If you join only one list -- it should be the pof-200 list. This is because it will take a community to inspire, design, develop, test and steer the evolution of software principles that will form the foundation of the information refineries of the proletarian century.

• Lists will overlap ...

There will be a fair amount of overlap between the two lists since many projects will have both a political side as well as a technical side and the two sides will have a deep influence on one another. Many email posts will be suitable for (and will be sent to) both lists.

However much of the heavy-duty political discussion (such as the nature of the struggle against reformism) will take place only on the pof-200 list while the heavy-duty technical discussion (such as perl vs. asp or SQL vs. XML) will take place only on the Red Team list.

Many activists do not have time for a discussion list. You can still keep up with news on projects described here by subscribing to a list which occasionally sends out announcments:

--- The theorist list --- The theorist list send out about a half dozen emails per month, most of which consist of Ben Seattle's weekly posts to the pof-200 list.   Send blank email here to subscribe. Public archives are here. More about the list can be seen here.

--- The pof-100 list --- Join this list to get two emails per year. -- no more -- no less --   This is the best list for activists who are too busy to get involved but want to stay in touch. Send blank email here to subscribe. Public archives are here.

• Indymedia is the most successful "bottom-up" activist news project of its kind. There are now independently run Indymedia websites in more than 100 cities around the world, all focusing mainly on news of potential interest to activists.
      Most of the articles and posts are submitted by activists and readers. Anyone can post comments on any article. There is very little censorship (which is often a problem since right-wing trolls often have a free-hand to disrupt productive discussion). See the section above for some comments concerning the tasks of revolutionary activists in studying and learning from the experience of Indymedia.         read more ...

• OhMyNews is a commercial project that has had a major, and generally progressive, influence in Korean politics. OhMyNews has a paid staff of reporters who write about 20% of the site's content. The rest of the stories are from volunteer "citizen reporters". Readers vote on which stories are the most interesting and relevant and these rankings influence or determine what appears on the main page.         read more ...

• Slashdot is a technical news site for "nerds". Many of the articles are related to the open source movement and the direction of emerging technology. Slashdot's most innovative and powerful feature is that readers (chosen at random) can rate (on a scale of 1 to 5) the comments on an article. All readers can then choose to filter comments on the basis of the rating.
      For example, if there are 500 comments on an article, you can choose to view only the 40 comments which received a rating of  5 (the highest rating). The rating/filtering system allows readers to view only the best comments and it also encourages those who post to choose their words with greater care.         read more ...

• Wikipedia is a free online encyclopedia where anyone can edit almost any article. So far readers have contributed more than a million articles in dozens of languages. The quality of the articles is often better (and more relevant and interesting) than in commercial encyclopedias -- and updated far more frequently. Jerks have the ability to vandalize articles -- but these defacements are usually cleaned up in less than 5 minutes by a team of volunteers.         read more ...

• The Urban Dictionary allows readers to vote on competing definitions for common words and phrases. The defintions are then displayed in the order of popularity. All content, much of which is slang, is contributed by readers. The site is popular mainly with teenagers. The tone of the definitions ranges from serious to totally irrelevant. The number of words or phrases defined is probably in the hundreds of thousands. more ...

  More links which illustrate technical or political concepts related to rating, filtering, and community news sites

• 3rd Generation Internet Newsmedia • OhMyNews lists 5 major goals

• The free republic Is a right-wing news site and community which has developed around discussion of news articles. This community is noteworthy for two reasons:
  (1) it has organized itself around online discussion of news articles from a wide range of sources and (2) it often mobilizes jerks, known as "freepers" to harass and disrupt discussion on progressive sites.
      Eventually, as the progressive movement learns from sites such as this -- and organizes itself around information war -- progressive infowarriors will go to sites everywhere (including the "free republic") with calm and intelligent analysis and arguments that bourgeois rule must be ended.     read more ...

• Findory is a personalized news site. Findory uses a form of collaborative filtering (see here or here) to show a different front page of news to each reader by learning each person's interests.
      "Findory's most interesting feature is that the weight and placement of stories depends on what you click through to read on repeat visits. There's even a little icon that comes up next to stories it considers to be of keen interest to you ...."     read more ...

• Amazon uses a form of collaborative filtering (see here or here) when it makes recommendations: (ie: “Customers who bought this item also bought...”)
  Amazon also allows readers to review books -- and then also lets readers rate reviewers.
  
• In a similar way, Ebay allows registered users to rate buyers and sellers.

• The Wisdom of Crowds "James Surowiecki explores a deceptively simple idea that has profound implications: large groups of people are smarter than an elite few, no matter how brilliant—better at solving problems, fostering innovation, coming to wise decisions, even predicting the future." (excerpt) This principle is becoming increasingly important as news services allow readers to vote on which articles are the most interesting.
      The google search site captured hundreds of millions of eyeballs by making use of the collective intelligence embodied in millions of independent web pages.

• Other wiki's include: Infoshop wiki • Infoanarchy wiki • Media Weapon wiki and sourcewatch (formerly known as disinfopedia) a wiki-like project with more than 7,000 listings of public relations firms, think tanks, industry-funded organizations and experts who influence public opinion and policy for corporations and governments.

• A sample page of the Encyclopedia of Marxism about reformism (a highly misleading definition, by the way, compared to this one) illustrates the potential of this kind of resource if competing views could be shown and voted on as with the Urban Dictionary.

• Real Simple Syndication: the New York Times reports on how advertisers are attempting to adapt to RSS, which gives unprecendented control to readers, and is poised to become the most widespread method of subscribing to information. See also What is RSS? basic tutorial introduction to RSS feeds and aggregators for non-technical people -- or read this one -- or -- OhMyNews on the benefits of news syndication

• Web seems poised to blossom with stand-alone news sites • The American Journalism Review suggests an explosion of local interactive news sites will be driven by cheap software and a resurgence of demand from online advertizers.

  Links to related work by Ben Seattle

  17 Theses on the destiny of the concept of workers' rule -- and the emerging revolution in communications and its significance for the awakening of proletarian political life and consciousness
  (by Ben Seattle, July 2001)

  Project MAD (ie: Media Abstract Discussion) a web site I created in 1998 where activists can post summaries of news articles and related comments into an online database.

   
  What is to be done? • Ben Seattle replies to Wilhelmina • Nov 2003
  Of all the tasks which are decisive for the antiwar movement one stands out at this time: An interactive news site fueled by the energy of activists and readers is too important to be left in the hands of social-democracy.
  (Includes: A sword in the hands of Spartacus • Dare we talk about the decisive tasks? • The digital fire--and healthy revolutionary cooperation )

Can't happen here? It already has. Ben complained about the excess of neo-nazi posts and comments on the Seattle Indymedia newswire and criticized the Indymedia editor for not doing more to keep the site usable. The editor responded by tampering with and deleting Ben's comments.

Ben Seattle describes his experiences
(to date) with Seattle Indymedia and the Indymedia community and makes some constructive suggestions:

• No racist trash -- fewer crude, thoughtless
  and malicious comments on the newswire
  -- a higher signal-to-noise ratio
  (ie: be more like Portland Indymedia)

• Democratic rights for activists to discuss
  events and politics on the newswire
  (including the politics of Indymedia itself)

• An editorial collective which is
  responsive and accountable to
  the progressive community