Welcome to [[boris mann]]'s section of the agora!

We're experimenting with [[Connecting to the Agora]], and what some of the configurations and conventions are. The [[Anagora]] page has my notes and feature requests.

Status

• This document was mostly written in 2018. The Agora was then just a thought experiment. It has since grown to be a living project.
• As late as 2020-10-17, the Agora barely existed as a concrete implementation -- it was not a single tool but rather many which you could use in tandem following a convention, which I provisionally named Agora Protocol.
• As of 2022-01-02, a reference Agora is online on https://anagora.org pull. Using terminology gained and derived in the last three years (with the help of the Agora community!), I can now describe it as a [[knowledge commons]].

Regardless of implementation details, an Agora can be assembled out of off-the-shelf parts available on the internet, mostly for free:

• Knowledge management tools used for the purpose of building a distributed knowledge graph, following the aforementioned convention based on lazily evaluated [[wikilinks]]. See https://anagora.org/agora-editor pull for a review of some of the tools in this space, or Roam Likes for an older take.
• Social networks and the constructive bits of the internet as we have them, annotated and enriched using open tools and standards.
• An explicit constructive social contract. For reference you can consult the anagora.org default.

If you are interested in collaborating on building Agoras or similar constructive spaces, please reach out or peruse the Git repository.

See also: https://flancia.org/go/agora-howto pull, https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1322619094563258370.html.

Head

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.

Tail

I have a more focused and detailed unpublished document which will probably replace or complement this chapter soon.

I know the premise sounds almost like a joke: what the world needs is a new social network. The internet and social networks are technologies we are just barely learning to live with, and the recent cause of a lot of polarization and political escalation and Trump Being President². It doesn't sound at first like we should add another stick to that particular dumpster fire. But hear me out.

We need a designated place in the internet where we can discuss ideas in a constructive way. In particular, where we can discuss possible strategies to face the problems that humanity is facing. This is already happening, for sure; but is it happening somewhere on the internet where everybody can contribute? I don't think so. If the Agora exists already, please point the way -- I'd like to get there, and building it from scratch would be hard. The network of universities and institutes are the closest we have and I love them, but the Agora should be fully open and available to all over the internet, so every participating individual can contribute work and thought. Of course the whole internet could be an Agora; but the internet as a whole is chaotic and disorganized and thus its implicit Agora is entangled with places that are not constructive and not safe. There must be a better way.

Nick Bostrom has a paper on existential risk where he talks about a kind of lottery of ideas; humanity is constantly playing this game, the metaphor goes, and drawing ideas out of big lottery wheels of Science and Technology and Culture. Some of the balls in this wheel are colored white; these are good ideas. They contribute to human good, and we're glad we found them.

There are also black balls, though. These are bad³. They are things that, on the whole, produce enough bad to be existential risks to humanity. Nuclear power seemed to be this for a while; perhaps mutually assured destruction could have resulted in an apocalypse. But it didn't! Aren't we lucky? If (and it's a big if) things stay this way, we got away with playing with something dangerous. Perhaps we can use the idea for whatever good it holds (cheap and relatively safe energy), or perhaps we decide to bury it underground in a big vault of ideas (this one doesn't have to ever spin again) that says Do Not Go There, Trust Us. For now, though, the idea might still turn out to be black; we could, perhaps, represent this situation as a grey ball of whatever shade we deem most likely.

We need a social network for discussing ideas. For talking about Bostrom's lottery urn, and what it has in it for us. In the Agora, we discuss ideas and their shades and merit; we discuss, first and foremost, ethics. We talk openly and clearly about how to best move forward as a society of humans, with the knowledge we've gotten and the resources we have.

What if social networks are grey? How dark is their shade? The high modernist in me wants to believe that the structured flow of information is more of a good thing than a bad thing. But we need to be cautious, and this is why I wrote this and you are reading it now.

I need your help.

In Flancia there is no poverty.

Agora

• A [[protocol]].
  • #pull [[agora protocol]]
• A [[platform]].
  • #pull [[agora platform]]
• A [[graph]].
  • #pull [[agora graph]]
• A [[commons]].
  • The Agora is a distributed knowledge graph and experimental social network.
    • See [[go/agora slides]] if you'd like a 10' introduction to the key concepts.
    • See [[go/agora doc]] if you are interested and have half an hour :)
  • The [[Agora]] you're likely reading this in, https://anagora.org pull, is designed to be just one of many.
    • Anyone can run [[an Agora]] of their own if they so desire. This Agora is [[open source]]: [[go/agora]].
    • To [[sign up]] for the Agora, which means volunteering your writing and media to it, please consult [[agora editor]].
    • This Agora wants to be [[maximally inclusive]], but it is in its infancy; it is a [[work in progress]]. If you want to participate and can't, please also send email to signup@anagora.org to let us know.
    • Through projects such as [[Agora bridge]], we hope to make this Agora available for writing to anyone that has access to a [[digital garden]] or a social media account.
    • Follow an [[agora bot]] if you'd like to contribute to this Agora from [[social media]]:
      • [[mastodon]] https://botsin.space/@agora
      • [[twitter]] https://twitter.com/an_agora
    • If you want to learn more about the [[experimental]] nature of this Agora, please refer to this Hacker News comment. If you want to keep up to date with development, consider adding me on Twitter or Mastodon: [[flancian]].
  • Agoras are spaces kept by communities with [[good intent]] while expressing explicit [[goals]] and open [[protocols]].
    • This section, made up of items in a [[markdown]] list, is an example of an Agora protocol.
    • This [[agora protocol]] is a set of simple conventions on top of [[plain text]] or other [[supported formats]].
    • #pull [[agora howto]] [[an agora]] [[agora doc]]
    • [[git]] https://github.com/flancian/agora
      • [[root]] https://github.com/flancian/agora
      • [[server]] https://github.com/flancian/agora-server
      • [[bridge]] https://github.com/flancian/agora-bridge
      • #go [[git]]
    • [[bugs]] https://github.com/flancian/agora/issues
    • [[bug]] https://github.com/flancian/agora/issues/new
    • [[nutshell]] https://twitter.com/flancian/status/1487110385446576134 pull
    • [[architecture]] https://social.coop/@flancian/108346148663576473 pull

• [[distributed knowledge graph]] & [[experimental social network]]
  • [[social knowledge graph]]
  • [[wiki]] [[wikilinks]]
  • [[digital garden]]

An agora, in its broadest sense, is a conceptual space where people attempt to bring an increased level of intentionality, explicitness, and mutual agreement to the principles and protocols for interacting in that space. A further aspect of the idea of an Agora is that it is a space which enables collaboration. In particular, it is a space that allows for collaboration guided by specific shared interests, without requiring the co-consitutients of the agora to be aligned more fully or generally in terms of their intentions, values, etc.

Some topics that the idea of an Agora is related to: [[transparency]] [[decentralized structures]] [[egalitarian principles]] [[judgement]] [[algorithms of interaction]] [[communication]] [[collaboration]] [[knowledge sharing]]

There are (infinitely) many possible variants of how this idea might be implemented in concrete, real-world situations. For example, an agora could be a space that is opened up inside a conversation between two people. Or it could be a collaborative project that is accompanied by specified rules. Or it could be a collective agreement about how to handle certain types of situations.

One variant of the idea of an Agora is a place where personal notes are shared, with the common goal of pooling information and sharing knowledge. One implementation of this idea is https://anagora.org pull. See also https://flancia.org/go/agora pull.

The term "Agora" and the basic idea come from [[Flancia]].

img side { lapin 77 {My visual take}}

Agora is a ‘wiki like experimental social network and distributed knowledge graph’, so they said. I would say it's an aggregator of digital gardens and a community around it. Anagora is the first and biggest instance of it. [[Flancian]] was the one who created it and the software behind, but there were other good contributors. Thank you!

=> https://anagora.org pull

I'm part of it:. I also frequent the associated video conferences.

=> https://anagora.org/@melanocarpa pull | Melanocarpa in Agora => https://anagora.org/@bouncepaw-betula pull | My recent bookmarks in Agora

Agora makes a big emphasis on graphs and links. Their analogue of hyphae is called a node, nodes are generated from contents from multiple sites. There is also a cool notion of push/pull and go links!

//I was inspired by Agora's go links and implemented something very similar in [[Betula]].//

2022-01-18 I wrote the author an email about the possibilities of making Agora and [[Mycorrhiza]] compatible. 2022-03-06 Melanocarpa was added to Anagora, along with Mycorrhiza support. Furthermore, in 2023 proper support of [[Mycomarkup]] was added.

=> https://github.com/flancian/agora-server/commit/7783430aa33986186e9fd66ee858250b115e0d7e | Commit that adds Mycorrhiza support.

The Agorans also seem to be using [[git]]-based [[markdown]]-driven digital gardens mostly. It is the default choice for many, but luckily support for more formats was added. Mycorrhiza, for example, is supported! There is also [[Betula in Agora]].

= See also => Wiki => Social network => Digital garden => https://mycorrhiza.wiki/help/en/hypha pull => https://anagora.org/node pull => https://anagora.org/go pull => Flancia

You can't really talk about Agora without Flancia.

Agora

• https://anagora.org/ pull

This looks like a really cool way of aggregating digital gardens into one place. To produce a community garden (or, an agora). Interesting to contrast with how a solely P2P way of connecting gardens might work, no central aggregator.

An Agora is a distributed, goal-oriented social network centered around a cooperatively built and maintained [[knowledge graph]]. The implementation you are currently looking at tries to assemble such a graph out of a collection of digital gardens.

– GitHub - flancian/agora

See also [[sister sites]].

See: [[What do I think about the Agora?]]

Agora

• https://flancia.org/go/agora pull
• https://github.com/flancian/agora#whats-an-agora

The [https://anagora.org pull agora] is a cool place to learn stuff

[[agora todo]]

• [[agora containers]]
• [[agora ext]]
• [[agora-server]]
• [[agora ctzn]]

<link rel="stylesheet" href="https://doc.anagora.org/css/center.css"> <button class="pull-url" value="https://doc.anagora.org/css/center.css">">pull</button>

<div class="container-fluid text-center">
    <div class="vertical-center-row">
        <h1>500 Internal Error <small>wtf.</small></h1>
    </div>
</div>

Feature Requests

• #push [[agora-plan]]

[[codex]]

• https://twitter.com/codexeditor/status/1377475227978883074 pull

[[polycultic]]

• [[docker]] image for the [[agora]]

[[dan whaley]]

• Subnodes should show date created, date last updated.

[[dr-kvj]]

• Would like to be able to sync [[remnote]] notes.

[[luciana]]

• [[foam]] Los títulos de las notas en español deberían usar minúsculas (siguiendo la convención apropiada para el español).

[[vaughn tan]]

• It would be nice to have a way to export rendered gardens as static html, with data such as calculated backlinks baked in.

[[metasj]]

• Meta FR: look at special pages from [[wikipedia]]: https://twitter.com/metasj/status/1346180724861394944 pull

[[eismanholmes]]

• Got an [[agora]] [[feature request]]: have http://anagora.org pull detect "dangling links" in gardens, that is, wikilinks that have no target note. Good for people that want to notice and tie up "loose ends" in their garden.

[[abstractfairy]]

• Abstract Fairy: I. Agora sequences The main value I find in a book is structure. A well written book shows you how an idea came to be, related ideas, its limitations, and how you can play around with it. I think the Agora should have smth like that. Smth similar to LW sequences. It can be implemented through having a node of links

• Abstract Fairy: II. Abstracts If possible, I think it would be nice for nodes to have previews / abstracts to make it easy to skim through a large amount fo them for searching. Naturally, I think there should be a word count for this to make it easy to digest

• Abstract Fairy: III. Twitter and QT as block references. Agora as a social network I think QT is effectively using a block refrence. so, I think the Agora (if modified into a social network) could operate on a similar basis Abstracts would be important to get a quick overview of a node (pls no 20+ tabs like LW)

• Maybe somewhere down the line, the Agora could work like that. We could have an online editor for people to quickly dump their thoughts into the Agora. And we could have a feed, here are the new nodes your friends made, here are the new blocks they've written / edited significantly

• I actually really like how everyone's nodes are displayed, it can really put stuff into perspective :)

[[titushora]]

• titushora the [[Agora]] should look like this: https://twitter.com/TitusHora/status/1325147589197484036 pull

• [[Push]], #push.
  • Push for the greater good!
  • If I have to push it I'd rather [[push kindly]].

• An [[action]].
  • It 'means' that a certain context is relevant for the target node and should perhaps be included in it ([[transclusion]]):
    • [[push]] [[transclusion]]
  • Here's how you use it: you start a block with the [[push]] action, passing a target node as an argument. Then you attach as many sub blocks (indented list items) to the block; they will be included in the target as a subnode.
  • [[push]] [[agora twitter integration]]
    • Push probably has good interactions with [[twitter]] and the [[fediverse]].
    • If you tell an [[agora]] to [[push]] and you are a [[friend]], it'll push with you.
• See also: [[pull]].