Engage in the Open Idea Project

 

Welcome!

This wiki combines the typical "about" information and a status report on all of the projects involved in the OIP's endeavors. The content you find here was taken from the archived version of the site, once I had bought the domain. Seems like there might be folks still out there who might like to see this information.

Thanks to Andrius Kulikauskas, Direktorius of the MinciuSodasLaboratory for his questions, which form this wiki. The answers to these questions are dynamic, and their content will be updated to reflect those changes.

Each of the Questions are indexes, and some entries are listed for more than one Question. This is to partially demonstrate the interconnectedness of concepts involved.

 

The Questions:

What Matters?

  • Human Evolution Versus Human Destruction
  • Co-thinking and Collaboration
  • Sharing Globally
  • Evolutionary Tools For Thinking (BootStrapping)

 

What Interests Us?

  • Current Online Collaboration Methods
  • Scalable Publication
  • Long Term Data Storage
  • Social And Political Ramifications

 

What Are We Learning?

  • Current Collaborative Methods
  • Technological Barriers
  • Social and Political Barriers
  • Connecting Islands Online

What Are We Undertaking?

What Might Interest Us?

What Should We Be Learning?

What Could We Be Undertaking?

How Are We Interacting

 

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PUBLIC OPEN SPACE TECHNOLOGY & LEARNING BY DOING

Posted by Dante-Gabryell Monson on Saturday July 09, @08:54PM from the Public Open Space Technology Learning Collaboration Free dept.

Dear Friends, Maybe you heard or know about OPEN SPACE TECHNOLOGY see : en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Space_Technology.  I believe it can be very powerful, and often experience it at seminars.

Now, I believe it is possible to EXTEND THIS to many other settings and organize PUBLIC OPEN SPACE TECHNOLOGIES in open public spaces such as parks, etc use it to open up conversations, communication, exchanges, creative knowledge, and project development , etc. within cities by opening up citizen spaces and opportunities for connections between citizens and citizen movements  no matter whatever their position, status, or activity within the city. Diversity makes everything richer!

I had a few conversations and a meeting with some friends here in Brussels.
Somehow, through our conversations, new informal networks composed of individuals interested by the common goal of learning and sharing knowledge , developing creative processes, etc... are developing and connecting with each other.

Likewise if you were able to break through time and space and appear in 2015, you would see an new iteration of this website. And what else would be available technologically speaking that would blow your mind. Lots!!! And the technological advances apply to the service industries as well as products. Search consultancies like TNG/Earthling, Inc. are even working artificial intelligence into their seo processes. This will eventually lead to higher ranks through better written, more relevant content along with all the ways in which semantic decisions are applied to a website. Automation already enables them to manage a huge number of websites across and outrageously large set of hosts, with bots that run daily to indicate which sites are in need of support, and which hosts may be under attack. Flying cars may be yet to come... but hey, this is now so let me show you a more mundane means of networking.

The Public Open Space Technology spaces and sessions open up opportunities for :

LEARNING BY DOING NETWORKS NOW, WHAT TO DO ??? --> EXPERIMENT ! :-) , gather and develop practices , tools , ... -->

MAKE IT HAPPEN - and SPREAD THE NEWS ABOUT PUBLIC OPEN SPACE MEETINGS -->

DEVELOP SOME TOOLS TO EASE ORGANISATION AND OPTIMISE KNOWLEDGE SHARING before, while , and after the public open space technology. -->

DEVELOP TOOLS AND PRACTICES complementing open space and easing exchanges and development of opportunities of LEARNING BY DOING

Budget needed: To start with --> No need for a Budget - 0 euro To Start Organising First Local Events --> 0 Euro ( people can bring drinks ;-) ) Afterwards --> Depends on the projects and needs for further tool development Other needs: Define Local Spots ( public spaces such as parcs, ... ) and eventually, if needed, the related authorisations. + anything else that can make it attractive ( why not, for example, do it in environments where you can combine it with, lets say, petanque , or do it just before a party )

Some technical aspects and suggestions for tools / tools development : TAGS SYSTEM - Before the meetings ( on the spot, or on the internet ), on memo's, people can brainstorm words and sentences related to their fields of interests, what they want to share, what they want to discuss, about their ideas, what projects they want to develop, etc.

This input is gathered, and some sort of classification sorts the different memos according to general topics. These new general topics can then be used to form a space. People can choose to go to that space(s), freely moving in and out. The memos still stay visible, and can be further developed within the space, although the discussion stays free and is not limited to the starting topic.

I briefly explained one of the first steps of a open space, so that we can understand how to develop tools and practices to gather such memos about subjects, and how we can organize it. I was thinking about keeping/setting a data base of topics, so to store the different topics, organize them, connect them with REPORTS or brain storming that people participating at the PUBLIC OPEN SPACE TECHNOLOGIES wish to share on the internet.  In addition a system of TAGS , where certain words that relate with each other simply make links between each other can be created.  As an example consider Delicious, or  on the other hand, it could be a bit like WikiWords in a wiki.

We will need Systems to visualize the memos of a certain meeting on a certain day , eventually connecting them to previous memos - meeting results - and profiles of people that wrote the previous tags. Such tags can also create links with Blogs, and wikis, that can be hosted on an online platform / data base.

IN SOME WAY, PUBLIC OPEN SPACE opens up and CONNECTS what many of us do/ tools and information on the INTERNET, to EVERYONE with/through a NON VIRTUAL ENVIRONMENT-tool.

It is also possible to imagine that with help of some technicians and networks that want to share their knowledge and resources in the field of ad hoc wireless networking ,it could build small, mobile wireless networks at the spot of the public open space technologies , EASING REAL TIME INPUT AND INTERACTION BETWEEN REAL WORLD AND VIRTUAL WORLD TOOLS .

What other tools should we consider? Let us know what your ideas and suggestions are!!! For example, a MAPS tool would be handy, making it easier to organize where a public open space could be held. Whether the map tools on the scale of a city with different locations within the city, or on smaller scale maps, such as maps of a park can be determined by trial to see which is better. Small-scale maps make it easier to establish where the meetings are happening, and where each thematic meetings will happen. Such maps can then be published online on a website and can be easily printed and distributed.

The OPEN WORLD PROJECT extends and complements the Public Open Space Technology in the sense that it
1) Publicizes the practice and technology
2) Connects different open space technology networks
3) Opens up opportunities for "Honey Bees" to pollinate by mixing the different information, events, opportunities, knowledge , contacts  which are encountered in different places.

LET ME/US KNOW IF YOU ARE INTERESTED AND ABOUT YOUR IDEAS

Feel free to check some of the links I bookmarked on related subjects on my delicious : http://del.icio.us/deliciousdante and please recommend me/us any more interesting bookmarks on these topics.
 Potential suggestions for OPEN SPACE Topics : About ANYTHING YOU WANT for example: DISCUSSION OPEN SPACE TECHNOLOGIES: about issues and/or ideas you want to discuss and develop or LEARNING OPEN SPACE TECHNOLOGIES: about interests/skills/knowledge you have and want to share with others,  although because open space is so free and flexible, there will be a mix as discussions and exchanges start. Consider these as a few quick brainstormed topics:

  • About Lifestyles / Different lifestyles
  • About Applying Technologies in our Daily Lives / Different Technologies and Fields of Application
  • About Travelling
  • About Gift Economy Cooperation Between Business and Communities in the City Loca Ad Hoc Wireless Networks
  • About Food and Agriculture Local Representative / Politics International Representative Politics Design and Clothing etc.

 

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Organic Open Source?

Posted by Jeff Archambeault on Thursday February 03, @04:05AM from the organic farming open source software foss wwoof dept.

Organic farming meets Free & Open Source Software? Learn organic farming during a "guerilla coding" retreat. Learn programming, networking and other home-grown computer skills while building an organic garden.

Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) IS the computer world's organic gardening. They would be like whole grain bread and thermal grease...perhaps not. Both tend to favor non-commercial, royalty/patent/IP safe, collaborative methods.

Combine these ideas to get geeks eating organic produce and organic farmers building wifi mesh networks.

World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms (WWOOF - http://www.wwoof.org/) is an organization that provides volunteers to work and learn on organic farms in exchange for room and board.

Programmers and other technologists who believe in Free and Open Source Software (FOSS - http://www.opensource.org/docs/definition_plain.php) often work to fund their contributions. Given the opportunity to "code for food", would many geeks go for it? Free broadband!

Host sites would provide room and board as well as equipment, materials, and transportation. Some WWOOF hosts are open to volunteers even during the winter months. Volunteers, for example, could contribute 5 6-hour days with one day a week doing "something else". This could help foster a spirit of "knowledge sharing". This could be putting up a tower for wifi antennas or deer-resistant fencing to help protect crops, teaching a class, firewood fetching, facility construction, or other community needs.

Other volunteer opportunities could exist such as camp staff, tour guiding, or custodial work at community sites.

 

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Imbuing Religion With Logic And Reason

Posted by Kurt Kawohl on Thursday November 18, @06:44PM from the dept.

The Social Invention: How can we change Muslim religious ideology to stop terrorism?

A fanatic passion to please God has been demonstrated throughout the Ages. We have seen vast destruction and useless killings by religious zealots that have followed us into the present century whereby even technology is unable to quell its tide. Muslims have been led to believe that they must expand Islam in order to please Allah/God. Since Judaism created the present perception of God, it is the duty of Judaism, the originator to bring rationality to a belief in Allah/God if Israel and Judaism wants to live in peace with Muslims.

If all the events that occurred as written in the Bible, Qur’an and Torah now, today, would humanity be as gullible now and accept all miracles and God as portrayed then? If the context entails incorrect exegeses and the vast tradition of hermeneutics and the translation is illogical, it is illogical whether it is by my interpretation or by any logic.

Mankind has progressed past a need for a God who desires and requires servitude. We can eliminate servitude and still have a closeness and love of God. It was man who placed restrictions on himself for the good of mankind and attributed this to God. Most of us now live in a lawful society. Now laws are proposed and enforced by governments. God does not, and never has meddled in our affairs.

If we take rationality completely out of context when establishing an association with present day problems between Jews, Christians and Muslims, we can come up with numerous solutions. Reality however dictates that if there were no distinctions between Muslims, Jews, and Christians, strife would be nonexistent. The major distinction is religion. The best weapon against irrationality is logic. If logic is implemented in religion, eventually the inference of reasoning has to predominate and the illogical will be considered inferior and will ridicule itself out of existence. Today we have at our disposal the means whereby the media can reach even the farthest corners of our world.

How does one confront the passions of people with a logical entreaty to abandon faith? How does one convince a young man that his self-immolation in a bombing will not bring redemption from Allah to his soul and rewards to his people or honor to his family? If logical reasoning lodges doubt into the mind of a martyr that his soul will be destroyed as a punishment for being the cause of cutting short another soul's ability to attain a bond with Allah/God, eventually the act of self-sacrifice ceases. This is the only effective way that man will eventually attain peace.

We can spend billions of dollars in an attempt to annihilate groups of people who have an adamant fanatical goal to destroy anyone who hinders the path of spreading their religion. They believe that this has been commanded by Allah. The end result will always be the same. The fanatics who are destroyed fuel the hatred of a new group with the same or an even fiercer fervor to die for their Allah if the need arises.

How do we solve this problem? The pen is mightier than the sword. To the illiterate, visual projections via film is the greatest tool. The media and film producers have always shied away from the possibility of offending religious organizations. A fear of the fundamentalists' wrath has even stifled the desire for the truth. Can the real truth be revealed? Will this end strife? Maybe not, but unless we try, we will never know; will we?

True logic is the science of inference and reasoning. “Transcendentalism Today” is the start of a new beginning.

Rev. Kurt Kawohl

 

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Moving On

Posted by Jeff Archambeault on Tuesday June 29, @02:52AM from the news writers development dept.

During the OIP's six-month hiatus, LucasGonzalez introduced me to Tav's UK-based group of espians at http://wtfcon.org/, specifically the IRC channel #esp on freenode.net (web-client at http://webirc.espnow.net/). That group gave me the inspiration to keep going on.

The OpenIdeaProject is at least a historical resource. We've done mixed-mode collaboration, and have the notes to prove it. We have a better feeling for what we want, and when to use it. We know what works and what doesn't. We've made some mistakes along the way (and have the notes to prove it).

 

 

More Background on The Open Idea Project

The Open Idea Project (OIP), originating from OpenIdeaProject.org, exemplifies the intersection of collaborative innovation, grassroots technology experiments, and global problem-solving. Straddling the worlds of free and open-source software, community activism, and participatory design, OIP is not a conventional website or product—it is a living, evolving movement with a unique history and a culturally significant vision. This article provides an in-depth overview of OIP, covering its ownership and origins, goals, functions, technical and social features, community impact, and its place in the broader landscape of collaborative online platforms.

History and Origins

Founding and Evolution

The Open Idea Project began as a dynamic, open wiki-style website combining traditional informational pages with live updates on project development and community-based discussions. It emerged during the early 2000s as a reactive response to siloed knowledge systems and was designed to support radical collaboration among individuals committed to solving the world's complex problems.

The platform credit key contributors and thought leaders like Andrius Kulikauskas, a Lithuanian-American founder of the collaborative Minciu Sodas Laboratory, for shaping many of its foundational ideas. His focus on “independent thinkers” and the shared investigation of real-world issues became a hallmark of OIP’s philosophical foundation.

As the project evolved, it experienced multiple phases:

  • Grassroots Launch: A testing ground for experimenting with decentralized decision-making models and civic ideas.

  • Q&A-Based Knowledge Commons: A continuously adaptable questions repository served as a collaborative database of shared inquiries and answers.

  • Community-Based Experiments: Offline participation—such as meetups in public spaces and open discussion groups—was key to merging theory and action.

  • Archival Hub: After several waves of activity, the site transformed into an archival repository housing years of ideas, user experiences, and global correspondences.

Key Figures

Several people helped push the Open Idea Project forward:

  • Andrius Kulikauskas: A primary catalyst, known for his work on fostering open communities through investigative dialogue and ethical technology.

  • Dante-Gabryell Monson: Focused on crafting "evolving city systems" and integrating Open Space Technology to promote public dialogue.

  • Numerous unnamed volunteers and collaborators from around Europe, the U.S., Latin America, Africa, and Asia who contributed content, structure, and vision.

Ownership and Location

The Open Idea Project was never corporately owned. It operated as a decentralized, volunteer-led initiative largely overseen by its creators and community. The domain was registered, maintained, and hosted by members mainly based in the U.S. and Europe, though its outreach and participation were global.

All materials were distributed under permissive, open licenses (typically Creative Commons) to reinforce the project's belief in unrestricted access to knowledge and engagement.

Platform Vision and Goals

The Open Idea Project had a compelling goal: to design tools, spaces, and systems where people could evolve better understandings of the world together, unhindered by commercial, geopolitical, or technical barriers.

This mission was structured around several core principles:

1. Evolution Over Destruction

Participants aimed to cultivate alternatives to cycles of social, environmental, and cognitive destruction through open discourse, intelligent cooperation, and community resilience.

2. Collective Learning & Shared Inquiry

Instead of experts dictating direction, the community encouraged mutual exploration of issues—ranging from technology to culture to urban redesign—via open questions and publicly available notes.

3. Bootstrapping Innovation

Using low-tech and high-tech approaches alike, OIP sought to “bootstrap” its own development using feedback mechanisms, distributed meetings, and shared ownership of knowledge repositories.

4. Unrestricted Access

All aspects of OIP were intentionally open: no paywalls, copyright locks, or restricted discussions. Transparency and open-ended participation were not just optional—they were core strategies.

Tools and Features

The functionality of the Open Idea Project reflected its grassroots mission and collaborative ideals.

Tagging and Wiki Infrastructure

OIP used a structured yet flexible system allowing users to tag concepts, ideas, and topics according to relevance and theme. The tags clustered community knowledge into accessible categories—enabling simplified sharing and enabling self-organizing topic clusters.

Participatory Projects

These weren’t just brainstorming sessions. Community-driven initiatives included:

  • Streetside discussions and informal "labs" in parks and public libraries

  • Experimentation with digital collaboration tools like VoIP and collaborative text editors

  • Open invitations to form new working groups and learning circles

Topic Mapping Database

A central aspect of the site was building an evolving database of problem domains, solutions, hypotheses, and experiment reports—all community-generated and publicly accessible.

Mobile Networking and Offline Tools

One proposed innovation was building urban mesh networks for local area communication that were independent of traditional ISPs—anticipating contemporary ideas behind decentralization and peer-to-peer internet technologies.

Target Audience and Community

The OIP community was large, open-ended, and infinitely diverse. Unlike traditional forums gated by technical expertise or academic credentials, OIP prided itself on its low barrier to entry.

Who Participated?

  • Artists, designers, and architects interested in sustainable cities

  • Digital activists and open-source technologists

  • Educators developing participatory tools and pedagogy

  • Farmers, urban gardeners, and community food advocates

  • Youth collectives keen on solving local governance issues

  • Philosophers, ethicists, and social scientists

Discussions welcomed contradiction, diversity of thought, and unresolved questions—aligning with philosophical inquiry rather than policy prescription.

Cultural and Social Significance

OIP’s cultural value lies in its framing of idea-making as a public act. Unlike commercial collaborative tools focused on productivity, Open Idea Project presented collaboration as a civic ritual—a means of rebuilding trust in participatory processes.

Role in Civic Tech

By embracing prototyping and experimental meetings in civic spaces, OIP pre-dated today's innovation labs and urban hackathons. Its influence can be felt in:

  • Participatory budgeting programs

  • Civic innovation centers

  • Wiki-based knowledge commons

  • Open-source political organizing platforms

Influence on Public Space Thinking

Advocates like Dante-Gabryell Monson worked to redefine the way we interact with cities and social infrastructure—inviting others to imagine the street corner as a lab, the café as a commons, and the network as a neighborhood.

Reputation and Feedback

As an experimental space, OIP’s audience often left testimonials describing the platform as:

  • “A place to find kindred spirits across continents.”

  • “Part chaotic, part generative—but always open.”

  • “More inspiration than instruction, and that was the point.”

Independent thinkers commended the project for creating rare intellectual freedom, even if some critiques noted the absence of curated leadership or lasting organizational shape.

Media Mentions and Recognition

Though never mainstream, OIP made waves in:

  • Online forums dedicated to open governance

  • Mailing lists from academic and internet-freedom communities

  • Grassroots organizing circles across Europe and Latin America

Newsletters, web-radio shows, and independent publications occasionally cited the platform as a prime example of emerging "post-disciplinary" collaboration.

Case Studies and Examples

Open Meeting in Brussels

One documented example involved people meeting in Brussels to test urban food-sharing systems, exchanging maps and forming makeshift infrastructure using mesh Wi-Fi, QR codes, and currency-free trade systems. It became an impromptu experiment in sustainability.

"Evolution Hubs"

These were small self-organizing collectives that would cluster around themes like:

  • Alternative economic models

  • Mental health and community healing

  • Transparent governance and digital voting

Some met online, others in university lounges or library study rooms—underscoring the hybrid digital-physical element OIP valued.

 

The Open Idea Project is less a destination and more an invitation—an open-ended platform that validated the belief that ideas, collaboration, and public imagination are everyone’s right. Operating at the intersections of free speech, civic engagement, and technological speculation, it remains a quietly transformative experiment in how human beings can organize their collective insight.

Though the original site’s level of activity has decreased, its archives, principles, and community echoes persist across internet forums, grassroots gatherings, and new civic tech platforms. In its unpolished, participatory beauty, OIP reminds us that the future isn’t something to predict—it’s something to write, together.

 

OpenIdeaProject.org