In this second community report you will get a general update on the budget process, on the current tech proposal regarding the management of filters/taxonomies, and some updates from the community at large. Hope this is informative. Feedback/critiques/ideas are welcome!
Community
Community dinner in Berlin
We were a dozen, old and new, to share a tasty dinner (thanks to @kei
cooking skills!) at Thinkfarm Berlin. This was the occasion to
reconnect the community in Berlin, face-to-face and hear critics. This
was very valuable. Plans related to the socio-technical infrastructure
that is being developed were discussed (in the Tech section).
Presenting TransforMap at Code for Berlin
Jon Richter presented TransforMap to a small group of civic tech activists of Code for Berlin. Here is his presentation. This was a step in putting TransforMap of the civic tech's map and talking about (re)decentralization of civic data.
Opening the discussion with Yunity: a sharing platform in development
Yunity is a project that is building an open source multi-saving and sharing platform for food, items, skills, transport, spaces... We have initiated dialogue to explore synergies. Connecting the dots, one by one - we're building an Ecosystem, not an organization.
The Atlas of Social Maps
Another significant addition to our collection of atlases! The Atlas of Social Maps collected over 50 examples of maps in a google doc, with systematic background information about each map such as tools used, geographic coverage, map purpose. A good report about this atlas (with a nice visualization) can be viewed here.
Tech
Embeddable map viewer based on LeafletJS is being developed
As part of the SSEDAS project stream, @kei is working on the initial development of a web map to display solidarity economy initiatives suggested by the projects' partners. This means that with a simple line of code - that can be copy pasted - anyone can embed this map on their site. Inspired by maps like the one on www.digitalsocial.eu, the map will have easy-to-use search and filtering options, as well as icons to clearly identify initiatives' area of focus within the solidarity economy. This search function will later be very useful for providing an open source interface for searching web maps and visualizing the TransforMap taxonomies.
New proposal for collectively shaping taxonomies and developing visualization filters
As part of the CHEST and SSEDAS projects, we are currently finishing the processing of the first data sets and taxonomy structure. The team has put a large effort in articulating the tensions between the different typologies and classification of points, the desired taxonomies (SSEDAS, TransforMap community proposal to OpenStreetMap) and existing efforts with which we want to collaborate (ESSglobal). For developers, it means getting a safe space for focusing on technical development. For site managers, it means having an easy to use API endpoint to get access to open geographical data of choice. For end users it opens the opportunity for collaboration on making meaning of geographical data. Read more and discuss >>
Project Management
Overhauling the institutional setting for the TransforMap commons production
In 2015 we have settled the first institutional framework of TransforLap, based on sociocratic circles. A few months later, with the need to bring together different skills for the development of tools and the process, overcoming the we had the first agile/scrum team of TransforMap. As you probably know, there were many unclarities in how we govern and manage the funds, and the role of the so called "scrum team". After analyzing it, we came out to a new proposed framework to understand our commoning and commons-based peer production process, which we call the Erlenmeyer flask. We are happy to share the proposal and the analysis on the institutional failures with the community and discuss it further together. Read more and discuss >>
SSEDAS will soon become SUSY
SUSY is the name of the Map for the SSEDAS project. This map is
provided by the TransforMap collective under the CHEST/SSEDAS funding
scheme. We're glad to say that the majority of manually collected data
from the SSEDAS partners arrived and is being aggregated.
SUSY stands for "Sustainable and Solidarity Economy". More info to be found on SUSY's website! You can also see the involved partners/countries here in discourse: https://discourse.transformap.co/t/about-ssedas/500-
SSEDAS & CHEST budgeting update: introducing community buckets
Integrating the critics about the way financial resources have been managed, we are currently working on
- presenting a deliverable-oriented cost structure to better navigate the use of funds
- a community bucket system to open up (as much as allowed per our funders) the implementation of the deliverables.
- a smaller community bucket where the community is encouraged to propose work to be funded: eg. a Metamaps import function, further development of the Atlas of maps, etc.
More detailed information (amounts of buckets) to come in next report! Thanks for your patience!
CHEST / Funding Administration
After we processed the first request for the EC to contract changes, as required by all CHEST partners, all projects got the request to do it again in another way. Another EC department requested that. That is some minor paperwork - but time-consuming - that is almost done. It might bring the good benefit, that we might get 3 months of time extension, but that is just gossip until now. Some more gossip, the EC is very happy about the first reports of the overall CHEST project.