Hello Michel, Hello All,

I'm reading these postings with concern - and of course, I'd like to express my personal sympathy with you, Michel, for the difficult circumstances in which you find yourself.

While these can be addressed by supportive friends and online donations, I suggest that the larger issue of structuring and scaling the P2P Foundation also needs to be engaged with.

And while this may seem premature, I suggest that there are reasons why this should happen NOW.

P2P activity is often vulnerable to disruption, particularly when it is unstructured or poorly structured.

The character of the disruption you describe, Michel, often originates from unusual personality types or troubling social or psychological circumstances, and is very familiar to us at Access Space. The hostile or truly incompetent aren't the people who cause the most damage. The most trouble comes from people who have positive aspects to their characters, and have broadly positive motivations, but who are also driven by some other agenda or personal impulse.

There need to be processes and (perhaps unfamiliarly) firm policy to reduce disruption and minimise the damage it can cause:

* "There are no formal operational roles"

* "Founder Michel Bauwens produces most of the content creation and takes care of community management."

* "My big frustration is that I failed to develop a ‘business model’ to sustain myself and my family..."

The difficulty here is, perhaps, an inherent contradiction. To fulfil its ambition as a facilitator (hub, platform?) for peer-to-peer interaction, the P2P Foundation itself cannot be one of those peers - it needs to be a piece of infrastructure which connects with, but stands slightly aside from, P2P activity.

The question of a business model may seem peripheral at a time of crisis - but if it's possible to develop a practical  vision of a sustainable structure, and start to map out some steps along the way to achieving this, then the prospect of advancement will act as a guiding light and provide a powerful boost to morale.

It's also likely to draw in more short-term support.

I'm entirely familiar with the difficulty of encompassing the boundless, interconnecting, intersectional and holistic vision which the P2P Foundation suggests. I've encountered similar difficulty in expressing the nature and concerns of Access Space. By its nature, Peer-to-peer activity resists definition, suggesting a phase shift in human organisational structures which will have impacts across almost every area of production, consumption, politics and experience.

So without further ado, and failing to ask permission of the group, I propose a first step.

I have questions which may move the Foundation towards a more coherent and resilient form.

(If this email is ignored or passed over for now - I'll assume that the general feeling is, either "That James is an idiot" or "Let's do this later". In either case, fair enough! Feel free to contact me later if you'd like my participation.)

* Who are the major constituencies that the P2P Foundation's daily and weekly activities are designed to assist?

(NB: "everyone" is not a useful answer.)

* What principal utility does it provide?

(eg: practical information, collaborative matchmaking, access to grants, a platform for publicity, references and bibliographies for research, workspace, editing, publishing...).

* How does it provide this utility?

(NB: "The Internet" is not an answer! How about... An archive of PDFs? A continuous stream of data? Emails? Databases? Lists of links? An online magazine? An index?)

* Are there discontinuities which need to be acknowledged?

(I suggest yes - there's a fundamental discontinuity between "research" which wants to fiind out and understand what's going on, and "activism" which actually does stuff. These are two impulses and two communities that may intersect and collaborate - but their success criteria are distinct and different. Are there other discontinuities? This will help to structure communications, so that practical activists get the "how tos" they need, and researchers get the reading lists they need.)

* What is a "Strapline" for the P2P Foundation's daily and weekly activities?

It may be that there is simply too much to do for a single organisation. Scratch that. There IS too much for a single organisation to do to support P2P activity. So what's the day-to-day, week-by-week activity it does, and what's it for. In 140 characters or less!

* What is the P2P Foundation's vision?

This is different from the strapline - it's a broader vision of how it's going to help P2P change the world for the better.

There - that's enough for now. While writing this posting, I've been using this page as a guide:

http://p2pfoundation.net/About_The_Foundation#Structure_of_the_P2P_Foundation

The trouble, it seems to me, isn't that the answers to these questions haven't been expressed - it's that EVERY POSSIBLE P2P idea has been expressed! There is far, far too much information on what the P2P Foundation could be, wants to be, and how its benefits might manifest.

Now it's time to focus.

It's not money - but I really, really hope this helps.

All the best,

James
=====

On 23/07/13 08:36, Michel Bauwens wrote:
Dear Denis,

I'm giving details through Skype but right now still feel uncomfortable in creating more problems for the individual involved.

The issue is the following, we do have a confession, but couched in terms of a personal problems and personality issues, but this only accounts for the issues covering the last 3 months; but I have evidence of much more nasty interventions dating back since december.

Basically the technique was the following: during particular senstive emergencies, crucial requests would not get to me; this was incomprehensible for some partners, who saw all my online activity, and therefore were incredulous as to my explanation. This create hurt from two sides, the side that felt abandoned by me, and on my side, hurt about unjustified accusations.

The original psy-op involved forgeries, usurped identities, fake meetings and a whole series of actions that make it very hard to believe that this could just be an individual without assistance.

However, we do not have the means to verify this. Right now, I am looking at help to restore the integrity of the communications, for example how to restore blocked and filters I may not be aware of.

On a personal level and to be frank, these are the issues I have to deal with:

1) healthcare: though I now have basic health insurance, lack of cash flow makes it impossible to use (prepayment), so I have not been able to go to a single doctor visit regarding a chronic prostate issue, and an asthmatic bronchitis I have caught in Europe. If my symptoms are not acute, my wife will resist doctor visits, as there are so many competing demands for our cash, and the kids get priority

2) tech infrastructure: my computer is old and decaying and can only be used by extra keyboard, which is inconvenient, my phone is help together by tape; when travelling, I can't use an android, do not have roaming and can exclusively use sms ... the effects of all this is that many small problems are hard to solve

3) cash flow issues mean i cannot react properly to emergencies, do not have a working credit card (problems when asked for guarantees for hotel rooms); for example, I have zero access to new books, unless I get review copies


The problem is that once you are pushed into such a position, you are dealing with a lot of emergencies, making it difficult to look at things strategically

My analysis from the recent psy-op is that someone understood this, and targetted communciations and cooperations that involved funding.

Of course, many of these thigns are related to personality flaws, and I "should" do things better, but, I have my limits, and better support would really help.

In particular: a basic income so I could afford healthcare, investment in new tech (computer, android that can serve as phone, roaming sub); and some emergency loan fund to occasionally prepay tickets (I usually refuse, but sometimes, it's really necessary).

Right now, I and our little group are facing scaling issue, the interest is exploding, demands on our time is skyrocketing, and we should professionalize, but, are not successful yet in achieving this new phase.

Michel


<< Message: 2
Date: Tue, 23 Jul 2013 07:00:47 +0200
From: Denis Postle <denis.postle@gmail.com>
Subject: [P2P-F]  an important announcement of the p2p foundation
To: p2p-foundation@lists.ourproject.org,
        commoning@lists.wissensallmende.de
Message-ID:
        <CAHFpLXuQ0hXG2sWDVKb5nUfqhOc0fiCt5keFKmh7qaPXi65Ryw@mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

>important announcement.

>We probably won't give more details than this, though some formal
statement in our blog may be forthcoming.

Shocking news, Michel. While I can appreciate your concern to limit how
these events are described, it seems important for us to know whether they
are the actions of a disaffected individual or a group, and if a group,
then surely this should be identified.

Longer term finance is a strategice issue, but If everyone reading here
were to donate the cost of a couple of meals out with friends that might
take you some way towards a better keyboard. Let's do it!
Denis

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