[HacktionLab] Summary of decisions and actions from Manchester meeting

Adelayde Skidmore adelayde at riseup.net
Sun Sep 25 16:45:14 UTC 2011


Hi All,

Here is my own personal summary of the decisions and actions from the
Manchester gathering taken from the full minutes that are online at
http://hacktivista.net/hacktionlab/index.php/Hacktionlab_Manchester_2011_Notes


1.  We opened by introducing ourselves and the various projects we're
involved in, as well as running through a brief history of HacktionLab.


2.  We then discussed how we interact and stay in touch, what works and
what doesn't.  The salient points were:

* we agreed that we all need to engage in se.lf-promotion of all
projects and cross-linking between them wherever possible.

* we proposed that we ought to include propaganda for all projects as an
introductory message for new accounts and users of any of the projects.
 So for example when a user signs up to Aktivix or Network23, then they
are informed about all the other sibling projects.

* we proposed that all projects should use the resources provided by
other projects.  In that projects use N23 for blogging, Aktivix for
mailing lists, HacktionLab for event production and promoting gatherings.

* we discussed whether Jabber, indy.im or diaspora could be used to
improve communications, but agreed that the mailing lists were also very
effective for most things, and that, at least for HacktionLab, Crabgrass
did not cut the mustard.


3.  Version 2 of Tech Tools for Activists.

* Ben G proposed himself as the co-ordinator of the next edition, this
was seconded and agreed by all.  Ben G is now responsible for moving
this forward.

* Beth and Becky have put themselves forward for proof reading, a friend
of Mike's might be suitable for copy writing.

* We discussed changing the title, but this was not decided upon at the
meeting.

* We agreed to continue to use Booki.cc for co-writing the booklet in a
group, with the option of importing into Scribus for final lay-up and
printing: this is now Ben's call as the co-ordinator.

* We discussed possible new content and agreed that all content would be
finalised by Noël.

* Simon from Mute suggested that we consider print-on-demand services
for the next edition, and the possibility of getting an ISBN for it: he
proposed that he look in to this and get back to HL nearer the time of
printing.

* We felt that we really ought to try to get people to pay up for the
booklet, as the voluntary donations hadn't come in.

* Mike agreed that he'd arrange for the rest of the remaining booklets
(some 150-200) to be delivered to Simon at Mute to go to the London
Anarchist Bookfair (22nd October).  Several people at the meeting said
they'd be at the bookfair and were interested in having booklets for
stalls and to hand out.


4. HacktionLab on the road

* The general feeling was that we may give BarnCamp a miss for 2012 in
order to do other stuff.  Certainly BenG, Becky and Mike are not up for
organising it next year.  No one has currently stepped forward to
organise next year's in their stead.

* We proposed that we work on a set of workshops as proposed but that
these correspond to the content of the booklet, which in turn is also
backup up my more indepth content on the HacktionLab web site: this will
provide more coherency and reduce work.

* People felt that it would be good to have the workshops ready as soon
as possible to use by anyone in the network.

* We agreed that single workshops within existing events, especially
urban-based ones, was a good and sustainable way forward.

* We proposed that we do perhaps two festivals next year.  It was
discussed to do Sunrise as a full-scale affair as takes place near to
when BarnCamp would.  We also discussed the possibility of doing a light
version of just the workshops in collaboration with other people at
possible Boomtown, the Green Gathering or Shambala.  We agreed to take
the festivals idea forward to be discussed in Bradford in January.

* There was an unresolved discussion regarding what we'd call ourselves
when doing the on-the-road shows.  Would we be under the HacktionLab
banner or that of one of the other projects.  It was commented that in
the past we'd done similar spaces under whatever name seemed appropriate
at the time.  It was agreed that in a shared workshop/presentation
space, each project should be mentioned and billed as itself, and that
we would choose a name for the space suitable for the event we were
doing perhaps on a per-event basis.


5. Be the Media

* We did some work on the site, rolling out some features from staging
to live.

* We agreed that a coding sprint on Be The Media would be good to have,
but as few of this collective's members were at hacktionlab we couldn't
make a decision on that.


6. Catalyst Radio

* There have been some streaming server issues that need to be worked on.

* We discussed using server-side automation to deal with some of the
more tedious admin asks.

* We discussed how it would be good to migrate to a new web site
platform that could be supported by more people. Therefore we could use
the Drupal BeTheMedia codebase to roll out a replacement site fairly
quickly. Converting the widgets would be fairly quick. Mick said he was
up for co-ordinating the migration and has time up to November, and the
group will discuss what can be done in this respect. Others expressed
the possibility of helping with that. The designer could start doing
this skinning based on Drupal.

* Catalyst will be at the London Bookfair dong streaming and recording.

* There will be a Catalyst Radio gathering at LARC on the 26/27 November.


7. Unspeak.im

* John C demonstrated his work on this project and agreed to post his
PDF notes to the Wiki/list when they are ready.  We discussed the
possibility of a bigger workshop on this project in Bradford in January.


8. HacktionLab web site and promotion

*  Mike proposed a new front-end HacktionLab web site in Drupal to be
more user friendly, with the Wiki moved to a sub page.  This was agreed
and Mike and Graham will investigate this, come up with a prototype and
feed back to the list.

*  We proposed that each of the collectives involved in the network
should produce a short biog and logo that can be used on the HacktionLab
web site and all other projects' web sites.  Simon agreed to get info
from other tech collectives in order to better promote them (see groups
section at top of page). The info we proposed each collective provide is:

 - Logos in square, banner and icon formats
 - A 100 word description of the project.
 - A list of services provided.


9. Next HacktionLab

We discussed JimDog's proposal to hold HacktionLab in Bradford in
January and agreed the weekends of either 14/15 or 21/22.  This was fed
back to JimDog who is looking to book it and confirm.


End of notes.



More information about the HacktionLab mailing list