Inspiring discussion — especially the parts about Woopedia and building our own local internet network. Hearing this episode was validating, because I’ve fantasized about these same ideas, but have lacked the drive, time, and tech know-how to push them forward. This feels like a call to action to get more serious about them.
I love the idea of Woopedia, but I haven’t had the motivation to go beyond glancing at the MediaWiki page. Still, the need is obvious. There’s so much misinformation spreading on social media, and accurate information is hard to access when we have so little journalism to begin with — and so much of what exists is behind paywalls.
During my campaign, I actually thought about building a Wiki for exactly this reason. People would ask about development projects they saw around town — things like 50 Oriol Drive, the Quality Inn being converted into supportive housing off Lincoln Street. Trying to understand the history and narrative around projects like these was incredibly difficult because I hadn’t followed the details closely, and I don’t pay for all the websites that cover them (Worcester Business Journal, MassLive, T&G).
On top of that, trying to use the city’s shitty website to find instances where 50 Oriol Drive came up at City Council or the Planning Board felt almost impossible. We have community meetings where I’m not even sure minutes or notes are captured unless a media outlet happens to cover them. City officials push their narrative about what a project accomplishes and how well it’s going, and then you talk to a resident who has been following closely and their account is totally different from what a City Councilor or a WBJ article might say.
It’s easy to imagine a Wiki page that describes the project; summarizes the information available beyond paywalls; notes when it was discussed at various city meetings and the outcomes; and even includes a section capturing resident criticism or feedback.
Now imagine scaling this up: John Monfredo, Polar Park, Mill St, the Day Resource Center — anything. You could build a real “people’s perspective” on what goes on around here. It would help document the narrative that we’re living in a city run by hardcore crony capitalists who are doing a great job making Worcester unlivable for so many. It’s hard to explain to people how bad things are when they haven’t been paying attention, but if someone could go down a wiki rabbit hole of local corruption, I imagine we’d get a lot more people on our side.
The idea of a local network is something my wife and I, and a few friends, have also fantasized about, mostly in the context of getting our digital history off places like Google. We want to boycott streaming services we've become dependent on, like Spotify. We’ve imagined building a shared repository of media like MP3s or movies for friends, but it’s easy to see how this could grow into a way of sharing information and organizing outside the Metaverse. Simple message boards (like the ones from earlier internet) could replace a lot of discussion that currently happens on Facebook. A local network could even help organize, surface, and scale up the disparate conversations happening across the Go List, Signal, Discord, etc.
Overall, I really share the sentiment that we could use a little more tech optimism — and we could be doing a much better job using the tools available to pull people away from corporations that just want to use us and suck our data and money away from us.
As a certified Knausgaard-head (if you haven't taken on the My Struggle series, it's mind-blowing after you get over hating his Holden Caulfjord vibe in the first 200 pages of Book 1), this was a treat. KOK is not everyday subject matter anywhere.
Good episode, and sign me up to help edit Woopedia!
I'm finishing up his "Seasons" series now and loved it. His focus on the mundane often extracts profound insights. "My Struggle" can be a slog--the 6th book is a fuckin' doorstop--yet the payoff is immense.
Great job guys. Woopedia would be amazing.
Inspiring discussion — especially the parts about Woopedia and building our own local internet network. Hearing this episode was validating, because I’ve fantasized about these same ideas, but have lacked the drive, time, and tech know-how to push them forward. This feels like a call to action to get more serious about them.
I love the idea of Woopedia, but I haven’t had the motivation to go beyond glancing at the MediaWiki page. Still, the need is obvious. There’s so much misinformation spreading on social media, and accurate information is hard to access when we have so little journalism to begin with — and so much of what exists is behind paywalls.
During my campaign, I actually thought about building a Wiki for exactly this reason. People would ask about development projects they saw around town — things like 50 Oriol Drive, the Quality Inn being converted into supportive housing off Lincoln Street. Trying to understand the history and narrative around projects like these was incredibly difficult because I hadn’t followed the details closely, and I don’t pay for all the websites that cover them (Worcester Business Journal, MassLive, T&G).
On top of that, trying to use the city’s shitty website to find instances where 50 Oriol Drive came up at City Council or the Planning Board felt almost impossible. We have community meetings where I’m not even sure minutes or notes are captured unless a media outlet happens to cover them. City officials push their narrative about what a project accomplishes and how well it’s going, and then you talk to a resident who has been following closely and their account is totally different from what a City Councilor or a WBJ article might say.
It’s easy to imagine a Wiki page that describes the project; summarizes the information available beyond paywalls; notes when it was discussed at various city meetings and the outcomes; and even includes a section capturing resident criticism or feedback.
Now imagine scaling this up: John Monfredo, Polar Park, Mill St, the Day Resource Center — anything. You could build a real “people’s perspective” on what goes on around here. It would help document the narrative that we’re living in a city run by hardcore crony capitalists who are doing a great job making Worcester unlivable for so many. It’s hard to explain to people how bad things are when they haven’t been paying attention, but if someone could go down a wiki rabbit hole of local corruption, I imagine we’d get a lot more people on our side.
The idea of a local network is something my wife and I, and a few friends, have also fantasized about, mostly in the context of getting our digital history off places like Google. We want to boycott streaming services we've become dependent on, like Spotify. We’ve imagined building a shared repository of media like MP3s or movies for friends, but it’s easy to see how this could grow into a way of sharing information and organizing outside the Metaverse. Simple message boards (like the ones from earlier internet) could replace a lot of discussion that currently happens on Facebook. A local network could even help organize, surface, and scale up the disparate conversations happening across the Go List, Signal, Discord, etc.
Overall, I really share the sentiment that we could use a little more tech optimism — and we could be doing a much better job using the tools available to pull people away from corporations that just want to use us and suck our data and money away from us.
We gotta sit down and have a garage session around all this.
As a certified Knausgaard-head (if you haven't taken on the My Struggle series, it's mind-blowing after you get over hating his Holden Caulfjord vibe in the first 200 pages of Book 1), this was a treat. KOK is not everyday subject matter anywhere.
Good episode, and sign me up to help edit Woopedia!
I'm gonna get Bill going on My Struggle and also that'll inspire me to finish them. I love reading Knausgaard, I find the mundanity very soothing.
I'm finishing up his "Seasons" series now and loved it. His focus on the mundane often extracts profound insights. "My Struggle" can be a slog--the 6th book is a fuckin' doorstop--yet the payoff is immense.
The previous episode we referenced several times "with Joanna" was this one.
https://www.worcestersucks.email/p/episode-15-the-enshittification-of
I heard somewhere that most Massachusetts municipalities automatically require that races within 100 votes must be manually recounted. Is that true?
I'm going by this tbh
https://ballotpedia.org/Recount_laws_in_Massachusetts