Organising a workshop and makerspace // call with mariha

Exchange of ideas
1

Karrot chat with mariha

Date: 15.03.2023 10:30 CET
Participants: mariha, Nathalie, Vas
Facilitator: Nathalie
Minutes: Vas

  • check-in
    • how are you entering the call and what is your motivation for this call (no notes)
  • organisational
    • attendance
    • duration 45min
    • notes are taken and posted in Karrot Team & Feedback group (not forum) [ask for consent]
      • why not on the forum? that is going to be accessible to me [mariha] and to others. Would be able to justify the fork.
      • change the proposal to be posted on the Forum. So we all agree on that.
    • next call
      • not one planned atm.
  • ask for consent to agenda - consent
  • open questions towards ‘Request for (re)inclusion.’ [R]
    • round of questions and answers (if they are any)
      • [Vasilis]: no Q
      • [Nathalie]: Are the areas you don’t know how to act? Was the Karrot-team answer sufficient?
        • it was helpful to have a clearer situation. it was not possible to follow the rules. appreciate clarity of rules now. It is important that there is a point of reference to sth.
      • [mariha]: If I created an alternative space for Karrot would you be interested in joining?
        • [Nathalie]:I feel that I am already in the alternative space of foodsharing, I don’t know if I would be interested in going to this direction, I have some questions for my future so I’m not very interested.
        • [vas]: nice to think about a fork, alternatives have alternatives etc. not sure how much time I would have and if I’d engage. much energy put in Karrot, not sure if I want to step in another project. mental and time capacity. can’t say no or yes now.
  • use of Karrot for workshop place [E]
    • introduction from mariha
      • it has many layers/levels/angles
      • I have a cloud of thoughts
      • few perspectives:
        • described in open collective
        • have a space where I would make some tools available for ppl to do project, goal of that would be for ppl that want to socialise that is easier for them to do so instead of a cafe in a ‘makerspace’. Integration perspective: relations building. The world is very much globalised, global products and markets. In order to contradict that support forms of local production and craftsmanship. I think its I know already a lot to do, there are ppl around who know as well, have tools available, ppl who could pass on the skills. Create an ecosystem with ppl engaging with crafts/craftsmanship.
        • sharescreen where the offers tab is used for sharing designs/craft projects. Interested in offers.
        • 2 categories: gear to share (e.g. sewing machine, woodworking tools) and projects designs?
        • inspired by fablabs and the fablab network. Focus on digital manufacturing. My ideas is similar to that.
        • simpler tools/more appropriate technology
        • makes sense to separate toolsharing to foodsharing. One of the reasons that I feel having a fork is justified. I feel that I want to make some changes.
        • I would feel more independent if there is a fork. More comfortable for me to have a fork.
        • there is a place already for the local makerspace
        • Karrot software can give some coordination
    • Questions?
      • What changes would you make to current Karrot software?
        • there is a list with changes, don’t go into details now
    • round of reactions/ideas
      • Vas: likes idea of testing Karrot in a makerspace environment, facebook is not enough to coordinate, some experience on that, open to share thoughts on that and what technology could provide, really like the concept of ‘repurporise’ Karrot, interesting papers on technology and makerspaces to share
      • Nathalie: I get the idea, don’t have xp with makerspace, I do understand that you have the skills to make the changes on a code level. Limitations to development capacity in core team. Its not easy to make changes fast, and implement new changes. Main Karrot has (design) processes and we want to formalise them more. It makes sense to go on with this more independent fork.
      • mariha: how to name that new/other instance of Karrot? Happy to hear your ideas for names. Open invitation.
      • Nathalie: sharing a link to fork could be nice idea. get inspirations both ways.
  • check-out
2

Thanks again both of you for the call.

I hope I won’t sound too picky if I make two corrections/clarifications, I know it was quite chaotic what I said:

FabLabs are tools and skills sharing places focused on digital fabrication. I like the activity of making/crafting things and the idea of tools and skills sharing very much (what is similar to FabLabs), I wanted to move that idea to pre-industrial times + bicycles :wink: (which surprisingly for me were not invented earlier…) and focus on analog/mechanical/hand tools and manufacturing instead (what is different from FabLabs). In handicrafts there is different relation between a maker and the materials they use and the things they are doing. Digital fabrication is nice in the way of being creative but imho, it also creates too much of a distance from the material world (as any other digital and electronic technology do), and at least for myself I have a need to contradict that in order to keep some sort of a balance between both (digital and material) experiences. Digital fabrication also belongs to the world of mass production and global chains of supply which I am not very much interested in. I see it, actually, as one of the biggest issues of our times and I’d like to provide a space for efforts and people who build/maintain alternatives to it. There is more reasoning to that but I guess it’s already more then enough…

What is important to me in this perspective is that personal relation between the maker and the thing they are crafting and the relations between people who enjoy the process/activity of making - and this is a setting where it is easiest for them to socialize (I count myself in to that group of people).

Over time, there could be more then this one tools-sharing groups in a network similar to FabLabs network and the same as there are many food-sharing groups in Karrot.

Thanks for adding me courage, I don’t think I ever said anything like this though… I don’t have almost any experience with the technologies used in Karrot or even with general web development. I have some confidence that I can acquire them by myself, it’s mostly a matter of time (which is very limited) and my motivation to do it. I certainly wouldn’t mind getting some help if it was available…

To be precise, I didn’t want to make a fork of Karrot, but I wanted (and still do) to participate in this project as a code contributor (which got complicated and I admit my role in it). Even though I have not done any significant coding for a few years now, part of me still identifies as a software engineer and being reduced to the role of a [no offense to people who have no coding skills] mere user of an open source project feels quite limiting to me. Here’s where the need for a fork comes from. The extra freedom it gives may also be nice, I wouldn’t mind to collaborate in a more formalized and participatory design process though, I would probably enjoy it. The whole idea is aligned with generalized Karrot, as I understand it. It makes sense to separate the domains of food-sharing and tools-sharing into two instances, they both rely on self-organized groups of people and core of the functionalities is the same so the need for a fork is not that strong as a need for a separate instance.

Ideas for the name of tools-sharing instance would be very welcome!

I’ll follow with the changes I wanted to make.

3

Thanks for clarifying those points!

I do understand where you coming from. Still, I want to point out that if for some reason the fork idea is not working out, you can use a Karrot group on https://karrot.world/ just like it is (being a user :wink: ). Wanting to emphasize that contributing and using are two different levels.

Anyway, hope this workshop idea of yours goes well!

4

Slowly moving forward…

Thanks for offering this. My ability to participate here seems to me too much on someone’s else mercy (or luck of it) to host a group on your instance. I would like to rebuild the one I had - but in a different place.

Moreover, text communication is too ambigous for me to be limited to discuss serious things this way only, I would need more direct conversation about the rules of my participation and it seems not available to me.

On the call I said my motivation was to make friends with you - it was only partially true; it was too humiliating for me to say that I hoped by having a direct chat with me you’ll recognize there is actually a human being on the other side of the text conversations you are having with me. I don’t feel like I succeeded at this.

Again, I blame text messaging for our inability to communicate and I’ve found it to be very inefficient to discuss things this way so I’ll just skip any attempts to further explain myself here. I am always happy to discuss in a more direct conversation.

As for now, I reserved https://karrot.community and https://commons.rocks domains and I plan to run Human Rights respecting instance of Karrot there. It will be different from the main instance by the membership review process (which I believe is a source of structural/systemic violance).

Hopefully, over time it will evolve to https://crafts.community or https://lowtech.community or something similar, at the beginning though I’d prefer to keep it more general purpose.

This raises a question of reusing Karrot symbols (the name and the logo) on the new instance.

Historically, individuals and communities on exile reused their “motherland” symbols and I do identify with them [the symbols and the banished by establishments ones too], so I would just keep them [the symbols] as they are. It is mainly for the conveniance of minimizing the efforts on my side, although I do realize it may be a bit confusing for people from the outside… and possibly annoying for you. I see it as a stage in the separation process, as it’s just a lot of effort to do everything by myself. I also greatly, greatly appreciate your work! I do regret not being able to collaborate with you (to say it once again).

5

Isn’t the whole point of a fork to differ from the main project? I’ll find it extremely confusing if you use https://karrot.community/ domain and also the logo. From a legal perspective, I don’t think any of it is protected, but I would hope this isn’t a legal matter. In the end it is something different from Karrot that you’ll be running, so please choose another name.

6

There is an open issue (#2) to design a new logo and other symbols for commons.rocks domain, your contributions are welcome. I’d also hope to leave karrot.community behind as soon as possible.

The aim of the new instance is to provide a safe space for the group I once had on the primal instance - safe for all of it’s members and for the group itself - where unexpected, arbitrary exclusions does not happen. You can read more about how it will be different in the description of the repo and in the issue #1 (it’s still in a draft phase).

EDIT: We don’t talk too often, and I realized this has changed since we did it last time. I have a bit more clarity about the need for the fork now. Earlier I thought mostly about how hard it would be to move a community from one place to another, which is still a valid reason, but there is also my inability to contribute / limited participation here.

(there are two different topics here: separation of domains (instances, users’ communities) and separation of code repositories (a fork, contributors’ communities), which seem to get intermixed in the discussions sometimes)