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Queer N etworking ��
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Questions to answer if joining group
- What am I looking for? (What is the desire?)
- What do I mean when I say queer networks?
- What kind of queer networks am I looking for?
- What can I imagine to build?


Friday discussion
Aileen has a group of queer friends that are using facebook, but they keep getting banned and are now looking for another place.
Suggestion Crabgrass: https://0xacab.org/riseuplabs/crabgrass
Esbjörn also has a group of friends who are using fbook and insta - looking for an alternative.
set up your own community guidelines, 
Also good to do research of what is already available (in Berlin). Maybe a physical meeting spot like a book shop.
We need a tool for events. Requirements: must be easy to use, easily accessible, but also protected in some ways (unlike Scuttlebutt)


Another reference: https://radicalnetworks.org/

Like Fbook but not - so what do we want it to be like? 

Share the care of the server -- 'these are the people that manage that' -- 

-- where is the server and where is the instances?
-- do we rent it from Libra Hoster -- 

Scuttlebut - more private or smaller community, for people that already know someone - to reach more people you would still have to find someone else

Queer Privacy by Sarah Jamie Lewis https://leanpub.com/queerprivacy
she has also made an experimental p2p social network that is very privacy focused: https://cwtch.im

look at Riot.IM 

Events are very easy to use on Facebook, what are alternatives?
- https://nextcloud.com/ - has a calendar (CalDav) feature, that can be embedded on another existing community website
- https://framadate.org/
- scuttlebutt (patchwork) also has a Gatherings feature, but events can only be public to the entire network, which makes it very difficult to ensure a safe queer space.

Potential Concerns
-Scaling
-Trust
-How to maintain a safe community? 
-Can you delete things? (History)
-Assign Moderators?
-How do people learn about the network?



Loren's answers
What am I looking for? (Desire)
I am looking for strategies for forming Queer Networks that don't re-oppress through data collection. I keep wondering how we can stay connected without also being mined for data from the very platforms that facilitate our interconnection. I'm thinking about infrastructures of community that are actually interconnected in a respons-able way (in the way that Donna Haraway describes it - meaning that there is an active choce to choose the realities that we choose to live with - for better or worse). 

What do I mean when I say queer networks?
When I say queer networks, I mean groups of people that challenge gender conformity, and their allies and that are committed to undoing patriarchy through the ways they live, party, think, fuck and form community connections. I could see this happening through academic, hacker, artistic, partying communities - I wonder if there is a form that could connect between party, history, thinking and making together? I don't know that this would necessarily need to live only online, but it could begin there. This could also be an opportunity to start or connect to reading groups or queer historical figures? This que s tion makes me feel like researching the reading groups, queer history lectures, queer archives and meeting points in Berlin to have a better survey of what is already there to see how to connect, or how to think alongside them. 

Some that come to mind immediately are: 
    

• https://www.schwulesmuseum.de/
• http://www.transinterqueer.org/
• http://e2h.berlin/ --->this could be good to imagine connecting to somehow because they are just beginning and already have been collating many smaller archives from within Berlin, what do we think about the idea of connecting to an already beginning project as a way to gain "trust" like we were talking about before? 
• http://www.covenberlin.com/
• http://www.feministische-recherchegruppe.org/
• https://www.ngbk.de/de/

What kind of queer networks am I looking for?
I'm looking for radical, sustainable, open networks that have some funding so that its organizers can avoid feeling completely burnt out. I'm looking to think and party with people who uphold one another. I'd like this sort of space to be multi-lingual, accessible, affirmative and having multiple strategies. I think when I get into my heart of hearts i'm intersted in starting an institution of some sort, and I think i bring this energy (for better or wose) to projects that I work on.  

What can I imagine to build?
A website (with help), a space (exhibition, hacking, library, party), a community space, a strategy for creating community with a multi layered approach. 

Esbjörn's answers
What am I looking for? (Desire)

• Community and connection. 
• Platform without imposed moral censorship, self organised. 
• Place for discussions, tips and sharing of interests. 
• Only take part as long as we desire to. Possibility to leave or cluster into new groups.
• Planning events with a shared calendar and informing an audience (?)

What do I mean when I say queer networks?

• People that challenge gender norms in some way, by gender expression outside conformity. 
• Larger group of party poeple that go to “queer” events (?)

What kind of queer networks am I looking for?

• Thoughtful, open and creative.
• A network where my current or future friends are.

What can I imagine to build?

• A community of people willing to switch their main social experience from Facebook.
• An event planning and sharing platform focused on queer Berlin.

I think that I’m also a bit stuck in the though of “finding one single system for everything”, and maybe have to realise that human networks supersede any single platform, it is possible to use multiple platforms with the same people. 

Aileen's answers:
What am I looking for? (What is the desire?)
  I am looking for a space for people I care about, where they can be safe(er) and have more freedom to create, organize, communicate., celebrate
- What do I mean when I say queer networks?
Connections among people who challenge conventional notions of binary gender and traditional gender roles
- What kind of queer networks am I looking for?
Networks that people I care about can connect with so they are not so isolated.
- What can I imagine to build?
I want to help build online spaces that are less constraining than Facebook and to be one more body in the street, when bodies in the street are needed.


Discussion on Wednesday
risks of trying to build something new, the shifting of power, and how this might just move from one thing to another that is also limiting, destructive

how to make sure that that doesnt happen

how to set the best possible conditions, knowing what we know now 

a lot of projects (products?) start with a good idea, "the best laid plans" 

habits are difficult to change 

also trust is not a given, and takes a long time to gain

no labor is free, who would host something, and what does that mean? 

its all tied up in ethics 

how do you realate to your ethics when egaging with current platforms? And not agreeing on the ethics that you have with anyone else who may be on the same platform?

Queer operating system article 
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/535715

References: https://gitlab.com/fs/pppp