I was put into a missionary hostel as a kid, at around 10 years of age. I had access to computer there, as in my village electricity was still not available. computers were something fascinating, and we didn’t have internet, but that didn’t stop us from setting up peer to peer chat and file sharing. once a week, for 40 minutes, this was the most fun we had in school. I got a personal laptop in college, access to actual fast internet, in around 2012-13. torrents and all were blocked, but we could still use dc++ for p2p file sharing. It felt free. I always imagined internet to grow into that direction honestly. Things are simple enough, everyone has agency, and it doesn’t take a lot of effort from the user. There is a higher margin of error for mistakes and it’s not threatening.

I feel the decentralisation offers similar experience. it’s not exactly like a p2p system like dc++ but it’s close. I understand how I look at things is different, but more often than not i have been othered based on my identity in school and colleges, and more often than not p2p systems had been a respite where as regular systems were always toxic. the anonymity, the control, made me feel like i’m not being ogled at. I want the same in our community blog also. where the writing matters, the work matters, and not the identity.

i am 29, i couldn’t finish my college education, and never really held a steady job. I have been explaining things for others for a very long time and i have been doing that and freelance creative work to sustain myself and the publication. we try to use the technology to try to make sure the authors get to publish freely. i don’t want the next generation of our people to feel like they don’t have a space that is not controlled by big corporations and algorithms. i also want to share how i set it up, so others can also share things. I didn’t know paper.wf is shut down, tbh, it’s only last year that i got to know about web3, and activity pub is something i got to know after the threads update. But the more I read about it, it felt the right place for the time being. I actually struggled to set up a multiuser blog as there was not enough documentation about it. also, if you want to write on our blog, we’d be happy to send you an invite

Thank you so much for taking your time in writing this response. and I agree with you. I also have lot more questions than answers and I also find them interlinked with each other. also thank you for liking the guide, i was hoping i made it simple enough so that it is easier to understand. and i’m honoured you want to use it as a go to reference.

before I answer your questions, I want to provide some context. I live in a country, where the politics of race is extremely complicated. I come from farmers in a remote coastal village. People from our villages generally don’t get to go out, and if they do, they never return. I always took that as a personal choice, but now that I am out I understand it’s not so simple. I don’t want to go back because going back now I won’t be able to change things for better for my village. I came to the conclusion that information is something that changes lives, and since I can’t change the system, I’ll try to make sure information is accessible. That is the reason I have started the publication with my chosen family who also feels the same way. We have started with English as it is easier to start with, but we plan to keep equal focus if not more in our language.

To answer your questions:

1. What is worth doing?

that is what i’m trying to figure out. I fee if everyone had similar access to information, things would be better. is it the right way? is it worth doing? i don’t honestly know. but i’ll never know if i didn’t try it, especially when i wholeheartedly believe in it.

also, maybe it’s my ego. i don’t want to be a nobody when I die. I want some idea by mine to be out there. I want to live through that. i feel if i can have a safe space where information flew freely and safely, no matter how small it is, it would be worth living a life and doing just that.

1. What is worth sharing?
   Everything. new ideas, old tricks. shower thoughts, dumb questions. information grows, cultures take shape by sharing all thoughts. I do not think there should be a limit of what can be shared. I feel we shackle up our own self by limiting ourselves to what can be shared or not. but i don’t want to tell it to the members, i’ll only say what they can’t share. and then i trust their judgement on deciding what to share.

2. I feel existence is enough. I do not think humans are made equal. So i do not want to treat all humans as equal. Some humans need more care and some need less care. Some humans need more attention and some humans need to be left alone. I feel we as a society or as a community need to cater to the needs of the people as a whole. respecting the individuality of the person. but i think that’s where the individuality of a human ends, in their capacity. for someone running a marathon a day seems like a good day, for someone just doing house chores is a good day and that is enough. each human have different needs and that should always be taken into consideration. we are social animals, our collective action outweighs the individual. in a natural system like that we can be anything. we all have our roles in a society and everyone is important. as a collective, i believe we will always balance out. so it’s okay to just exist. i have trust in my fellow humans. where i slack off i know they will pick up.