LURK ATNOFS chapter: How to run a small social networking site with your friends
Friday, May 13th 2022

IRL location: Varia, Gouwstraat 3, 3082BA Rotterdam
Online location: https://meet.jit.si/howto-social-with-friends

Learn more about the Rosa server: https://hub.vvvvvvaria.org/rosa/
Varia's Code of Conduct: https://varia.zone/en/pages/code-of-conduct.html

Schedule:
12:00 - 12:45: Block 1 - Introductions
13:00 - 13:45: Block 2 - Where are we? The Fediverse
14:00 - 14:45: Block 3 - How is the software different?
15:00 - 16:00: Break
16:00 - 16:45: Block 4 - Thinking in inclusions & exclusions + Scale 
17:00 - 17:45: Block 5 - Discussion and review about response to Block 4

Consent collection (opt-in):
- using maps/diagrams:ezn, Tekla, ccl, reynir, robertwgehl, Dorian, balder, Roel, lidia, Mara, Nona,Dave, artemis, Marloes, Manetta, Angeliki, dooho, wonjung, Heeju
- using drafts for CoC/ToS/Privacy Statements or any outcome of exercises: reynir, balder, Dorian,ezn,robertwgehl, ccl,Tekla, Roel, Mara, lidia,Nona,Dave, artemis, Marloes, Manetta, Angeliki, dooho, wonjung, Heeju
- screenshots and/or extracts of the pads: reynir, cristina (ccl), Dorian, Tekla, ezn, balder, robertwgehl, Roel, lidia, Mara, Nona,Dave, artemis, Marloes, Angelikidooho, Manetta, wonjung, Heeju
- photos:ezn, Dorian, balder, Tekla, ccl, robertwgehl, Roel, lidia, Mara,Nona,Dave, artemis, Marloes, Angeliki, Manetta, dooho, wonjung, Heeju
- blurred-out photos: Nona


13:00 - 13:45 Block 2 - Where are we? The Fediverse
Mastodon first released in 2016. Rob wrote a lot about alternative social media. Long process to make alternative social media a reality. Different groups have worked on it throughout years. If corporate social media were federated, you would be able to send messages from Facebook to Twitter etc. But no, they are silos, meant to keep you in, for several reasons. One would be that it makes finding friends easy. Mastodon doesn't silo users.

What is it? Corporate social media versus indie/alt social media (graph in Jitsi shows different ways you can address these entities. 
The domain facebook.com is a singular thing. 
As users we can't do much to change the parameters
Alt/Indie platforms can pick these things apart, softwares are not singular, where services are hosted is diverse, domains also, economic models (from commercial to volunteer, orgs, institutes etc). 
Agency is one of the key differences between centralized services like Facebook and federated services like Mastodon.
"Traditional" Social media answers all of their organization structure questions with corporate structure.
But federated social media offers different ways to organize. Including various economic, political, philosophical models.
There are many different groups in this workshop, and one of the purposes of the workshop is to see how you can adapt Mastodon to your specific needs, wishes etc.

A graph of a tiny part of the fediverse with post.lurk.org and lumbung.space, and a mystery instance. The graph shows local connections, inter-instance connections and which instances are federating with each other.

Projects to map the fediverse network exist, to discover the various instances that exist.

It matters which provider you are on, because each set their own rules and have their own specificities. Mobile phone service providers all offer the same and it doesn't reallymatter which one you use. In this workshop we aim to discover how to make it work for us locally.

There might be some misalignment of expectations about privacy and reality. There are ways of changing visibility of what we're sharing though, we'll go into that. It is important to have smaller networks, because it is all based on trust. The admins can see what you are doing (as with corporate social media). Important to think this through when you join an instance and start sending Direct Messages, thinking they are private, yet admins can still see them. 

The user's relationship with the provider is based on trust. Are larger providers easier to trust? How do you trust a medium sized provider. How about small? If the server is just some friends, how does that affect trust?

The way your posts appear to others is not uniform. There are many different clients rendering things differently. There is a push to make it one large network. The narrative seems to be 'it doesn't matter where you sign up, just pick one and join', yet it does matter because it is not a uniform and heterogenous network.

Maybe it's more accurate to say that for now the current ordering of posts is not weighted by their metrics, such as popularity/engagement/etc. (there are server side integration of trends though, so this is probably coming up next in the future) 

Hometown is a form/modification of Mastodon. Most important mod is possibility to post messages which do  not leave the server, only for local community. It simplifies knowing where your messages will end up. It makes the local community matter more. 
Darius Kazemi is developer of Hometown, mostly for his own interests. He wrote 'How to set up and run your own social network for your friends' article. : https://runyourown.social/
The local posting option creates a space for community formation that seems to be lacking in other social media.
It's an unofficial version, so might seem scary, but Roel thinks the local only function makes it very much worth it.

Unlisted:  mean home only, but your followers can boost and spread it further (from jitsi chat)
Followers only: shows up in home only, and your followers cannot spread it (from jitsi chat)

Mastodon and Hometown develop a server/client model. For mobile phones there are officiol iOS/Android clients. They chose not to have a local timeline (but they say it's wip). Metatext on iOS, Tusky on Android support local timelines. This is the difference between Facebook apps and Mastodon apps, there are certain expectations of how you should use them.

Questions block 2:

• How do mapping projects interact with consent? (Dorian)
  • They do not really interact, but what we will go into is privacy in relation to mapping (scraping content to map versus less invasive methods). 
  • Example of a map: https://fediverse.space/  
  • They by default do not map very small providers, as a way to respect privacy. I think this is part of that super exciting way we can mold this space. We can talk about and work to develop cultural norms about what kind of stuff like this is acceptable in communities.
  • Is 'no to scraping' possible on a server level? Via the robots.txt file. No to scraping is configurable but there is not hard enforcement of it. There are other ways to deal with this. 
    • I've observed that anyone who admits they are scraping are called out by fediverse members and are asked to stop. At the very least, scraping is looked down upon by fedi members. However, as new users join -- including journalists and academics -- they may not recognize this cultural prohibition.
•  Are blocking lists between servers also mapped?
  • related: the #fediblock hashtag is a way people spread news about instances they block for being not suitable to their community.
  • This is pretty controversial -- developers think blocklists will lead to abuse. In contrast, people concerned about safety are trying to implement shareable blocklists. 
• Q: Mara (they/them) says: What about the unlisted option in the classic mastodon? Doesn't that mean that a post is only visible on a local timeline? 
  • Dorian: unlisted mean home only, but your followers can boost and spread it further.  followers only shows up in home only, and your followers cannot spread it
  • unlisted means anyone with the url can view the message, but it will not show up in the "Public" view of the instance, so it's less likely to get scraped.
• What happens to local-only posts in these clients? 
  • I do believe those posts will show up in the client if you can view them. But the button to toggle that setting has only been added in the web version of Hometown.
  • some clients follow this but not all. Tusky supports this for instance. Metatext as well.

• • 320x200 says:they are visible by logged users 
  • 320x200 says:more info about the current discussion and possible future implementation here https://github.com/hometown-fork/hometown/issues/23  

• You never know how your message will show up on the other side, how to deal with that? 
  • For a lot of the messages it's really clear, cause many clients use a Twitter like interface. But different servers can make changes, for ex keeping posts short. If your server admits eg messages of max 500 chat but it gets boosted and seen on timelines of servers with only max 200 char, it will still show in its entirety.
  • When you cannot have as many chars as someone you are following: talk to your admin :)
  • public posts can end up as comments in someones blog, this is possible (but not necessarily good practice) 
• Are there other differences to take into account? 
  • Pixelfed is image based, emulating instagram. Their software emphasizes images, big square sized. If you render those posts in a regular mastodon client it might look radically different (and vice versa). This is a feature for some, and a difficulty for others (who aim for universal look and feel). Something to take into account (and some people don't expect because corporate social media is so uniform). 
  • You might want to think about posts you make as communicating certain kinds of information, not looking a certain way. Yes!
  • Every sever has it's own view of the fediverse! You might not be able to connect to a friend because your admin has blocked their provider for bad behavior in the past.
    • Every instance has their own policies/Code of Conduct, and these range from very moderated to "freeze peach" (free speech) absolutist.

Thanks!

14:00 - 14:45: Block 3 - How is the software different?
Aymeric will do a live demo. A quick tour for 10 minutes. After that everyone messes around with the interface and where posts are going. 
Aymeric made an account @blauwereiger but is all alone (and sad). He follows Manetta (Angeliki mentions you can search for users with the search function without the @). 

If you want to promote someone else's post, you can 'boost' with the recycling sign. 

Dorian (in Jitsi): I've seen people confused by how direct messages show up in the timeline, I think that would be good to cover via demonstration. 
Aymeric sends a direct message to Roel. If you click on the 'earth globe pictogram' you can choose 'direct' and only the person you @ will see the message (and the admin if they take a look (takes some effort)).
Direct messages will also show up in your "Home" timeline. But aren't visible to local users/followers except the person addressed. So posts on your timeline may not be visible to everyone the same.
Direct messages are accessible to admins; it's not easily doable, there's no interface for it, but it is possible. This is why it's called "direct message" and not "private message".


In Mastodon, posts are called "toots." Instead of "retweeting," you "boost".
This is also one of those things that can be customized, the terminology you use to describe "making a post to your feed" can vary per provider!

Favoriting can be used to bookmark posts, and also to like a post. Mastodon created the bookmark feature, so there is a clear distinction. If you bookmark, the person who made the post, will not get notified of it. With favorites, the person gets notified.

Notifications alert to you when people favorite, boost, or reply to one of your posts, as well as when peopel follow you. You can also set notifications to alert you when specific accounts post. You can also set your account to not allow new followers without your consent; you will be notified when someone requests to follow you.

You can share media, such as images. A very strong cultural practice is to make images more accessible by adding a detailed text to the image.

All this is very similar to Twitter. There are some distinctions though. 
1. With Mastodon: at user interface level -> advanced user interface is different. Go to preferences and enable advanced web interface and save changes. Go back to your page and you are in control of much more fine grained settings. 

• You can pin and filter toots (choose a hashtag for instance, then click on hamburger icon at top, and go into options to pin it, and voila, a column with filtered posts. People tend to be quite careful with hashtags chosen, so can be great way to follow topics. The more your instance is federated, the richer the results. 
• Not everyone has the same view of the fediverse. It totally depends on who you are following, giving you a partial view of the whole. 
  • As you follow more and more people, the Federated feed can become quite overwhelming.
  • If you make an account on a big provider, the federated feed is likely to be so busy it's not useful. Conversely on very very small providers, the federated feed can end up just being mostly stuff that shows up in your Home feed.

Manetta mentions how valuable it is if someone sits with you to introduce you to new media such as Mastodon. Aymeric mentions that this is the purpose of onboarding workshops. Best way to engage with Fediverse in the beginning is to stick with a simple interface instead of the advanced one you can enable (because discussing the entire interface in detail takes a full day). 

• In addition, fediverse members tend to be friendly and will answer questions about how the system works. (If you sign up for an instance the revels in trolling, however, the opposite can happen).

You can find folks with common interests to follow at sites like: https://communitywiki.org/trunk

Post visibility: Aymeric shows an image ( https://things.bleu255.com/runyourown/File:Cas-post-privacy.png ) of all different visibility options (on and outside of Mastodon). Unlisted and followers only are public, only local and federated timelines are removed. Unlisted is NOT private. It just doesn't show up on feeds, but if ppl browse your posts they'll see it. 

There is no public - private binary, you can only peel away layers of visibility.
Roel reiterates that admins on indie as well as corporate social media (or servers in general) can see your stuff (also DM's). 
I feel like these different kinds of privacy settings can prompt us to think about social connections in more complex ways. Do these settings better model social groups sharing desires than other platforms?

Content warning: CW icon in toot interface. You can use it when you post things that might be triggering or unwanted or unsuitable to some people. In the top entry you type a warning (for instance: eye contact), then below you put the content that will be hidden (for instance: a selfie looking into camera), and revealed only when ppl click on 'show more' in post. It is also used to make jokes, bait, etc. 

• for example, "uspol" is a common content warning to warn people you are discussing US politics.

Tension between federation understood as load balancing and as exchange between different communities. Profile directory browsing allows seeing who is on local instance (local timeline) and also who from other instances is connected to people on your instance (federated timeline).
"Collage of Communities" Great phrasing!

Local only posting is possible because Mastodon is open source, anyone can view the code and modify it. Local only means only the other users on your same provider can see the message. The broken link/chain icon in the bottom right corner of the post shows that it is local only. Followers from other instances cannot see it.

Aymeric shares pixelfed post: https://pixelfed.social/p/Estragon/238271113484963840 He loads the post from Pixelfed via Mastodon search, and it shows up (MAGIC 0o0). Shows interoperability and how not silo-ing works. Works for images but also for video. Shows a peertube video, commented on it via Mastodon, and it shows up on PeerTube. 

<play time: shit post & follow each other> user account handles here: https://pad.bleu255.com/p/howto-social-with-friends

• Extra play! This css code will make all images without a description have a red border!

• • /* indicate media without a description
  • initial code by Paul ( https://linernotes.club/@balrogboogie ), expanded upon by FiXato ( https://contact.fixato.org )
  • related discussion: https://dragonscave.space/@Mayana/106443499687608116 .
  • Feel free to reuse it; it's public domain ( https://linernotes.club/@balrogboogie/106681622019395866 ) */
  • .media-gallery__item-thumbnail img:not([alt]),
  • .audio-player__canvas:not([title]),
  • .video-player video:not([title]), 
  • .media-gallery__gifv video:not([title])
  •  {
  •     border: 2px dashed rgba(255, 0, 0, 0.5);
  •     box-sizing: border-box;
  • }

• • apply it via the Preferences > Administration > Site Settings

Questions block 3:

• How do hashtags function with the federated nature?
  • As you follow more people, and as your instance's network grows, more and more posts will show up when you do searches, including hashtag searches.
• Dave Britton he/him(MayFirst) says:how do other servers get connected to your home server?
  • when you start to make interactions with other people, your home server in the background will then continue to be aware of that connection.
  • bi-directional
  • find people with similar interests to follow! https://communitywiki.org/trunk

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< One hour break <3 >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> 

16:00 - 16:45: Block 4 - Thinking in inclusions & exclusions + scale
Starting to give shape to your own project.
Thinking in inclusions and exclusions.

It can be difficult to start making these decisions, a "who am I to be deciding this stuff?" But think of this is a first draft. Things will evolve.

Lurk started in 2018 as a result of a fascination for all the different groups on there. Curiosity. As lurk got more people involved, it started to become interesting in and of itself. 
Right now there are 3 larger groupings of crowds on LURK: 

•  one of people practising livecoding, algorave, musicians based on Alex McLean's involvement in LURK
• Netculture netart academics and artists
• Designers working with free and open source software

In the beginning invites were given on a friendship basis, and friend of friend (i.e., triadic closure).



Different recruitment moments (some half-joking):

• During 2018 Libre Graphics Conference < http://libregraphicsmeeting.org/lgm/ > 
  • Roel was presenting and passed invitation flyers (also at AMRO 2018 https://radical-openness.org/en )
• Sent on 80c mailing list (what is this?) -> https://we.lurk.org/mailman3/lists/80c.we.lurk.org/
• Spread in chat groups later
• When doing a talk at transmediale, Aymeric and Roel projected a QR code where people could come and do an account ("don't do this" says Roel, LOTS of new accounts)
• After a few years, a feature was enabled so that members could share invite codes with others

250 active users (active = login at least once a month), 600 accounts, lot of new ones after Twitter takeover by Elonz.

Moderation has been very loose and open. Now there is a strong door policy.
Creative practice is lowest common denominator on post.lurk.org. Bit arbitrary door policy. It's messy :) 
(sounds like a policy procedure for approving/denying applications is useful for groups to have)
Often applications by "the one guy" who is the dreaded "FOSSbro"
LURK never discussed how big they want to be.
Other examples: 
    - mastodon.social which lets (almost) everyone sign up, even people (such as Nicolás Maduro) banned from Twitter.
    - queer.haus, only federates with post.lurk and 2 other servers. sheltered environment by and for the Berlin queer scene

• •  - this strikes me as a benefit of federation, we don't have to only go with open federation, collectives get to decide.

Prompts:

• For who is this instance meant? 
• Who is not welcome? Think not only broadly (e.g. no racists) but more subtly.. your friendly but quite boring colleague? 
• You know your crowd the best: to what extent does this server need to be a sheltered or a hyper-connected space?
• Should people mostly talk to each other as a community, or should they be individuals grouped together who each talk to an "audience" (twitter-like)? How do you facilitate that?
• How will you recruit new people? How much time do you spend introducing newcomers?
• Are you ok with institutional and/or promotional accounts? Are you ok with automated posts (bots, Twitter cross-posting, blog to fedi bridges, etc)? How does that decision affect the (community) experience you are trying to build?
• What size server are you planning for? Your immediate friends? Your association? Your co-workers? Your association + some others? Your city? 

Suggested groups (with etherpad and jitsi breakout room url?) (I think whatever people are comfortable with? Just post the links here and your group members can easily jump in)

• Group1: Sergiu (Hypha) and Rob (Organization for Ethical Source [OES])

## For whom is this instance meant? 

• OES: members of this organization. Membership is controlled at the OES level.
• Hypha: Activists in Bucharest, a collective – people come and go depending on interest in the idea.

## Who is not welcome? Think not only broadly (e.g. no racists) but more subtly... your friendly but quite boring colleague? 

• OES: Very likely FOSS bros. Code will have to be strong and clear from the start. The big question is who will moderate? I know that OES won't do this without a strong moderator from the start.
• Hypha: They held events at an anarchist space; this same space held concerts, and they might attract "bro-tivists" – less intersectional thinking. We want an alliance with everybody, but in some personal cases you don't. This should be a safe space. E.g., no macho punk guys. We need a code of conduct at the beginning – working with people if they break the code. Or, start small and then add over time. But if it's too personal then personalities could dominate (e.g., if two people who were once close break up).

## You know your crowd the best: to what extent does this server need to be a sheltered or a hyper-connected space?

• OES: More likely to be more connected and get ideas out. Reach more people. But, do so in relation to instances with similar CoCs.
• Hypha: Concerns about being monitored by the state. If we are organizing protests, the state will be concerned, so keeping things more private would be useful. Anarchism is not well defined in Romania; politicians use the term to refer to rebels against the state – a kind of slur. Fear of having their group treated as a scapegoat. Then again, we want leftist groups to link up across cities. He cites the case of a 2008 protest against NATO; police found out before the protest happened and violently put it down.

## Should people mostly talk to each other as a community, or should they be individuals grouped together who each talk to an "audience" (twitter-like)? How do you facilitate that?

• OES: I think it would be more individual speaking out to an audience.
• Hypha: Both (challenges this distinction a bit). Some people will come from Facebook, Instagram and they will have a cultural practice of posting as individuals. Does not want to forbid people from writing about whatever they are interested in. A downside is that one person might dominate. This is negotiable.

## How will you recruit new people? How much time do you spend introducing newcomers?

• OES: I think recruitment would happen at the OES level. If the instance recruits new people to OES, that's the goal.
• Hypha: 0.1 time. The group is small and should likely stay that way; grow organically. Not interested in bringing in new people for its own sake. 

## Are you ok with institutional and/or promotional accounts? Are you ok with automated posts (bots, Twitter cross-posting, blog to fedi bridges, etc)? How does that decision affect the (community) experience you are trying to build?

• OES: I am not sure, because the OES is an NGO that could very well get corporate backing. Ehmke's Code of Conduct went from being seen as radical to being used by Microsoft. If Microsoft were to adopt an Ethical License (ha!) then they would probably be welcome. I also can see them allowing members to cross-post to the birdsite.
• Hypha: No brands, but organizations, certainly.

## What size server are you planning for? Your immediate friends? Your association? Your co-workers? Your association + some others? Your city?

• OES: I imagine a mid-sized (~500 people worth) server
• Hypha: A small server for a tight-knit group.

• Group2: Dorian and Dave
  • https://pad.vvvvvvaria.org/breakout-group-2
  • https://meet.jit.si/howto-social-with-friends-breakout-group-2
• Group3: Wonjung & Dooho
  • https://pad.vvvvvvaria.org/howto_social_with_friends_-_DDDUG
• Group 4: Tekla, Mika, Nona
  • http://eth.leverburns.blue/p/lurk-mastodon-workshop
• Group 5: Artemis, Mara, Aggeliki
  • https://pad.vvvvvvaria.org/systerserver.town-fhm
  • https://meet.jit.si/systerserver.town-fhm
• Group 6: Balder, Reynir
  • https://meet.jit.si/howto-social-with-friends-group6
  • https://pad.data.coop/Xqpw4v0pTJKYSgvbASJtAA?view
• Group 7: Roel, Lidia, Aymeric, Manetta and Marloes
  • https://pad.vvvvvvaria.org/lurk-prompts-chat

Questions block 4:

• Does anyone have plans for how to deal with user who want to interact with blocked instances? Lots of people block or silence mastodon.social because of its poor moderation.
• What happens when someone on another allowed instance interacts with a user on a blocked instance? What will be visible to users of your instance? And vice versa, what can become visible on a blocked instance in case a user from another non-blocked instance federates with your instance?

17:00 - 17:45: Block 5 - Discussion and review about response to Block 4
Round of what was discussed, difficult things to answer, etc.

Angeliki on Feminist Hack Meetings

Question from FHM: is there a list of instances to avoid? Can this be shared? Some ppl feel more comfortable on a commercial platform, because if there is a problem, the response is quick. On some instances you can be quite alone. 

Mara mentions they are all in different locations, they only get to meet irl on festival and events. Syster server is growing since 2019. Because of new user influx due to Twitter-gate need to discuss this more.

Dave & Dorian: 
    Building local community, discussed if Hometown is suitable for that. Starting an instance for activists organizing things together. Do you start small and let that lead to bigger use of fediverse? Both have goal to connect people who want to make social change. Both interested in FOSS. Mastodon doesn't fit every use. People also need to be protected from surveillance capitalist practices. Word of mouth seems to be the ideal way for ppl to join. Better than aiming for maximumm reach and advertise. It builds better connections. 

Roel: if this is part of a larger activist work, this also creates security considerations. has there been any analysis of how Mastodon holds up to serious attacks? Self tagging is tricky, easy target. More discussion on this needed.

Precedent (Aymeric): election in Catalonia few years back (2018), problem is that they are completely open directory of ppl active in activist work. Easy to scrape, easy to profile ppl. It was great that the instances were easy to quickly deploy, and they were impossible to take down, but massive security risk. Old school indy media networks were much more secure, careful and aware of risks.

Balder: 

???:

• Instagram is seen as alternative to Facebook
  • speaks to low awareness of alternative networks, what exists, what is joined.
• Word of mouth is ideal
• No institutional accounts
• Not sure about size, this is an experiment
• Threat modeling is critical when you enter into politics/organizing
  • maybe mastodon is fine, but it all depends on your situation and your threat model
• Mastodon can be useful because Facebook can be too noisy to follow certain kinds of information
• infrastructure related to art is a niche

Moderation tips:

• hastag #fediblock
• accounts that announce blocks
  • https://a.rathersafe.space/@fediblock
  • https://cathode.church/@moderation

Questions block 5:

Accumulation of reasons to choose Hometown (instead of Mastodon):

• minimal changes from vanilla mastodon, this means maintenance of the fork is very simple
• local only posting (Not possible in vanilla Mastodon); this means you can utilize your instance for group discussions with only your members
  • catch: some clients will not show them as "local-only", worst case they don't respect it (how?), see: https://github.com/hometown-fork/hometown/issues/23
• non-exclusive lists
• Choosing a fork is a big decision, because new/added/altered features may not work well across the fediverse and various clients.
  • And if the maintainer of the fork stops maintaining it, you might be stuck with software that will become buggy.
• customize character limit
• Upcoming feature making sharing of block lists possible between instances https://github.com/hometown-fork/hometown/issues/1164

Balder: Appreciate if people can help us in data.coop to decide if we will migrate to Hometown. Roel says this could be something to decide at the end of the workshop. He hopes people will end the workshop with drafts and ideas on how to structure their instance, which version to use etc.

As the old software engineering adage goes, be ready to throw your first effort out. Consider your installations, policies, and practices to be a first draft in need of revision.

There are different fediverse projects -- some critically reverse engineer Instagram (Pixelfed). Some do so with Youtube (Peertube). Some do so with Bandcamp/Soundcloud (Funkwhale).
...break time...
{{ process comment (Daveb): We use jitsi for all meetings at MayFirst, and host a free jitsi server in NYC, which we have modified to allow real time live interpreter translation for inclusiveness with Mexico compadres.(i.meet.mayfirst.org)[that is a great feature!]//brilliant! Thus, our video conf. tools can be modified as well as our social media text sharing ones. As bandwidth widens globally this may be more important. 
....












__PUBLISH__
__LURK__