Connect! - Introduce yourself and your project

[MariaEuler]

The Overweb Challenge Community Space

What you can do here:

• Connect with other participants during the event to form teams.
• Discuss, present and develop your project.
• Reach a wider community of interested free spirits thinking and making a better internet.

How to get started? Tell us about yourself and your project if you have one

We welcome both short “business cards” and long entries but are especially excited to read longer stories of what brought you to this point and who you are and what your project is.

Just add your answers below and our community managers will take it from there!

[daveed]

I am Daveed Benjamin. I am the founder of Bridgit.io and Skōōl and the initiator of the Overweb. I am the de facto lead organizer of the challenge. I am working with a volunteer event manager. We could use some help in event organizing, social media, etc… Things are overall going well and we are excited about the possibilities. At the end of the challenge, we will be announcing some very cool developments that have come out of this event! I hope you can join us.

[daveed]

The Overweb Challenge is a little more than a week away and there are almost one hundred registrants. Edgeryders is providing a forum for participants to connect before, during, and after the conference.

If you have a team or are forming a team and are you are looking for members, reply here with the focus of the team and what you are looking for in terms of skills or expertise.

If you are wanting to join a team, reply with your skills, expertise, and/or interests here.

[daveed]

Hi all, I am Daveed of Bridgit.io. In the challenge, we are working on an opportunity with a UK based non profit to pilot our bridging technology to help prevent and mitigate false claims in the news during the first Post-Brexit UK Election in early May. This is a general election for Wales and Scotland as well as the election of the Mayor of London. It’s 20 Million people.

I am looking for team members that are interested in elections, misinformation, disinformation, and education.

[daveed]

Daveed again… I would be super excited if some Edgeryders were to form a team on smart Communities on the Overweb or some other topic related to the Edgeryders platform. I think that you would find the Overweb to be an amazing extension to your existing platform that could provide a layer of collaboration not possible on the 2D web.

I would be happy to assist and mentor if someone wants to organize.

It fits in with either the Digital Nation or the Overweb SDG Concept categories.

See all the categories here: https://www.theoverweb.com/categories

[johncoate]

I’m John Coate. I am one of 2 community managers here, but beyond that am looking forward to understand in more detail the Overweb.

My career in the Internet goes back 35 years to before there was an Internet per se. So I have seen a lot of improvement and frankly a lot of degradation. I think we are in a period now of not just questioning whether or not the 'Net has developed into what we all hoped it would be, but so many people trying to build products and services that embody the higher ideals that made it all possible. It did not start out as a winner-take-all scene loaded with monopolies, and to whatever extent it has become that, I like being part of efforts to reverse it.

[ivan]

Hi @daveed,

@daveed

In the challenge, we are working on an opportunity with a UK based non profit to pilot our bridging technology to help prevent and mitigate false claims in the news during the first Post-Brexit UK Election in early May. This is a general election for Wales and Scotland as well as the election of the Mayor of London.

Overweb looks like a very interesting project and certainly presents interesting concepts I look forward to learning more about it.

[matthew]

Hi all! Matthew here, with Citizen.Fact–A toolkit for connecting disparities in the information economy by providing a UI to easily access and contribute to the information ecosystem across otherwise disparate sources. We’re looking for some more team members!

Our goal during the Overweb challenge is to look at two value propositions: while the idea primarily takes the form of a platform (website) and possibly a desktop client or app for easier access and push notifications, the secondary product will be a behavior-change algorithm that encourages fact-finding and begins to undo the effect of the social-media behavior-changing algorithm towards apathy.

[concordis]

Tell us about yourself:
I’m a Maui developer and I see an information ecosystem in crisis. This crisis is creating a growing political crisis. Disinformation is everywhere. The American community has been split in two and then turned against one another in a classic and obvious “divide and conquer” dynamic. I’m here to try to provide a practical solution to this problem.

Tell us about your project:
Concordis.io is here to resolve our disinformation problem. Our problem is: the public cannot find consensus within our existing news and information ecosystem.

It doesn’t matter how many people are uncomfortable with a given controversial narrative, whether it be about vaccines, climate change, voter fraud, 9/11, or any other topic. It doesn’t matter how upset they are. And, it doesn’t matter how much time goes by. Instead, the public is always brought more and more into competing factions which then engage in ever-escalating power struggle with each other - for decades, these power struggles were political, but now they are more and more often physical.

An example: we have been presented for years with the competing narratives: “97% of climate scientists believe X.” / “No, they don’t.” There has not been a single step in that time towards meaningful consensus, so that we can address and resolve any problems that we may have around that topic. Concordis.io is here to crowdfund the resources necessary to, in this case, simply connect with the community of climate scientists and ask them what they believe. It’s this better kind of truth which Concordis.io is here to deliver.

Overweb Concept Category
Overweb Sensemaking Concept

[SuzieH]

Tell us about yourself:
Primarily an entrepreneur, I’ve been a filmmaker, business developer/owner, mother, passive home designer/builder, tantric sexuality educator/media personality ( I founded and ran the web site Tantra.com from 1995-2015 which included lots of free education, streaming video in an early iteration membership area and a large catalog with 315 products in stock - until Amazon killed that part off). I developed and built out two very early Roku and internet channels for our thirteen HD nature videos.
I have lived as one of the four partnerships in a nine household, rural intentional community for sixteen years. I’m also a gardener. And a good researcher. I’m working on my fourth book.
I’m the partner of Michael Heumann. He invented the software that powers Amazon’s rating and sorting software (as in where you find and sort reviews). He has developed a more advanced concept that has not been built out as of yet to sort fact from fiction in all media. It is crowdsourced, gets to the heart of the truth and best of all teaches discernment. There’s a 2:37 minute video here that explains it: http://truthfilter.com/index.html#home
In the 42 years we’ve been in cahoots we’ve been cultural documentary, travel and HD nature filmmakers. We have run video production businesses, Michael has been a teacher, software designer and an entrepreneur. I think he’ll make himself apparent here.

Tell us about your project:
http://truthfilter.com/index.html#home
Web overlay for crowdsourced pro/con (more like: EBRRS - Evidence Based Reliability Ranking Scale - nine levels that teach discernment) evaluation of any media on the web. Color coded/blended highlights in text with annotated sidebars that are noted by the EBRRS.
The goal is to get it functioning on a large media site. That’s also the challenge.
We would appreciate feedback and don’t hold yourself back please! Reality is appreciated!

Overweb Concept Category
Overweb False Claims Concept

[concordis]

Hello Suzie,

I looked at Truth Filter and I’d love to connect with you. Please check out my site and let’s talk:

https://concordis.io

I have a different take on some aspects of how to get the job done but there is a lot of overlap between what we want to bring forward.

[TruthFilter]

Tell us about yourself:
My name is Michael Heumann from Sebastopol Ca.
I am the founder of TruthFilter.com, KnowledgeCenter.com and WisdomPedia.org. I and my team have been working on methods for combining collective knowledge into reliable information resources since we founded KnowledgeFilter Inc. in 1999. We have 3 patents in the space, the first of which was granted in 2006 and now powers Amazon’s pro and con review system.


Tell us about your project:
Our latest project, TruthFilter, is a system and method for “Crowdsourcing the Truth” while teaching media literacy to a potential army of citizen fact-checkers. TruthFilter uses color coded annotated links to provide an instant visual readout on content reliability while allowing east access to sources of evidence. While our “corroboration engine” technology was originally developed for science and education, todays huge threat to our democracy posed by misinformation cries out for a major media player to launch a system like ours.
We are seeking a media alliance to take over our patent portfolio and build these initial ideas out at scale. For more information visit www.truthfilter.com and watch the 2 minute video on the top of the home page. (This video was produced almost 3 years ago and is more relevant now than it was then). Seeking feedback, ideas , and networking.

Overweb Concept Category
Overweb False Claims Concept

[SilviaElena]

Tell us about yourself:
I’m a full time social worker in the city and county of San Francisco, CA.

Tell us about your project:
I’m volunteering to help welcome people and find teams.

Overweb Concept Category
Overweb Dating Concept

[futurememe]

Tell us about yourself:
I am actually a normal guy who likes games and movies way to much. I also like to teach and build really cooooooooool stuff. Stuff that melts minds:) I consider myself an artist first and foremost though.

Tell us about your project:
Working on creating the first spatial OS. At it’s core it has a game engine, browser, apps, and social network. It will be open source, free, and power meta humans!! Just simply to troll for good and make my family and world a bit brighter. 2020 sucked we can all agree? Let’s fix stuff just for the sheer adventure and fun of it. Also we going super meta and shooting for making TEA. EARL GREY. HOT. a reality.

Overweb Concept Category
Overweb Game Concept

[MariaEuler]

Hello @matthew,

great to meet you!

Citizen.Fact sound very interesting would love to hear more about it. In connection to that maybe this project by another community member could be interesting for you: Introducing Oliver, WorldBrain.io, Memex and Storex, Democratising Knowledge

Great that you have such a clear goal for the Overweb Challenge with the website and desktop client.

How are you approaching this algorithm you are referring to?

@matthew

behavior-change algorithm that encourages fact-finding and begins to undo the effect of the social-media behavior-changing algorithm towards apathy.

@JollyOrc has been looking into how to break such bubbles but looked more at methods utilising human community management teams. (Social Media is broken, let's do better!).
What do you see as the key to your algorithm? What as the biggest challenge?

[Feri_87]

Tell us about yourself:
No problem

Tell us about your project:
Yes

Overweb Concept Category
Overweb Open Concept

[MariaEuler]

Welcome @concordis,

Thank you so much for the concrete example you give about the reported dissonance in scientific “consensus” about the climate crisis.

How are you going about this outreach to the community of climate scientists and how about sharing and spreading your findings afterwards?

A few months ago we tried out a webinar to connect interested people directly with data scientists and resources they developed to discuss Covid data and their interpretation. We are planning and iteration of “Masters of Networks” as a follow up for this in April. There we would like to combine those resources with our SSNA network visualisation method. (SSNA is what we use here to combine huge amounts of data with ethnographic qualitative research methods. A preliminary report can be found here: NGI Ethnography Preliminary Findings - October 2020)

Would you maybe be interested in participating in the Masters of Networks event?

[MariaEuler]

Welcome @SuzieH,

Great journey and diversity you are describing! You personally might enjoy this coulourful part of the wider community here: Blivande: Growing a sustainable ecosystem. House Blivande is a space in Stockholm that combines artists, Makers, coders and alternative explorations including a very alive Tantra workshop community in the “Noden”.

The truth filter sounds very interesting! How do you get at those pro-con evaluations?
I am sure many people here would love to hear more about

@SuzieH

EBRRS - Evidence Based Reliability Ranking Scale - nine levels that teach discernment) evaluation of any media on the web. Color coded/blended highlights in text with annotated sidebars that are noted by the EBRRS.

Could you maybe make a post about that, so people can respond and engage with it directly?

[JollyOrc]

@MariaEuler

@JollyOrc has been looking into how to break such bubbles but looked more at methods utilising human community management teams. (Social Media is broken, let’s do better!).
What do you see as the key to your algorithm? What as the biggest challenge?

In fighting words?

I think there should be no algorithm in social media. Us humans have more than enough methods and mechanisms to connect ourselves, even if there is no computer telling us who to like: We interact with and find each other in comment sections, by recommendations from friends, or because we visit the same party.

The assumption that we can create a neutral algorithm that fairly and effectively tells us whom to like and what content to watch is doomed to fail in my opinion.

Not because it is hard to write an algorithm that figures out what I like, but because it is hard, nay, impossible to write that algorithm so that it works for everyone, is bullet-proof against spammers and such, does not silence minorities and conforms to all the conflicting sets of ethics and propriety out there.

So, social media (that means: Tools to connect humans and that allows them to share day-to-day thoughts, ideas, and musings, the equivalent of the town square or pub counter) should not have algorithms. And I think it should also not be the arbiter of what is right or wrong information.

Tell us about yourself:
Hi, I’m Christian Buggedei, ornamental hermit and product person at polypoly.coop and the founder of darcy.is

Tell us about your project:
The one project tries to put all personal data back onto our devices and instead of having the data come to the algorithms, the algorithms should come to you!

The other project has the tagline “social, done proper” and hopes to eventually build a decentralised but safe and moderated online space.

Overweb Concept Category
I have no idea - I’ve just read about it!