Ben O'Hanlon twitter thread - Communication with SPOs

@benohanlon

I’ve been thinking.

I accept communication with SPOs hasn’t been good enough. It’s my job to support the SPO community so this is my fault.

Reply to this tweet with actionable steps you recommend.

I commit to discussing how we improve communication moving forward.

OK. Firstly remember that Cardano is supposed to be an open system which is freely available for anyone to use. Where anyone can run a node and be part of the Cardano network of validators.

If we are going to communicate then we must use systems that are freely available.

Twitter, Discord, Telegram and other social media platforms are not freely available for everyone to use. They are proprietary, locked down, systems, where you need a tracking device (mobile phone number) in order to register.

Why not post here on this forum? At least anyone can register here freely with a free email account.

Also, what is wrong with email lists? At least these are free and open for anyone to register, without a tracking device.

2 Likes

Hi @benohanlon and @7.4d4

I have given your concerns some careful consideration, which takes time.

Ben, don’t be too hard on yourself. In terms how technology has evolved, communication tools in the Web 2 social media environment have become a hot mess good for selling advertising and not much more.

I believe that the Cardano Technical Community would benefit greatly from IOG implementing a Usenet server Usenet - Wikipedia

Usenet has distinct benefits when compared with tools such as Discord or the enterprise application underlying the Cardano Forum, for example. Quoting from the Wikipedia article:

Usenet was conceived in 1979 and publicly established in 1980, at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Duke University.

The articles that users post to Usenet are organized into topical categories known as newsgroups, which are themselves logically organized into hierarchies of subjects. For instance, sci.math and sci.physics are within the sci.* hierarchy. Or, talk.origins and talk.atheism are in the talk.* hierarchy. When a user subscribes to a newsgroup, the news client software keeps track of which articles that user has read.

In most newsgroups, the majority of the articles are responses to some other article. The set of articles that can be traced to one single non-reply article is called a thread. Most modern newsreaders display the articles arranged into threads and sub-threads. For example, in the wine-making newsgroup rec.crafts.winemaking, someone might start a thread called, “What’s the best yeast?” and the thread—conversation—may grow into dozens of replies long, by dozens of different authors. Over several days, that conversation about different wine yeasts might branch into several sub-threads in a tree-like form.

In the above paragraphs quoted from Wikipedia, benefits of Usenet over current-generation communication-mangling tools are highlighted using bold text.

Also, the academic influence in Usenet development should appease Hoskinson and the rest of Cardano’s academic brain trust…

If Usenet seems too “dated,” then implement a Moodle server. For example, Moodle has a Forum activity module structured just like Usenet. In my professional experience, AAA game studios may implement a Moodle server to develop their first-rate titles successfully. Therefore, Moodle is probably also good enough to meet Cardano’s business requirements. Moodle is also open source.

As an aside, Cardano could learn a thing or two from Moodle in terms of how to prepare, present and maintain documentation… are those really online learning modules posted in Discord?! WWWWTTTTTFFFFF CAAARRRDDDAAAANNNNOOOOO!!!

I hope, Ben, that my idea may help make your life—and the lives of everyone else in the IOG Technical Community—easier.

Sincerely,

Paradoxical Sphere [CHG]

1 Like

I second that.

I don’t know anything about Moodle but if it is open source and allows users to run end points, then I second that too.

I just ask for a communication system that is open source and decentralised, which doesn’t require linking your identity to a government or big tech controlled ID.

I want to be in control of my ID and what aspects of it I reveal to whom. I particularly don’t want big tech to be able to link everything for future AI analysis and prediction of my private thoughts.

What examples could I look at that you consider being best in class examples of what we’d want? And would this be as well as digest/telegram etc…?