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Hi there! I'm the founder. This is my "hobby project". I work at Google as an SRE. One of the ideas here is to integrate the Agora with existing social networ

Hi there! I'm the founder. This is my "hobby project". I work at Google as an SRE. One of the ideas here is to integrate the Agora with existing social networks: https://twitter.com/flancian/status/1343979536434798598 https://twitter.com/flancian/status/1343979536434798598 The Agora is an overlay to the internet (semantic web) controlled by users. It is part of the open source ecosystem.

flancian 6y ago
http://anagora.org/node/agora http://anagora.org/node/agora for a high level view. http://anagora.org/node/agora-plan http://anagora.org/node/agora-plan for a development journal+plan. http://anagora.org/node/agora-protocol http://anagora.org/node/agora-protocol for interactions with the wider landscape. Joining in with your writing if you already have it up somewhere and would like a new display platform helps a lot!
- markdown 6y ago
  According to the Oxford dictionary: > Agora: (in ancient Greece) a public open space used for assemblies and markets."
ssivark 6y ago
Haven’t looked into it well-enough to understand the details of how it works, but at first glance — would you say that this model for a distributed network might be a good/natural way to connect nodes/content on the p2p internet? (Say IPFS)
- flancian 6y ago
  Yes, definitely! The current architecture is the simplest distributed architecture I could come up with to get started: the Agora pulls from a series of git repositories that its users maintain, these repositories containing Markdown notes with [[wikilinks]]. [[IPFS]], [[solid]] are all natural directions to evolve in. I just started with something simple enough to be coded in a weekend :) And also something that most people in tech are already using (git+markdown). https://anagora.org/node/ipfs https://anagora.org/node/ipfs https://anagora.org/node/solid https://anagora.org/node/solid
winrid 6y ago
Hopefully without sounding rude - what's the experiment exactly?
- flancian 6y ago
  You don't! I appreciate the question. The quick and fuzzy answer is: whatever the community wants it to be :) My current view follows. In a nutshell: * The Agora is meant to be a goal-oriented social network specializing in problem solving. * The first goal of the Agora is to build itself. * The second goal of the Agora is whatever you (the community) want it to be. * The Agora seeks to complement and enrich the internet and existing social networks instead of "taking over". From https://flancia.org/agora https://flancia.org/agora: "You can think of the Agora as a convention based social network; an optional, user-controlled annotation layer that can be applied over any internet platform which supports user-generated content. I think one of the best possible uses for such a network would be to use it to pro-socially maintain a distributed knowledge graph tailored specifically to the goal of solving problems: those of its users and society at large. Its users, as a cooperative group, could by default take a naive but rational approach to problem solving: For each problem in the set P of all problems: Describe it as thoroughly as possible. Maintain a set of known or argued possible solutions, S(P). For each solution in S(P): Describe it as thoroughly as possible. Maintain a set of resources (people, time, attention, money) needed to implement it, R(S). Individual users could also declare their views on the state of the world explicitly: they define which subsets of P, S and R they agree with, in the sense that they believe they are feasible, true, interesting. Users that agree on their defined subsets can then efficiently collaborate on solutions as they become available by pooling of resources. We apply some good old recursivity and seed the Agora with the problem of how to build itself. That is, how to build a system that allows participating users and entities to collaborate optimally in the face of adversity (such as biases, irrationality and even actual ill intent)1. The Agora should be built on a federated protocol to limit the harmfulness of diasporas. Groups might temporarily diverge in their views enough to want to run separate Agoras, but different Agoras should be able to cooperate on problems and solutions for which there is enough ideological alignment, and eventually merge."
  - 6y ago
corobo 6y ago
If this takes off, who owns it? You or Google?
- flancian 6y ago
  The community does :) Google owns the copyright, as can be seen in the LICENSE file and headers, but the totality of the project is open source (Apache). I own https://anagora.org https://anagora.org in particular and plan to run it as a public service.
  - rapnie 6y ago
    Ah yes. I had to do some searching (maybe I overlooked an easy link), but here are the sources:https://github.com/flancian/agora-server https://github.com/flancian/agora-server
    - flancian 6y ago
      Thanks for the feedback; sorry for the inconvenience. I'll probably add a 'github' chip somewhere on the page. https://anagora.org/node/open-source https://anagora.org/node/open-source lists all relevant repositories.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - ssakamoto 6y ago
    > Google owns the copyright Giant Red Flag
    - flancian 6y ago
      Oh, interesting -- why do you think so? I considered this for a while and I didn't find any downsides. It's open source; can be forked anytime by anyone. I do this on my free time.
      - 6y ago
himujjal 6y ago
you are that guy in the movies who has a family back home and he has no choice but to work for the bad guys. while some hero comes someday and asks you to leave the bad guys and show you love. lol sorry everyone for making this another reddit
hobofan 6y ago
Very interesting to see a project built on top of Underlay! I've worked in the space ~2 years ago when Underlay was still in stealth mode and haven't heard from them since. It looks like it has grown into possibly the solution for decentralized knowledge graphs that ticks most of the boxes we were aiming for back then. Where there any other similar technologies that you considered instead of Underlay and what made you choose this one specifically?
- flancian 6y ago
  Ahoy! I have to clarify at this point the Agora is not based on [[underlay]]; they are just a reference I go back to often in the context of [[distributed knowledge graphs]]. I know Samuel Klein though and I'm looking forward to collaborating more with him and the Underlay project; it hasn't happened yet mostly because the Agora is still at a very early stage in its development :) https://anagora.org/node/underlay https://anagora.org/node/underlay https://anagora.org/node/distributed-knowledge-graph https://anagora.org/node/distributed-knowledge-graph
  - hobofan 6y ago
    Ah, seems I've not read that page carefully enough. I thought the link on that page implied that it was built on Underlay, but I guess that was just wishful thinking :D

flancian 6y ago

http://anagora.org/node/agora http://anagora.org/node/agora for a high level view. http://anagora.org/node/agora-plan http://anagora.org/node/agora-plan for a development journal+plan. http://anagora.org/node/agora-protocol http://anagora.org/node/agora-protocol for interactions with the wider landscape. Joining in with your writing if you already have it up somewhere and would like a new display platform helps a lot!

markdown 6y ago
According to the Oxford dictionary: > Agora: (in ancient Greece) a public open space used for assemblies and markets."

ssivark 6y ago

Haven’t looked into it well-enough to understand the details of how it works, but at first glance — would you say that this model for a distributed network might be a good/natural way to connect nodes/content on the p2p internet? (Say IPFS)

flancian 6y ago
Yes, definitely! The current architecture is the simplest distributed architecture I could come up with to get started: the Agora pulls from a series of git repositories that its users maintain, these repositories containing Markdown notes with [[wikilinks]]. [[IPFS]], [[solid]] are all natural directions to evolve in. I just started with something simple enough to be coded in a weekend :) And also something that most people in tech are already using (git+markdown). https://anagora.org/node/ipfs https://anagora.org/node/ipfs https://anagora.org/node/solid https://anagora.org/node/solid

winrid 6y ago

Hopefully without sounding rude - what's the experiment exactly?

flancian 6y ago
You don't! I appreciate the question. The quick and fuzzy answer is: whatever the community wants it to be :) My current view follows. In a nutshell: * The Agora is meant to be a goal-oriented social network specializing in problem solving. * The first goal of the Agora is to build itself. * The second goal of the Agora is whatever you (the community) want it to be. * The Agora seeks to complement and enrich the internet and existing social networks instead of "taking over". From https://flancia.org/agora https://flancia.org/agora: "You can think of the Agora as a convention based social network; an optional, user-controlled annotation layer that can be applied over any internet platform which supports user-generated content. I think one of the best possible uses for such a network would be to use it to pro-socially maintain a distributed knowledge graph tailored specifically to the goal of solving problems: those of its users and society at large. Its users, as a cooperative group, could by default take a naive but rational approach to problem solving: For each problem in the set P of all problems: Describe it as thoroughly as possible. Maintain a set of known or argued possible solutions, S(P). For each solution in S(P): Describe it as thoroughly as possible. Maintain a set of resources (people, time, attention, money) needed to implement it, R(S). Individual users could also declare their views on the state of the world explicitly: they define which subsets of P, S and R they agree with, in the sense that they believe they are feasible, true, interesting. Users that agree on their defined subsets can then efficiently collaborate on solutions as they become available by pooling of resources. We apply some good old recursivity and seed the Agora with the problem of how to build itself. That is, how to build a system that allows participating users and entities to collaborate optimally in the face of adversity (such as biases, irrationality and even actual ill intent)1. The Agora should be built on a federated protocol to limit the harmfulness of diasporas. Groups might temporarily diverge in their views enough to want to run separate Agoras, but different Agoras should be able to cooperate on problems and solutions for which there is enough ideological alignment, and eventually merge."
- 6y ago

corobo 6y ago

If this takes off, who owns it? You or Google?

flancian 6y ago
The community does :) Google owns the copyright, as can be seen in the LICENSE file and headers, but the totality of the project is open source (Apache). I own https://anagora.org https://anagora.org in particular and plan to run it as a public service.
- rapnie 6y ago
  Ah yes. I had to do some searching (maybe I overlooked an easy link), but here are the sources:https://github.com/flancian/agora-server https://github.com/flancian/agora-server
  - flancian 6y ago
    Thanks for the feedback; sorry for the inconvenience. I'll probably add a 'github' chip somewhere on the page. https://anagora.org/node/open-source https://anagora.org/node/open-source lists all relevant repositories.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- ssakamoto 6y ago
  > Google owns the copyright Giant Red Flag
  - flancian 6y ago
    Oh, interesting -- why do you think so? I considered this for a while and I didn't find any downsides. It's open source; can be forked anytime by anyone. I do this on my free time.
    - 6y ago

himujjal 6y ago

you are that guy in the movies who has a family back home and he has no choice but to work for the bad guys. while some hero comes someday and asks you to leave the bad guys and show you love. lol sorry everyone for making this another reddit

hobofan 6y ago

Very interesting to see a project built on top of Underlay! I've worked in the space ~2 years ago when Underlay was still in stealth mode and haven't heard from them since. It looks like it has grown into possibly the solution for decentralized knowledge graphs that ticks most of the boxes we were aiming for back then. Where there any other similar technologies that you considered instead of Underlay and what made you choose this one specifically?

flancian 6y ago
Ahoy! I have to clarify at this point the Agora is not based on [[underlay]]; they are just a reference I go back to often in the context of [[distributed knowledge graphs]]. I know Samuel Klein though and I'm looking forward to collaborating more with him and the Underlay project; it hasn't happened yet mostly because the Agora is still at a very early stage in its development :) https://anagora.org/node/underlay https://anagora.org/node/underlay https://anagora.org/node/distributed-knowledge-graph https://anagora.org/node/distributed-knowledge-graph
- hobofan 6y ago
  Ah, seems I've not read that page carefully enough. I thought the link on that page implied that it was built on Underlay, but I guess that was just wishful thinking :D