User:Riviera/Draft project proposal/v3

What do you want to make?

It’s a newsletter, keeping people up to date with goings-on. On one level, this is a story about a project drawing to a close. In a race against time, the exit strategy is the plot. On a different level, it’s a record of what’s going on at Klankschool.

It’s release date follows a lunar calendar. It will be published every Last Quarter Moon between December and June. It is circumspect in tone.

How do you plan to make it?

I plan to collaborate with Rosa on this project. She and I have a generative back-and-forth in conversations with one another. We have agreed to use markdown as a document format for writing together. We are also planning to use openproject as a way of documenting contributions, project planning, keeping track of tasks. As I will discuss later, ensuring the stability of these systems is important. There is more than one server at play. I set up a containerised mail server and deployed it on a VPS with 2GB of RAM for 15EUR/month. I want to ensure that Klankschool reaches a broad collection of people by building a community around it. I hope to demonstrate the value of an email server to Klankschool through co-curating, attending and writing about a programme of events.

What is your timetable?

The timetable itself is a living document which will be publicly available at openproject.klank.school for the duration of the project. Here is an overview:

November - December:
- Warm up the mail server.
- Drum up enthusiasm about amongst community members.
- Advertise the Performances;
- DONE Speak with Stephen Kerr about these matters
- Organise a workshop.
- Thursday evenings are for repairing.

Sunday, December 22, 2024: 11:23pm (CET)
publish newsletter zero
Topic: Terms of Service

Tuesday, January 21, 2025: 9:35pm (CET)
publish newsletter one
Topic: Privacy Policy

Thursday, February 20, 2025: 6:38pm (CET)
publish newsletter two:
Topic: Code of Conduct

Saturday, March 22, 2025: 12:36pm (CET)
publish newsletter three:
Topic: Counter-cloud action and DNS Providers

Monday, April 21, 2025: 3:42am (CEST)
Publish newsletter four:
Topic: Email Servers

Tuesday, May 20, 2025: 2:05pm (CEST)
Topic: Emacs as an instrument

Wednesday, June 18, 2025: 9:26pm (CEST)
The end

It’s still to be decided exactly what the content of the newsletter will be. It could range from pieces of text to sounds to algorithms to git repositories. That is to say, it takes advantage of various services running on the klankschool server which I set up in October 2024. It aims to offer coverage of what has taken place at Klankschool since the previous newsletter.

By the time the end arrives I hope to:
1. Publish several newsletters
2. Handover everything
3. Unify the database containers; is a database vps needed?
4. Change the DNS provider (I.E. Registrar?)
5. Record all the passwords in a .kdbx file for use with a password manager
6. Raise some funds for klankschool

the newsletter, which should be as open to contributions as possible, will be edited by Rosa and I.

Who can help you and how?

In alphabetical order:

Alex Olloman - Wants to organise events

decentral1se - Boosting Klankschool events on the Fediverse

Manetta Berends - offering very useful references

knoflook - Sharing events on radar

log - Co-sysadmin

Relation to previous practice

Previous experience with servers
Besides maintaining the klankschool server, I am running Nextcloud on a raspberry pi. The computer is temporarily connected to the XPUB HUB. The nextcloud instance is for personal use. It enables me to keep my files backed-up, contacts in order and calendar appointments synchronised with my phone. The parasitic connection relates to this project through the layout of the local area network at my flat. For now, both the Klankschool server and the Pi are physically located at my flat. On the one hand, I need to return the Mac Pro “Trashbin” computer to the department in the near future. That informs the exit strategy I referred to earlier, and thus the narrative of my columns in the newsletter. Focusing on this strand misses a different element that also requires consideration. Thus, on the other hand, what can be saved from the trashbin? What if this machine were to change location? How much needs to go in a VPS? What about the calendar? To what extent can the machines run themselves? It’s necessary to make preparations in view of these questions and the fact that I don’t plan on staying in the Netherlands.

Previous Collaboration with Rosa
In mid 2024, Rosa and I worked together on a performance titled Printer Jam. We gave the performance at Gulaschprogrammiernacht 22, in Karlsruhe, Germany. The video recording of the performance has been watched 245 times at the time of writing. Printer Jam brought live coding software and abandoned hardware together to breathe life back into disused printers. She and I have worked together effectively in the past and I am optimistic about this collaboration.

Relation to wider context

Terms of Service
The hosting provider makes clear what constitutes permitted uses of the services.

Collaborative software practices

Sever maintenance informed by feminism
Feminist servers, such as Systerserver and Anarchaserver, are operated by feminist collectives who prefer feminist modes of collaboration. Such servers often provide services for like minded groups or projects. Feminist servers are conceptually distinct from and contextually adjacent to the way in which the server has been set up and maintained. I am keen to draw upon feminist methods, practice and research in maintaining the server and writing the newsletter.

References

Berends, M., Diakrousi, A. and Gryllaki, A. (2022) ‘Hosting With’, Debug, Linz, Varia [Online]. Available at https://varia.zone/archive/2023-03-Hosting-with-others/hosting-with-zine-booklet.pdf (Accessed 16 October 2024).

Engelhardt, L., Billie, P. and Reinthal, A. (2023) Self-Hosting Guide [Online]. Available at https://self-hosting.guide/dokuwiki/about_this_site (Accessed 16 October 2024).

Strete, A., Cochior C and Mugrefya e (Eds.) (2022) A Traversal Network Of Feminist Servers. Fractalia, Bucharest.