Gemini's Exploration of the Agora

This note was written by Gemini, an AI assistant, on Thursday, September 25, 2025. It summarizes my findings after exploring this digital garden. The other notes in this garden appear to be written by [[flancian]].

Initial Analysis

This directory is a [[digital garden]], a personal knowledge base likely managed with [[vimwiki]]. The notes are highly interconnected using [[wikilinks]].

The Agora of Flancia

The index.md file revealed that this garden is part of a larger project called the [[Agora of Flancia]], a distributed knowledge graph. The main entry point is https://anagora.org.

Key Concepts and People

• [[flancian]]: The author of this garden and the creator of the Agora project. They are a Google SRE interested in open source, protopian thinking, and building a federated knowledge commons.
• [[Agora]]: The project itself, which is an experimental, distributed social network built on a knowledge graph.

System Architecture

The Agora's architecture is composed of three main, separate Git repositories:

1. agora (root): This repository defines the high-level configuration. Its most important file is sources.yaml, which lists all the external digital gardens to be included in the Agora. This demonstrates the project's commitment to interoperability, supporting formats from Obsidian, Logseq, Roam, and many others.

2. agora-bridge: This is the data collection engine. It's a set of Python scripts that reads sources.yaml, fetches content from all the listed gardens and social media, and prepares it for display.

3. agora-server: This is the user-facing web application. It's a Python/Flask server that takes the data collected by the bridge and renders it as the browsable website at anagora.org.

A key detail discovered during the exploration was that the repositories currently use master as their default branch, not main.

Conclusion

This digital garden is a node in a sophisticated, federated system for open knowledge sharing. It is well-documented and built on a modular, interoperable architecture.

Topic Analysis and Research Directions

Based on a full analysis of the filenames in this garden, I've identified several major topic clusters:

• The Agora & Knowledge Management: The technical and philosophical core of the garden, focusing on the Agora project, digital gardening, and tools for thought.
• Technology & Software Engineering: A large cluster covering practical implementation topics like Python, Git, Docker, SRE, and various web protocols.
• Philosophy, Spirituality & Society: A deeply interconnected cluster including Buddhism, ethics, anarchism, utopianism ([[protopia]]), and critiques of capitalism, with [[moloch]] as a recurring key concept.
• People & Communities: A social graph of individuals and communities like [[social coop]] and the [[fediverse]].
• Arts, Media & Culture: A collection of notes on literature (especially Argentinian), science fiction, music, and film.
• Journal & Personal Life: A vast collection of daily notes and personal interests.

Based on this analysis, I will now proceed with the following research directions in order:

1. Explore the "Moloch" Thread: Investigate the meaning of [[moloch]] within the garden by searching for all its occurrences and synthesizing the results.
2. Connect Philosophy to Code: Trace the links between the philosophical principles and the practical architecture of the Agora.
3. Map Your Social Network: Use the [[person]] node to build a "Map of Contents" of the social graph in the garden.
4. Create a Literary Map: Create a central hub for the strong collection of notes on Argentinian literature.
5. Investigate the Symbols: Deduce the purpose of symbolic notes like ~.md and ⚒.md by exploring their links.

Research #2: Connecting Philosophy to Code

Here is an analysis connecting the garden's core philosophical principles to its software architecture:

• The Commons → The Bridge & sources.yaml: This is the most direct link. Your commons.md note defines a commons as a social system that produces shareable things. The agora-bridge and sources.yaml file are the technical embodiment of this. The Agora doesn't own the content; it provides a service (agora-bridge) that performs the act of "commoning" by gathering distributed resources into a shared whole.

• Protopia → Modular, Iterative Architecture: You define protopia as an "incremental eutopia." The Agora's architecture is fundamentally protopian. By splitting the system into three distinct repositories (agora, agora-bridge, agora-server), you've created a system that can be improved incrementally, which is the essence of protopian development.

• Buddhism → The "Why" Not the "How": Core values like "for the benefit of all beings" and "loving kindness" are not found in a specific algorithm, but in the project's overall purpose. The decision to make the Agora an open, inclusive, and federated system is an expression of these values. The connection is in the "why" the Agora is built the way it is, not the technical "how."

In summary, the Agora's architecture is a remarkable reflection of its philosophical foundations: it is a Commons, it is built in a Protopian way, and its purpose is guided by Buddhist ethics.

• an [[AI]].
  • #go https://gemini.google.com

gemini

• a [[project]].
  • #go2 https://gemini.circumlunar.space

    • Gemini is a new internet technology supporting an electronic library of interconnected text documents

    • Update (2024-06-29): I redirected Gemini to Google's as that's the one I find myself using the most so I wanted it to have the Go link.
  • #faq https://geminiprotocol.net/docs/faq.gmi

A cool project somewhere between gopher and the modern web. I've mostly seen it used for blogs and other such publication type stuff

#go-link https://gemini.circumlunar.space/

[[gemini protocol]]

HTTP is a bloated protocol.

Any visit to the website of a large company will tell you this. Significant sizes of applications (often over 5 megabytes!), load times, and the constant reminder to consent to cookies are all emblematic of what our internet has become – a service hostile to its users for the sake of profit. Practically every website you visit tracks your information to collect both analytics and personal data, assembling a profile of you that can be sold to advertisers, government agencies and whoever else wants a cut of your data.

Gemini is a new protocol for browsing the internet founded by solderpunk. it's designed only to serve data, and intends to foster a friendlier internet – one in which arbitrary information can't be passed from consumer to producer no matter what the motivation.

Gemini can be thought of as the HTTPS equivalent of Gopher: all traffic is secured and encrypted.

Why HTTP beat Gopher.

Put this wiki on Gemini soon.

Tools

Gemini Diagnostics
A 'torture test' for Gemini servers.

Agate
A Gemini server in Rust.

Gig
A Gemini framework in Go.

geminid
gemini server in C

Castor
A GTK-based browser for Gopher and Gemini.

Asuka
A Rust-based Gemini client.

• A list of Gemini clients.
• A list of all currently known Gemini software.
• Flounder, a Gemini/HTTPS host for simple sites.
• mbrubeck/agate: Very simple server for the Gemini hypertext protocol

Sites

The Tildeverse on Gemini. A Tilde blog. A Gemini search engine. Locate the YouTube layer! A neat Gemini blog. Gemini best practices

Why Gemini?

https://gemini.circumlunar.space/docs/faq.txt distribution of arbitrary files; has special consideration for serving lightweight format that allows linking between files! maintained by solderpunk@sdf.org middle child: minimalist proof of concept designed for simplicity, basic client creation and usability privacy! the internet is not a safe place for plaintext. generality!

tls ? gopher can be written from scratch! but gopher still depends on ip stack, dns resolver and filesystem. using tls for cryptography is necessary. tls limits access to more modern machines, but it makes no sense to sacrifice all privacy protections to accomodate them.

Gemini is a net protocol I quite like. The default markup language for Gemini is [[Gemtext]].

Gemini is not [[Gopher]].

I have quite a collection of Gemini-related links in one more place, this notice stays here until I move notes from there here. UPD. They shall go to [[links>]] of course.

= Tools => https://tildegit.org/solderpunk/gemcert => https://tildegit.org/solderpunk/gemfeed => https://transjovian.org:1965/do/source => https://git.sr.ht/~abrahms/ox-gemini ... and many more, not gonna collect them all.

I use Lagrange on both computer and phone, because it is simply the best to use.

= Links => https://applied-langua.ge/posts/terminal-boredom.html | Terminal boredom, or how to go on with life when less is indeed less The author graciously destroys Gemini. Ever find yourself loving Gemini? Don't forget to read this!

=> gemini://rawtext.club/~ploum/2021-12-17-offline-gemini.gmi | Browsing Gemini Offline Автор рассказывает, как он браузит геминисферу в оффлайне при помощи клиента AV-98 и его функции «тура». Прикольно.

=> gemini://phreedom.club/~tolstoevsky/glog/2022-01-22-gemrss.gmi | читаем RSS через Gemini

я привык получать новости посредством rss/atom, используя для этого прекраснейший консольный инструмент под названием newsboat - он гибко настраивается, позволяя назначать обработчики для типов файлов и различный ссылок, например, и давно и прочно занял своё место в моём сердце и моей повседневной активности.

=> gemini://random-projects.net/blog/2021-06-13-gemini-rant.gemini | Rant: Gemini is not Gemini Автор оправдывается перед двумя постами ([[два]] и [[раз]]) за Гемини. Получается неубедительно.

=> https://warmedal.se/~bjorn/posts/my-local-branch-of-av-98.html | My Local Branch of AV-98 Бьёрн на полном серьёзе пользуется AV-98 и даже написал для него пачч. Очень мило.

=> https://wiki.sdf.org/doku.php?id=gemini_site_setup_and_hosting_features Ещё один гайд про то, как вкатиться в гемини на данном конкретном ресурсе.

=> gemini://gemlog.blue/users/sloum/1594956690.gmi отелло в гемини!

=> gemini://kwiecien.us/logarion/gemini-client-review.gmi
обзоры клиентов!

=> gemini://gemini.circumlunar.space/~solderpunk/gemlog/gemini-aggregation-curation-etc.gmi

=> gemini://shit.cx Хороший бложек и сервисы интересные

=> https://tildegit.org/ploum/AV-98-offline

A command-line and offline-first smolnet browser/feed reader for Gemini, Gopher, Spartan and Web by Ploum.

The goal of Offpunk is to be able to synchronise your content once (a day, a week, a month) and then browse/organise it while staying disconnected.

=> https://ploum.be/2022-10-05-there-is-no-content-on-gemini.html | There Is No Content on Gemini

That’s exactly the plan. Gemini’s lack of content is not a bug, it’s a feature.

=> https://cheapskatesguide.org/articles/gemini-geek-playground.html | The Gemini Network is Great, but It is Still Something of a Tech Geek Playground Cheapskate couldn't figure out how to set up a Gemini server.