I want to start Canadian member-owned cooperative to run Mastodon servers in Canada.
Similar to social.coop but Canadian.
Notes here:
https://evanp.gitlab.io/canadian-mastodon-cooperative
Copied in thread below:
@bmann@trishussey@blaine@timbray@hypatia@walkah@awsamuel
Similar to social.coop but Canadian.
Notes here:
https://evanp.gitlab.io/canadian-mastodon-cooperative
Copied in thread below:
@bmann@trishussey@blaine@timbray@hypatia@walkah@awsamuel
Evan Prodromou
•We're stalled.
We're ready to incorporate and start setting up a server, but.
We're looking around the room, and we're not seeing the reflection of the Canada we want to be.
We're almost all white anglophone women and men.
We don't want to start this and diversify "later".
We want to take our first steps in the right direction.
Nicolas Pettiaux
•Evan Prodromou
•Can you amplify this to help us find #francophone, #Black, #indigenous, and #Asian #Canadian people, able and willing to do the hard work of helping a group remember to take diverse needs into account at the offset, so we can make a good #SocialSpace for everyone from the get go?
If that sounds like you, bless you, could you let me know so we can get a conversation started?
Thanks.
gentle colossus
•Evan Prodromou
•Thanks and good point. People who do that work deserve to get paid.
But.
There's no organisation yet to pay anyone anything.
We're seeking a founding team for a member-run co-operative.
If we were to raise money to pay these founding board members, it'd mean there's already a thing (the thing that raised the money) for them to join.
It's a real chicken-and-egg problem.
gentle colossus
•Evan Prodromou
•But there's no substitute for lived experience.
I overemphasized the hard work in this, without emphasizing the potential benefits.
At a collective level, the opportunity to tailor a social network to the needs of underserved communities does not come around often.
At a personal level, we're literally looking for board members on a 5-person board. The potential for getting paid in the future is there. And the chance to put ideas into motion is great.
Evan Prodromou
•nadin brzezinski
•J. Nathan Matias
•In the post, you are asking people to give time and "hard work" into something that doesn't seem to have a clear payoff, especially given that even noticing/remembering these things seems difficult for your group.
Is there a way for you to reverse the power dynamic in your appeal and offer resources/time/energy/listening, and earn the respect of people who are too often burned by entering situations like this?
I offer this comment in the sincerest good faith.
Evan Prodromou
•I was trying to acknowledge that the role is difficult, and I forgot to say how it could be rewarding.
In general, because together we can make social networking fit lived experience in Canada better for everyone.
In particular, for the person involved, it's a chance to put ideas to the test, and solidify a reputation in social media theory and practice.
kevin harding | 何凯文
•Evan Prodromou
•Evan Prodromou
•Canadian member-run co-op
2. 1 co-op membership gets you 1 fediverse account with fixed allowances (uploads, API use, toots per day, etc.) plus a co-op vote
3. has local services per neighbourhood or city, but membership is national
4. run a first emergency server nationally to catch the next wave of Twitter migration
Evan Prodromou
•5. Member run, nobody gets paid for now
6. CAD$60/year membership fee
7. I just registered cosocial.ca so let's use that as a name for now
Evan Prodromou
•- 4 other people to be directors/incorporators. Diverse voices, including women and nonbinary, 2SLGTBQIA+, Black, Indigenous, fr/en, needed up front.
- Someone to fill out the paperwork
- Someone to collect and manage $$
- Someone(s) to set up the server on Canadian k8s service