical book on technology.

In this age of bits and bytes, there are many virtual organizations and networks which produce all sorts of stuff we use on a daily basis. My two favorite institutions are Debian (not a surprise) and Wikipedia, not just because they oh-so-useful to me and many others, which they are, but because the social organizations behind these two entities are so (at times maddeningly) complex and full of nuance, they provide for endless analytical fascination.

One of my friends, Joe Reagle, who has recently graduated from my home department, is presenting is work on Wikipedia and I thought some local New York geeks might be interested. Information below:

All welcome

4:30 – 6:00 PM, Tuesday February 17
206 Vanderbilt Hall, 40 Wash. Sq. So.

Wikipedia: Nazis and Norms

Joseph Reagle, NYU Department of Media, Culture, and Communication

Abstract: In 1990 Mike Godwin coined his “Law of Nazi Analogies” to capture the common devolution of Usenet discourse into insulting comparisons with Nazis or Hitler. Eleven years later, Jimmy Wales wrote that it was important that the Wikipedia community “preserve and extend our culture of co-operation, with all of us standing as firmly as possible against the culture of conflict embodied in Usenet.” I argue Wikipedia is a realization — even if flawed — of a long-held vision for a universal encyclopedia: a technology inspired vision seeking to wed increased access to information with greater human accord. And I claim Wikipedia’s collaborative culture is a big factor for this success: the norms of “Neutral Point of View” ensures that the scattered pieces of what we think we know can be joined and good faith facilitates the actual practice of fitting them together.

In the next 11 months, I will be spending a significant amount of brain power and time writing a fairly long review article on digital media and ethnography which will assess the state of the literature and various trends. Since my expertise certainly lies in the west or global questions. I will be immersing myself in the literature that looks at various international, national, and regional contexts, which is exciting. It is nice to leave the well trodden path and venture into new lands.

There is a handy new site related to this topic, which some of you might be interested in: New Media Practices in International Contexts Blog Series. The entries are less blog-like and more article-like but that is was makes them great resources.