[HacktionLab] Fwd: FLOSS Manuals is 20 Years old today! Let's celebrate.

Mon Jun 1 15:56:31 UTC 2026

Shall we perhaps make some HacktionLab/TTFA t-shirts?

M

On 01/06/2026 15:24, m3shrom wrote:
>
> Hi there,
>
> This rather long post below by me is worth sharing if only for the 
> link to the original of this ole house (not Shakin' Stevens!)
>
> But if you want to join for 1 month of discussion future of community 
> documentation (or at least flossmanuals) you can join here.
> http://lists.flossmanuals.org.uk/listinfo.cgi/community-flossmanuals.org.uk
>
> I would actually like to collaborative an mimimal update to 
> https://archive.flossmanuals.org.uk/tech-tools-for-activism/ - perhaps 
> we can table that for Nottingham?
>
> And can I just say how fooking right we were about being farmed! Can 
> we get a T shirt?
>
>
> nice one
> Mick
> -------- Forwarded Message --------
> Subject: 	FLOSS Manuals is 20 Years old today! Let's celebrate.
> Date: 	Mon, 1 Jun 2026 15:12:43 +0100
> From: 	Mick Fuzz <mickfuzz23 at gmail.com>
> To: 	community at lists.flossmanuals.org.uk
>
>
>
> Hello friends, it's Mick here from Floss Manuals.
>
> Floss Manuals is 20 years old today. We've chosen the 1st of June as 
> our celebration date because it's the first time the project was 
> captured by the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine. Although I got in 
> touch with Adam Hyde our founder and he said it was actually Feb :)
>
> Over the last few months, me, Martin Kean and Helen Varley Jamieson 
> have been working on improvements and updates to the Floss Manuals 
> community infrastructure. We'd like to use this anniversary as the 
> starting point for a month of community activity to help reboot the 
> network.
>
> The process of writing my PhD using open documentation tools, I think, 
> could align with a new direction for Floss Manuals, which is, to me, 
> to take the plunge and move towards writing with static websites and 
> Git instead of a centrally managed, specialised content management 
> system as we have used before.
>
> This move is also practical. For several years the French Floss 
> Manuals community generously took on the task of running Booktype on 
> behalf of the wider project, including the English-language community, 
> and I'd like to thank them for that work. They took the decision to 
> stop maintaining the platform in April 2024, which was entirely 
> understandable. Since then, the project has effectively been on hold.
>
> The overhead of running and maintaining systems such as Booki and 
> Booktype has become increasingly difficult to sustain after Floss 
> Manuals became a volunteer-run project. Moving towards static websites 
> and Git may offer a more sustainable path forward.
>
> As part of this post I'm also including a link to a song called /This 
> Old House/. Some people in the UK will know it as a Shakin' Stevens 
> song, but I prefer the original version. 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WhLhF12TBE - check the lyrics, it's a 
> bit darker than Shakie's take.
>
> Being involved with Floss Manuals has sometimes felt a bit like 
> looking after an old house. There have been things falling off it, 
> services shutting down, and periods where I haven't been able to 
> repair or add to things as quickly as they've broken. I've been a bit 
> of a caretaker. But it's a good old house, and it's a house that's 
> worth patching up.
>
> Of course, there's another thing that's about to fall off the roof of 
> the house.
>
> I recently received an email from our hosting provider to say that 
> they will no longer be supporting the Mailman mailing lists that we've 
> used throughout much of Floss Manuals' history. So, beyond making sure 
> that we preserve and archive what's there, one of the jobs that needs 
> doing is working out what comes next for community communications.
>
> This may actually be a good opportunity to start again and let people 
> choose what they want to subscribe to, whether that's a low-traffic 
> announcements list, a more active community discussion list, or 
> something else entirely.
>
> I do already have an offer from someone who can provide a Mailman list 
> if we want to keep things old school, but I'm also open to updating 
> the technology if there's a better approach. Email me directly if you 
> have a suggestion or offer.
>
> We've got another couple of months before this mailing list reaches 
> its end of life, and in some ways that's helpful. I feel slightly 
> hesitant about generating a lot of traffic in people's inboxes if this 
> reboot discussion becomes active, and that's something we can look at 
> together. At least we know that there is an end date for activity on 
> this list, and that gives us a reason to decide what comes next.
>
> Of course, if you'd rather not be part of those discussions, the link 
> to unsubscribe is at the bottom of every email.
>
> In the coming weeks I'll write more about the huge number of people 
> who have contributed to Floss Manuals and the equally huge body of 
> work that has been created over the last twenty years. I won't try to 
> start listing people or projects now.
>
> I'd also love it if other people could chip in with their own 
> memories, thanks, stories about what they learned, or tributes to 
> particular people who made a difference to them along the way.
>
> I'd like to invite people to write blog posts for us, or simply start 
> thinking about what they might want to remember and share. As part of 
> this reboot process I've migrated our previous blogs to a new 
> Hugo-based website, which is now available at: 
> http://about.flossmanuals.net
>
> It would be great to see that site become a place where we can collect 
> a bit more of the history, memories and lessons from twenty years of 
> Floss Manuals.
>
> It would also be great to hear where people are now. Floss Manuals has 
> connected an rich diversity and quantity of people over the years. I 
> think many people would be interested to hear what you've been doing 
> since, whether there are things you learned through the project that 
> stayed with you, and whether you see any parallels between the work 
> you're doing now and the work we did together through Floss Manuals.
>
> On that note, I also want to share some personal good news.
>
> Last Wednesday I successfully defended my PhD thesis in a viva 
> examination, which feels like a pretty important milestone for me.
>
> Looking back, I can see a lot of connections between that work and my 
> involvement with Floss Manuals. Many of the ideas that shaped the 
> research, particularly around collaborative working, open 
> documentation, participation and sharing knowledge, were influenced by 
> things I've learned through being involved with this community over 
> the years.
>
> The thesis is available online at pump.jammlabs.org.uk. I still need 
> to make a few final corrections, but it's now in a form that people 
> can read. There's also a particular blog post related to the research 
> that I think may be of interest to people here, which I'll share 
> alongside it.
>
>
>           /A Future for non-linear FLOSS Manuals/
>
>     /While most manuals in FLOSS Manuals have been linear, there have
>     also been ones which were more complex in structure. For example,
>     some have been about process, exploration, and a kind of
>     pick-and-mix approach. A good example of this is Digital
>     Foundations, which moves between guided instruction and open-ended
>     experimentation rather than forcing a single path through the material
>     From /https://pump.jammlabs.org.uk/blogs/meeting-middle/
>
> I'd genuinely be interested to hear where other people have ended up, 
> what projects you're involved in these days, and whether Floss Manuals 
> played any part in shaping the path that got you there.
>
> I'll also share some of the technical changes that have been made, 
> along with some of the new approaches to publishing that we're 
> experimenting with. I'll do that in a way that invites discussion, 
> because I don't think there's only one way forward and I'd be 
> interested to hear different views on how we should approach these things.
>
> So, given those teasers of different directions for discussion, that's 
> probably enough for this celebratory post.
>
> Feel free to chip in with your thoughts and responses in any way you 
> want by hitting "reply all".
>
> nice one
> cya
> Mick
>
>
>
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-- 
Mike Harris
+44 07811 671 893
https://mbharris.co.uk -https://hacktionlab.org -https://xtreamlab.net
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