RFC: maintenance dinners
collective maintenance as knowledge sharing
maintenance & care
β¨
potluck
family meal
dinner club
food distro
π
infoshop
zine share
mailing list
to nourish is to maintain
table as gathering place
repair cafe
hackerspace
meeting space
(physical, virtual)
/whisper βi often place myself in the role of digital infrastructure and maintenance because little else is physically accessible to meβ
transition from crisis response to sustainable mutual** organizing
disrepair, abandonment, lack of maintenance
hyperlocal mutual aid
(2025)
(infrastructural/interpersonal)
weak intergroup relationships
fragmented community memory
burdened by infrastructures no longer needed, politically unaligned
meta-infrastructures
π
π§βπ§
πͺ¨π
βοΈ
πͺ
material
relational
πβοΈπ¦
ππ
π
maintenance dinners
for mutual aid infrastructure
shared meals form the basis
of communal maintenance. weβre maintaining our bodies and our
relationships.
we can work towards our own technical infrastructures by first
forming the social infrastructure and practicing maintenance in all its forms.
maintenance dinners can be a time and place where we learn, share,
hack, debug, code, connect, salvage, repair...
irl is always special, but sometimes meeting online is more
accessible.
there are ways to hang out and collaborate in cyberspace beyond a
zoom meeting!
virtual worlds, text-based games, doing puzzles together, spatial
audio, infinite drawing canvases, to name a few
β¨
π
things we might talk about over dinner
π«
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who are we? what skills and knowledge do we bring? what perspectives? what do we want to learn?
β¨
what resources do we have access to?
what is our capacity?
-
what are our shared principles? how will those guide how we select technologies?
βοΈ
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how will we make decisions? deal with conflict?
π«
what kind of power dynamics are at play?
-
who should access our infrastructure? who is it for? how do they participate?
βοΈ
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what infrastructures are we already using? which do we rely on?
β¨
do alternatives exist that align with our principles?
whatβs good and bad about them?
-
what is practical for us?
what is aspirational?
π«
how available do we need a server to be?
-
do we have enough trust to share servers?
βοΈ
what is our threat model?
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where will our physical infrastructure live?
β¨
π
bonus content
nostalgia is a trap but iβll always love these iconic LAN party pics
silly catchphrases
letβs...
> break bread and fix phones
> connect with each other and connect a mesh network
places to hang out on the world wide web
- Roguelike Celebrationβs MUD-like chat game
- hellopaint.io (doodle with friends)
- remote office platforms like gather.town
- deepcut.live (dj with friends)
- collaborative whiteboard (yunohost has tldraw)
- the code for Skittish is available to fork if someone can figure out a new backend
- β οΈπ₯² seemingly down:
