Toward a Minor Tech:FeministServers5000 - Revision history

Mara: /* Notes */

2023-09-02T10:27:00Z

Notes

← Older revision		Revision as of 10:27, 2 September 2023
Line 41:		Line 41:

	== Maintenance as Care ==		== Maintenance as Care ==
	Computer science and IT industry culture has tried to distinguish between software development as creative work in contrast to the tedious labor of software maintenance (Hilfling Ritasdatter 156f).<ref>In chapter III on Maintenance, Hilfling Ritasdatter critically contests the differences between unproductive labor, which sustains life, and creative work that produces and changes the world, as those have been articulated by various political theorists such as Hannah Arendt’s The Human Condition (Hilfling Ritasdatter 149), See also the distinction ~~betweendevelopment~~ and maintenance in the “Manifesto for Maintenance Art” from 1969 by Mierle Laderman Ukeles, talked about in the context of feminist servers by Ines Kleesattel, 184f.</ref> This distinction also applies to sysadmin work, which is mostly about maintaining, repairing and updating infrastructure and thus shares many characteristics with invisiblized, racialized and feminized care work (Tronto 112-114). The problems of devaluation are rooted within the intricacies of the server-client relationship, as well as the ‘software as service’ or cloud paradigm. The questions “Who is serving whom? Who is serving what? What is serving whom?” lie therefore at the center of the critical practice around feminist servers, which “radically question the conditions for serving and service; they experiment with changing client-server, user-device and guest-host-''ghost'' relations where they can.” (Transfeminist Wishlist).		Computer science and IT industry culture has tried to distinguish between software development as creative work in contrast to the tedious labor of software maintenance (Hilfling Ritasdatter 156f).<ref>In chapter III on Maintenance, Hilfling Ritasdatter critically contests the differences between unproductive labor, which sustains life, and creative work that produces and changes the world, as those have been articulated by various political theorists such as Hannah Arendt’s The Human Condition (Hilfling Ritasdatter 149), See also the distinction between development and maintenance in the “Manifesto for Maintenance Art” from 1969 by Mierle Laderman Ukeles, talked about in the context of feminist servers by Ines Kleesattel, 184f.</ref> This distinction also applies to sysadmin work, which is mostly about maintaining, repairing and updating infrastructure and thus shares many characteristics with invisiblized, racialized and feminized care work (Tronto 112-114). The problems of devaluation are rooted within the intricacies of the server-client relationship, as well as the ‘software as service’ or cloud paradigm. The questions “Who is serving whom? Who is serving what? What is serving whom?” lie therefore at the center of the critical practice around feminist servers, which “radically question the conditions for serving and service; they experiment with changing client-server, user-device and guest-host-''ghost'' relations where they can.” (Transfeminist Wishlist).

	Practices of care and maintenance within feminist servers must be understood as negotiations of collective responsibility. One important agreement for Systerserver is the no-pressure policy, which allows its sysadmins to participate according to their availabilities and thereby extends the principle of care towards themselves by taking into account the different intersectional precarities that define their situation. Contributions to the maintenance of the machine, and to the social relations around it, entail security upgrades, hardware replacements, backups, data migrations, and attentive documentation. In the case of the Systerserver video platform, this includes adapting the software to the needs of its community and specific use cases, curating new accounts, updating the platform’s code of conduct and communicating changes to the inhabitants of the platform. Nonetheless, the attitude of feminist servers’ work does not comply with the superimposed specters of seamlessness, infinite resources and the nonstop availability of computing.<ref>See also "A Feminist Server Manifesto" where it states that “A feminist server... tries hard not to apologize when she is sometimes not available.” </ref>		Practices of care and maintenance within feminist servers must be understood as negotiations of collective responsibility. One important agreement for Systerserver is the no-pressure policy, which allows its sysadmins to participate according to their availabilities and thereby extends the principle of care towards themselves by taking into account the different intersectional precarities that define their situation. Contributions to the maintenance of the machine, and to the social relations around it, entail security upgrades, hardware replacements, backups, data migrations, and attentive documentation. In the case of the Systerserver video platform, this includes adapting the software to the needs of its community and specific use cases, curating new accounts, updating the platform’s code of conduct and communicating changes to the inhabitants of the platform. Nonetheless, the attitude of feminist servers’ work does not comply with the superimposed specters of seamlessness, infinite resources and the nonstop availability of computing.<ref>See also "A Feminist Server Manifesto" where it states that “A feminist server... tries hard not to apologize when she is sometimes not available.” </ref>

Simoon: /* From Feminist Servers to Feminist Federation */

2023-08-22T09:57:37Z

From Feminist Servers to Feminist Federation

Simoon at 11:21, 22 July 2023

2023-07-22T11:21:09Z

← Older revision		Revision as of 11:21, 22 July 2023
Line 1:		Line 1:
	__NOTOC__		__NOTOC__
	'''nate wessalowski'''		'''nate wessalowski'''<br>
	'''& Mara Karagianni'''		'''& Mara Karagianni'''
	= From Feminist Servers to Feminist Federation =		= From Feminist Servers to Feminist Federation =

Simoon at 11:20, 22 July 2023

2023-07-22T11:20:56Z

← Older revision		Revision as of 11:20, 22 July 2023
Line 1:		Line 1:
	__NOTOC__		__NOTOC__
	'''nate wessalowski &'''		'''nate wessalowski'''
	'''Mara Karagianni'''		'''& Mara Karagianni'''
	= From Feminist Servers to Feminist Federation =		= From Feminist Servers to Feminist Federation =

Simoon at 11:20, 22 July 2023

2023-07-22T11:20:19Z

← Older revision		Revision as of 11:20, 22 July 2023
Line 1:		Line 1:
	__NOTOC__		__NOTOC__
	'''nate wessalowski & Mara Karagianni'''		'''nate wessalowski &'''
			'''Mara Karagianni'''
	= From Feminist Servers to Feminist Federation =		= From Feminist Servers to Feminist Federation =

Simoon at 10:32, 22 July 2023

2023-07-22T10:32:26Z

← Older revision		Revision as of 10:32, 22 July 2023
Line 62:		Line 62:

	Supporting local communities in the endeavors of building up their own technopolitical infrastructures comes with the challenges of meeting other spatial and cultural realities as well as getting to know about different needs tied to the context and motivations behind building a video platform. In the case of Ca la Dona, the local community and space was able to reactivate old hardware (rack servers) donated to the space and install their PeerTube instance on an in-house server.<ref>In house server means that is physically located in a space vs a cloud server, accessed June 3, 2023, https://www.techsafety.org/inhouse-vs-cloud.</ref> However, issues arose with regard to the excessive energy consumption of the old hardware and the lack of a stable network interface to the outside. In the case of Broken House, which is the coming collaboration, challenges that lie ahead range from choosing a hosting provider for renting a server, to ensuring that the local community can establish connections with people who are motivated to learn and support with administering the server.		Supporting local communities in the endeavors of building up their own technopolitical infrastructures comes with the challenges of meeting other spatial and cultural realities as well as getting to know about different needs tied to the context and motivations behind building a video platform. In the case of Ca la Dona, the local community and space was able to reactivate old hardware (rack servers) donated to the space and install their PeerTube instance on an in-house server.<ref>In house server means that is physically located in a space vs a cloud server, accessed June 3, 2023, https://www.techsafety.org/inhouse-vs-cloud.</ref> However, issues arose with regard to the excessive energy consumption of the old hardware and the lack of a stable network interface to the outside. In the case of Broken House, which is the coming collaboration, challenges that lie ahead range from choosing a hosting provider for renting a server, to ensuring that the local community can establish connections with people who are motivated to learn and support with administering the server.
	[[File:Looking at servers.jpg\|alt=Looking at rack servers at Ca La Dona, Barcelona\|thumb\|~~480px~~\|Figure 2: Going through the donated rack servers to choose one for reformatting and installing Linux Operating System and PeerTube, during the first day of our week-long worksession at Ca la Dona.]]
	[[File:Media caladona domain.jpg\|alt=media.caladona.org (https://media.caladona.org/)\|thumb\|~~480px~~\|Figure 3: The internet provider of Ca la Dona only assigns static IP with a high monthly rate. Therefore, other technical configurations need to be explored to ensure that the space has a static IP address that can be mapped to the domain name collectively chosen during the monthly assembly: media.caladona.org.]]		[[File:Looking at servers.jpg\|alt=Looking at rack servers at Ca La Dona, Barcelona\|thumb\|400px\|Figure 2: Going through the donated rack servers to choose one for reformatting and installing Linux Operating System and PeerTube, during the first day of our week-long worksession at Ca la Dona.]]
			[[File:Media caladona domain.jpg\|alt=media.caladona.org (https://media.caladona.org/)\|thumb\|400px\|Figure 3: The internet provider of Ca la Dona only assigns static IP with a high monthly rate. Therefore, other technical configurations need to be explored to ensure that the space has a static IP address that can be mapped to the domain name collectively chosen during the monthly assembly: media.caladona.org.]]

	While adapting PeerTube software to our community needs, we faced two shortfalls: one was the lack of group accounts, and the other the unchecked power of administrators and moderators over the inhabitants’ data and invitation to federate. Group accounts are valuable to communities, especially the most vulnerable ones such as feminist, queer and trans communities, as it enhances anonymity within a group and reduces toxic attacks directed to single persons. ActivityPub has yet to implement accounts for a group of people.<ref>Looking into the development history from OStatus and its implementation in previous decentralized social networks, the group feature was dropped in 2013. From a user’s comment in the pump.io social network code repository we read:		While adapting PeerTube software to our community needs, we faced two shortfalls: one was the lack of group accounts, and the other the unchecked power of administrators and moderators over the inhabitants’ data and invitation to federate. Group accounts are valuable to communities, especially the most vulnerable ones such as feminist, queer and trans communities, as it enhances anonymity within a group and reduces toxic attacks directed to single persons. ActivityPub has yet to implement accounts for a group of people.<ref>Looking into the development history from OStatus and its implementation in previous decentralized social networks, the group feature was dropped in 2013. From a user’s comment in the pump.io social network code repository we read:

Simoon at 20:38, 21 July 2023

2023-07-21T20:38:26Z

← Older revision		Revision as of 20:38, 21 July 2023
Line 2:		Line 2:
	'''nate wessalowski & Mara Karagianni'''		'''nate wessalowski & Mara Karagianni'''
	= From Feminist Servers to Feminist Federation =		= From Feminist Servers to Feminist Federation =

			<span class="running-header">From Feminist Servers to Feminist Federation</span>

	== Abstract ==		== Abstract ==

Simoon at 20:35, 21 July 2023

2023-07-21T20:35:29Z

← Older revision		Revision as of 20:35, 21 July 2023
Line 1:		Line 1:
			__NOTOC__
			'''nate wessalowski & Mara Karagianni'''
	= From Feminist Servers to Feminist Federation =		= From Feminist Servers to Feminist Federation =
	~~'''nate wessalowski & Mara Karagianni'''~~

	== Abstract ==		== Abstract ==

Manetta at 20:10, 21 July 2023

2023-07-21T20:10:37Z

← Older revision		Revision as of 20:10, 21 July 2023
Line 1:		Line 1:
	~~__NOTOC__~~
	= From Feminist Servers to Feminist Federation =		= From Feminist Servers to Feminist Federation =
	'''nate wessalowski & Mara Karagianni'''		'''nate wessalowski & Mara Karagianni'''
Line 96:		Line 95:

	==Notes==		==Notes==
	‎<references />		<references />

	== Works cited ==		== Works cited ==

Manetta: /* From Feminist Servers to Feminist Federation */

2023-07-21T20:05:47Z

From Feminist Servers to Feminist Federation

← Older revision		Revision as of 20:05, 21 July 2023
Line 95:		Line 95:
	Many thanks to the organizers and reviewers of Minor Tech in giving us the chance to articulate our praxis.		Many thanks to the organizers and reviewers of Minor Tech in giving us the chance to articulate our praxis.

	== Notes ==		==Notes==
	‎<references />		‎<references />

← Older revision		Revision as of 09:57, 22 August 2023
Line 126:		Line 126:
	Gehl, Robert W., and Diana Zulli. "The Digital Covenant: Non-Centralized Platform Governance on the Mastodon Social Network". ''Information, Communication & Society'' (15 December 2022): 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2022.2147400.		Gehl, Robert W., and Diana Zulli. "The Digital Covenant: Non-Centralized Platform Governance on the Mastodon Social Network". ''Information, Communication & Society'' (15 December 2022): 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2022.2147400.

	“Genderchangers,” last updated February 12, 2014. ~~<nowiki>~~https://www.genderchangers.org/faq.html~~</nowiki>~~.		“Genderchangers,” last updated February 12, 2014. https://www.genderchangers.org/faq.html.

	Haraway, Donna. ''Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene''. Experimental Futures: Technological Lives, Scientific Arts, Anthropological Voices. Duke University Press, 2016.		Haraway, Donna. ''Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene''. Experimental Futures: Technological Lives, Scientific Arts, Anthropological Voices. Duke University Press, 2016.
Line 132:		Line 132:
	Hilfling Ritasdatter, Linda. ''Unwrapping Cobol: Lessons in Crisis Computing''. Malmö University, 2020.		Hilfling Ritasdatter, Linda. ''Unwrapping Cobol: Lessons in Crisis Computing''. Malmö University, 2020.

	Jamie Lewis, Sarah. ''Queer Privacy Essays from the Margins Of Society'', 2017. https://ia600707.us.archive.org/7/items/Sarah-Jamie-Lewis-Queer-Privacy/Sarah~~</nowiki> Jamie Lewis~~- ~~Queer Privacy~~.pdf.		Jamie Lewis, Sarah. ''Queer Privacy Essays from the Margins Of Society'', 2017. https://ia600707.us.archive.org/7/items/Sarah-Jamie-Lewis-Queer-Privacy/Sarah%20Jamie%20Lewis%20-%20Queer%20Privacy.pdf.

	Jensen, Erik. ‘Pink Triangle’. In ''The International Encyclopedia of Human Sexuality'', edited by Anne Bolin and Patricia Whelehan, 861–1042. Oxford, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, 2015.		Jensen, Erik. ‘Pink Triangle’. In ''The International Encyclopedia of Human Sexuality'', edited by Anne Bolin and Patricia Whelehan, 861–1042. Oxford, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, 2015.
Line 142:		Line 142:
	Kleesattel, Ines. "Situated Aesthetics for Relational Critique on Messy Entanglements from Maintenance Art to Feminist Server Art". In ''Aesthetics of the Commons'', edited by Cornelia Sollfrank, Felix Stalder, and Shusha Niederberger. Diaphanes, 2021.		Kleesattel, Ines. "Situated Aesthetics for Relational Critique on Messy Entanglements from Maintenance Art to Feminist Server Art". In ''Aesthetics of the Commons'', edited by Cornelia Sollfrank, Felix Stalder, and Shusha Niederberger. Diaphanes, 2021.

	Lewis, Sarah Jamie. "Federation is still the Worst of all Worlds \| Pseudorandom." April 25, 2022. ~~<nowiki>~~https://pseudorandom.resistant.tech/federation-is-the-worst-of-all-worlds.html~~</nowiki>~~.		Lewis, Sarah Jamie. "Federation is still the Worst of all Worlds \| Pseudorandom." April 25, 2022. https://pseudorandom.resistant.tech/federation-is-the-worst-of-all-worlds.html.

	Mansoux, Aymeric, and Roel Roscam Abbing. "Seven Theses on the Fediverse and the Becoming of FLOSS". In ''The Eternal Network: The Ends and Becomings of Network Culture'', 124–40. Institute for Network Cultures and Transmediale, 2020.		Mansoux, Aymeric, and Roel Roscam Abbing. "Seven Theses on the Fediverse and the Becoming of FLOSS". In ''The Eternal Network: The Ends and Becomings of Network Culture'', 124–40. Institute for Network Cultures and Transmediale, 2020.
Line 148:		Line 148:
	Mauro-Flude, Nancy, and Yoko Akama. "A Feminist Server Stack: Co-Designing Feminist Web Servers to Reimagine Internet Futures", 2022.		Mauro-Flude, Nancy, and Yoko Akama. "A Feminist Server Stack: Co-Designing Feminist Web Servers to Reimagine Internet Futures", 2022.

	meltionary.com. Accessed 8 June 2023.		[https://meltionary.com meltionary.com]. Accessed 8 June 2023.

	Motskobili, Mika. ‘LEVER BURNS’. Piet Zwart Institute, Willem de Kooning Academy, 2021. https://project.xpub.nl/lever_burns/pdf/Ezn_LeverBurns.pdf.		Motskobili, Mika. ‘LEVER BURNS’. Piet Zwart Institute, Willem de Kooning Academy, 2021. https://project.xpub.nl/lever_burns/pdf/Ezn_LeverBurns.pdf.
Line 162:		Line 162:
	Snelting, Femke, and spideralex. "Forms of Ongoingness". Interview by Cornelia Sollfrank, 16 November 2016.		Snelting, Femke, and spideralex. "Forms of Ongoingness". Interview by Cornelia Sollfrank, 16 November 2016.

	spideralex. "Pas ~~d´internet~~ féministe sans serveurs féministes". Interview by Claire Richard, 2019. https://pantherepremiere.org/texte/pas-dinternet-feministe-sans-serveurs-feministes/.		spideralex. "Pas d'internet féministe sans serveurs féministes". Interview by Claire Richard, 2019. https://pantherepremiere.org/texte/pas-dinternet-feministe-sans-serveurs-feministes/.

	———. "Feministische Infrastruktur aufbauen: Helplines zum Umgang mit geschlechtsspezifischer Gewalt im Internet". In ''Technopolitiken der Sorge'', edited by Christoph Brunner, Grit Lange, and nate wessalowski. transversal, 2023.		———. "Feministische Infrastruktur aufbauen: Helplines zum Umgang mit geschlechtsspezifischer Gewalt im Internet". In ''Technopolitiken der Sorge'', edited by Christoph Brunner, Grit Lange, and nate wessalowski. transversal, 2023.
Line 168:		Line 168:
	Sterne, Jonathan, ed. ''The Participatory Condition in the Digital Age''. Electronic Mediations 51. University of Minnesota Press, 2016.		Sterne, Jonathan, ed. ''The Participatory Condition in the Digital Age''. Electronic Mediations 51. University of Minnesota Press, 2016.

	systerserver.net. Accessed 8 June 2023.		[https://systerserver.net systerserver.net]. Accessed 8 June 2023.

	terminal.leverburns.blue. Accessed 8 June 2023.		[http://terminal.leverburns.blue terminal.leverburns.blue]. Accessed 8 June 2023.

	Terrell, Josh, Andrew Kofink, Justin Middleton, Clarissa Rainear, Emerson Murphy-Hill, Chris Parnin, and Jon Stallings. "Gender Differences and Bias in Open Source: Pull Request Acceptance of Women versus Men". ''PeerJ Computer Science'' 3 (1 May 2017). https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj-cs.111.		Terrell, Josh, Andrew Kofink, Justin Middleton, Clarissa Rainear, Emerson Murphy-Hill, Chris Parnin, and Jon Stallings. "Gender Differences and Bias in Open Source: Pull Request Acceptance of Women versus Men". ''PeerJ Computer Science'' 3 (1 May 2017). https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj-cs.111.
Line 184:		Line 184:
	———. ''The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins''. Princeton University Press, 2015.		———. ''The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins''. Princeton University Press, 2015.

	tube.systerserver.net. Accessed 8 June 2023.		[https://tube.systerserver.net tube.systerserver.net]. Accessed 8 June 2023.

	“What is ActivityPub”, 2023, https://docs.joinmastodon.org/#fediverse. Accessed 26 May 2023.		“What is ActivityPub”, 2023, https://docs.joinmastodon.org/#fediverse. Accessed 26 May 2023.