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    Life Happens: Towards Community Support For Prioritizing Life Events And Mutual Care, Starting With The #IndieWeb

    “Life Happens” is an acknowledgement that there are numerous things that people experience in their actual physical lives that suddenly take higher priority than nearly anything else (like participation in volunteer-based communities), and those communities (like the IndieWeb) should acknowledge, accept, and be supportive of community members experiencing such events.

    What Happens

    What kind of events? Off the top of my head I came up with several that I’ve witnessed community members (including a few myself) experience, like:

    • getting married — not having experienced this myself, I can only imagine that for some folks it causes a priorities reset
    • having a child — from what I've seen this pretty much causes nearly everything else that isn’t essential to get dropped, acknowledging that there are many family shapes, without judgment of any
    • going through a bad breakup or divorce — the trauma, depression etc. experienced can make you want to not show up for anything, sometimes not even get out of bed
    • starting a new job — that takes up all your time, and/or polices what you can say online, or where you may participate
    • becoming an essential caregiver — caring for an aging, sick, or critically ill parent, family member, or other person
    • buying a house — often associated with a shift in focus of personal project time (hat tip: Marty McGuire)
    • home repairs or renovations — similar to “new house” project time, or urgent repairs. This is one that I’ve been personally both “dealing with” and somewhat embracing since December 2019 (with maybe a few weeks off at times), due to an infrastructure failure the previous month, which turned into an inspired series of renovations
    • death of a family member, friend, pet
    • … more examples of how life happens on the wiki

    Values, People, and Making It Explicit

    When these things happen, as a community, I feel we should respond with kindness, support, and understanding when someone steps back from community participation or projects. We should not shame or guilt them in any way, and ideally act in such a way that welcomes their return whenever they are able to do so.

    Many projects (especially open source software) often talk about their “bus factor” (or more positively worded “lottery factor”). However that framing focuses on the robustness of the project (or company) rather than those contributing to it. Right there in IndieWeb’s motto is an encouragement to reframe: be a “people-focused alternative to the corporate […]”.

    The point of “life happens” is to decenter the corporation or project when it comes to such matters, and instead focus on the good of the people in the community. Resiliency of humanity over resiliency of any particular project or organization.

    Adopting such values and practices explicitly is more robust than depending on accidental good faith or informal cultural support. Such emotional care should be the clearly written default, rather than something everyone has to notice and figure out on their own. I want to encourage more mutual care-taking as a form of community-based resiliency, and make it less work for folks experiencing “life happens” moments. Through such care, I believe you get actually sustainable community resiliency, without having to sacrifice or burn people out.

    Acknowledging Life Happens And You Should Take Care

    It’s important to communicate to community members, and especially new community members that a community believes in mutual care-taking. That yes, if and when “life happens” to you that:

    • we want you to take care of what you need to take care of
    • you are encouraged to prioritize those things most important to you, and that the community will not judge or shame you in any way
    • you should not feel guilty about being absent, or abruptly having to stop participating
    • it is ok to ask for help in the community with any of your community projects or areas of participation, no matter what size or importance
    • the community will be here for you when you’re able to and want to return

    It’s an incomplete & imperfect list, yet hopefully captures the values and general feeling of support. More suggestions welcome.

    How to Help

    Similarly, if you notice someone active in the community is missing, if you feel you know them well enough, you’re encouraged to reach out and unobtrusively check on them, and ask (within your capacity) if there’s anything you can do to help out with any community projects or areas of participation.

    Thanks to Chris Aldrich for expanding upon How to help and encouraging folks to Keep in mind that on top of these life changes and stresses, the need to make changes to social activities (like decreasing or ceasing participation in the IndieWeb community) can be an added additional compounding stress on top of the others. Our goal should be to mitigate this additional stress as much as possible.

    How to Repair

    Absence(s) from the community can result in shared resources or projects falling behind or breaking. It’s important to provide guidance to the community with how to help repair such things, especially in a caring way without any shame or guilt. Speaking to a second person voice:

    You might notice that one or more projects, wiki pages, or sections appear to be abandoned or in disrepair. This could be for any number of reasons, so it’s best to ask about it in a discussion channel to see if anyone knows what’s going on. If it appears someone is missing (for any reason), you may do kind and respectful repairs on related pages (wikifying), in a manner that attempts to minimize or avoid any guilt or shame, and ideally makes it clear they are welcome back any time.

    If you come across an IndieWeb Examples section on a page where the links either don’t work (404, broken in some other way, or support appears to have been dropped), move that specific IndieWeb Example to a “Past Examples” section, and fix the links with Internet Archive versions, perhaps at a point in time of when the links were published (e.g. permalinks with dates in their paths), or by viewing history on the wiki page and determining when the broken links were added.

    Encouraging More Communities To Be Supportive When Life Happens

    When I shared these thoughts with the IndieWeb chat and wiki a couple of weeks ago, no one knew of any other open (source, standards, etc.) communities that had such an explicit “Life Happens” statement or otherwise explicitly captured such a sentiment.

    My hope is that the IndieWeb community can set a good example here for making a community more humane and caring (rather than the “just work harder” capitalist default, or quiet unemotional detached neglect of an abandoned GitHub repo).

    That being said, we’re definitely interested in knowing about other intentional creative communities with any similar explicit sentiments or statements of community care, especially those that acknowledge that members of a community may experience things which are more important to them than their participation in that community, and being supportive of that.

    This blog post is a snapshot in time and my own expression, most of which is shared freely on the IndieWeb wiki.

    If this kind of statement resonates with you and your communities, you’re encouraged to write one of your own, borrowing freely from the latest (and CC0 licensed) version on the wiki: life happens. Attribution optional. Either way, let us know, as it would be great to collect other examples of communities with explicit “life happens” statements.

    Thanks

    Thanks to early feedback & review in chat from Kevin Marks, Jacky Alcine, Anthony Ciccarello, Ben WerdmĂĽller, and gRegor Morrill. On the wiki page, thanks for excellent additions from Chris Aldrich, and proofreading & precise fixes from Jeremy Cherfas. Thanks for the kind tweets Ana Rodrigues and Barry Frost.

    Now back to some current “life happens” things…

    Twitter post 1363257785928933376
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    followed @VP. #InaugurationDay

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    followed @POTUS. #InaugurationDay

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  4. using BBEdit In reply to: @HenriHelvetica

    @HenriHelvetica after many months of practice, only a little discomfort.

    Twitter post 1351839124026658817In reply to: https://twitter.com/HenriHelvetica/status/1351832110735228928
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    https://fastly.4sqi.net/img/general/width960/476_nJH-uVKVhefvOPmfi3mPSlI9MqpeN6WLmS6EbWdKNC0.jpg (Tantek running downhill on a trail with mountains, hills, and an ocean shore in the distant background, under a sunny blue sky.) https://fastly.4sqi.net/img/general/original/476_nJH-uVKVhefvOPmfi3mPSlI9MqpeN6WLmS6EbWdKNC0.jpg https://fastly.4sqi.net/img/general/width960/476_0MWrDJjgr1HPESWco7dSE1XrcwfwNXyhWaTjS9BdqeA.jpg (The sun just risen above a hill, shining through the edge of a eucalyptus tree, backlighting it, sunbeams glistening and lighting up the golden grass field below.) https://fastly.4sqi.net/img/general/original/476_0MWrDJjgr1HPESWco7dSE1XrcwfwNXyhWaTjS9BdqeA.jpg https://fastly.4sqi.net/img/general/width960/476_4i2Cz8ES2R3yUQ89m2Dz0mHtmvrHiezJ59KDzAiooWs.jpg (The sun shining above the Marin Headlands, low haze barely visible behind them, obscuring most of the tiny distant San Francisco skyline peaking through the hills, a wide trail in the foreground with low green bushes on either side.) https://fastly.4sqi.net/img/general/original/476_4i2Cz8ES2R3yUQ89m2Dz0mHtmvrHiezJ59KDzAiooWs.jpg https://fastly.4sqi.net/img/general/width960/476_wE029EG7EVn-Ss-fPenb6400RhmVmwITjuekl9KujTg.jpg (Sun shining through a forest canopy, lighting up ferns next to a trail.) https://fastly.4sqi.net/img/general/original/476_wE029EG7EVn-Ss-fPenb6400RhmVmwITjuekl9KujTg.jpg https://fastly.4sqi.net/img/general/width960/476_yyuJTx1QWru8wJnPZjoKkszwmO6jqsbYowjY1Y3-EWE.jpg (Tantek running on a trail in a forested canopy with sunbeams shining down on either side of him across tree branches crossing overhead.) https://fastly.4sqi.net/img/general/original/476_yyuJTx1QWru8wJnPZjoKkszwmO6jqsbYowjY1Y3-EWE.jpg #trailTuesdayThrowback to Saturday’s first Marin #trailRun of the year, masked & distanced on a beautiful #Junuary day. Chilly in Tennessee Valley as the sun crested the hills, poking through the eucalyptus[2]. After ascending Fox trail[3], it was warmer than any winter’s day. Nice breeze running down Coastal Fire Road[1 📷 @BryanTing] to Muir beach. We took Redwood Creek to Miwok into the cool forest canopy, paused for a moment[4], then continued on our way.[5 📷 @BryanTing] #run #trail #runner #trailRunner #running #ultraRunner #Marin #MarinHeadlands #FoxTrail #CoastalFireRoad #Miwok #MiwokTrail #50ktraining #50mileTraining #optOutside #fromWhereIRun #20210116 #2021_016 #laterGram #noFilter

    Twitter post 1351831352178569217Flickr post https://www.flickr.com/photos/tantek/50855002033/
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    https://fastly.4sqi.net/img/general/width960/476_fkcHgLiQBPvCLZJHKYdX7CaTedWH8UbLwL1AQuOZV9A.jpg (View of sunset-lit downtown San Francisco in the distance as viewed from Twin Peaks, with the hairpin turn below, and immediately below the green hill slope of Twin Peaks summit.) https://fastly.4sqi.net/img/general/original/476_fkcHgLiQBPvCLZJHKYdX7CaTedWH8UbLwL1AQuOZV9A.jpg https://fastly.4sqi.net/img/general/width960/476_M3UlBi-OyARoxQkpb5ZwaSnlEcSXowWDHtrR0tHmTIc.jpg (Black sign with white text in a window with white mini-blinds behind it, with six lines: see black women, hear black women, trust black women, love black women, protect black women, pay black women.) https://fastly.4sqi.net/img/general/original/476_M3UlBi-OyARoxQkpb5ZwaSnlEcSXowWDHtrR0tHmTIc.jpg https://fastly.4sqi.net/img/general/width960/476_kZsv6anG9Mw1q-6DD-tED0-I_xj2_nTc6FrfMKvvkcI.jpg (Sutro Tower nearby and a tiny Golden Gate Bridge in the distance, both lit with orange light from the sunset, blue skies with a few small cloud streaks, Mount Tam visible in the distance.) https://fastly.4sqi.net/img/general/original/476_kZsv6anG9Mw1q-6DD-tED0-I_xj2_nTc6FrfMKvvkcI.jpg https://fastly.4sqi.net/img/general/width960/476_ifvKg8RsOs2iGoik6eiM3eWuWT2gfyXS9Nzn4LBmaEA.jpg (Very bright sun emitting lots of sunbeams barely over the Pacific Ocean horizon, lighting up pedestrians along the road, including two women dressed in pink dresses.) https://fastly.4sqi.net/img/general/original/476_ifvKg8RsOs2iGoik6eiM3eWuWT2gfyXS9Nzn4LBmaEA.jpg https://fastly.4sqi.net/img/general/width960/476_fA5rE33bJCf7OhAIUCn4f7GHQql3nLWOgg-2f9Fnb5k.jpg (Large mostly dirt and rocks hill in front lit up with orange light from the sunset, a road off to the left, with two women in pink dresses in the distance walking down the middle of the road.) https://fastly.4sqi.net/img/general/original/476_fA5rE33bJCf7OhAIUCn4f7GHQql3nLWOgg-2f9Fnb5k.jpg https://fastly.4sqi.net/img/general/width960/476_jrk42vwKFlgE5uyirq9cGn0XlFkmQr9Z_fsUSAsej34.jpg (Twin Peaks towers, downtown San Francisco in the distance, looking down Market Street from above, its streetlamps lit, the sun glinting off the taller downtown skyscrapers.) https://fastly.4sqi.net/img/general/original/476_jrk42vwKFlgE5uyirq9cGn0XlFkmQr9Z_fsUSAsej34.jpg https://fastly.4sqi.net/img/general/width960/476_7PnDpL7W6tkQEnHly7sUnU5g9JJluSpDKdKZ_xr77jk.jpg (The glowing orange sun barely above the Pacific Ocean on the horizon, Sutro tower a bit closer yet darker, its legs backlit by the setting sun.) https://fastly.4sqi.net/img/general/original/476_7PnDpL7W6tkQEnHly7sUnU5g9JJluSpDKdKZ_xr77jk.jpg https://dpgzjp4u334u3.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/DSC_0154-1024x481.jpg (November Project San Francisco group photo at Dolores Park just before sunrise, the barely backlit outline of the downtown skyline visible behind them.) http://november-project.com.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/DSC_0154.jpg Seven years ago today I showed up to my first #hillsforbreakfast workout @Nov_Project_SF and ran up & down a few blocks for 25min[8]. In memory of #NPSF hills I ran to Twin Peaks today[1], 25min (or a bit less) of all uphill just to start — something that was beyond my reach back then. Starting at Oak Street I caught a sign in a window[2] I hadn’t seen before, encouraging folks to: * see black women * hear black women * trust black women * love black women * protect black women * pay black women After running up Ashbury to Clayton to Twin Peaks Boulevard and climbing to the summit & both peaks, I turned around to see a clear view of Sutro Tower, Mt Tam, and the Golden Gate Bridge from the South Peak[3]. On the return run, I spotted a pair of apparent princesses in pink dresses strolling along, brightly lit by the brilliant setting sun[4], along the adjacent road blocked to motor traffic. As I climbed the North Peak, I saw them again up ahead, strolling in the middle of the road without a care in the world[5]. Reaching the top of the North Peak, I noticed Market Street’s streetlamps had been lit, the sunset barely lighting up a few blocks of downtown[6]. Made it back to the Twin Peaks Summit as the sun dropped toward the Pacific Ocean, bathing everything nearby in orange light[7]. Ran down the hill at an easy pace, legs & feet tired after yesterday’s longer run. Grateful for regular runs up Twin Peaks, where 25 minutes is the start, rather than the whole workout. #trail #runner #runners #trailRunner #trailRun #ultraRunner #SF #SanFrancisco #hilliversary #NovemberProjectSF #NovemberProject #TwinPeaks #50ktraining #50mileTraining #optOutside #fromWhereIRun #noFilter Previously, previously, previously: * https://tantek.com/2020/017/t2/six-years-ago-npsf-hills * https://tantek.com/2016/017/t1/two-years-ago-first-npsf-hillsforbreakfast * https://tantek.com/2014/017/t1/first-novemberprojectsf-hillsforbreakfast

    Twitter post 1351091887743098882Flickr post https://www.flickr.com/photos/tantek/50847585808/
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    https://fastly.4sqi.net/img/general/width960/476_M152uOnalZ6QfPsz9YMHd2sNPt-U7s2Twx2Lj26gryA.jpg (January of 2021 month calendar built from LEGO bricks, on a hexagonal white on gray blanket background.) https://fastly.4sqi.net/img/general/original/476_M152uOnalZ6QfPsz9YMHd2sNPt-U7s2Twx2Lj26gryA.jpg 🗓 More than half way through #January 2021. Since last month’s calendar post: Electoral college results finalized in the middle of the night[1] despite a violent insurrection[2]. Millions received their first vaccine doses, though new cases grew by many millions more[3]. And yet, Georgia’s Senate seats flipped, and with them the US Senate. 3 days til our next president snaps his fingers with executive orders, undoing damage or putting a stop to bad ideas, like the Keystone XL pipeline[4]. Finally, as of this morning, 2021-01-17, we’ve entered the future of Johnny Mnemonic (1995)[5], as noted by a wake-up call in its opening scene[6]. Time to pop in that USB stick and view it in today’s contexts. #2021 #Gregorian #LEGO #month #calendar #twentyTwentyOne #31days #noFilter Previously: https://tantek.com/2020/356/t1/december-winter-solstice Links: 1. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2021/01/06/electoral-college-vote-stopped-unclear-when-resume-after-riot/6572441002/ 2. https://www.newyorker.com/news/video-dept/a-reporters-footage-from-inside-the-capitol-siege 3. https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/graphics/2021/01/14/covid-vaccine-distribution-by-state-how-many-covid-vaccines-have-been-given-in-us-how-many-people/6599531002/ 4. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/biden-keystone-xl-1.5877038 5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Mnemonic_(film) 6. https://twitter.com/DatesInMovies/status/1218154517360934912

    Twitter post 1351062346266005518Flickr post https://www.flickr.com/photos/tantek/50847319968/
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    TFW an old post hits #HackerNews https://news.ycombinator.com/news #jsdr Still true: making sites that depend on client #JS to view content is bad practice and you should feel bad. Prev: https://tantek.com/2015/069/t1/js-dr-javascript-required-dead (https://twitter.com/t/status/575434935554584576) I miss the optimism of 2015. For completeness (and those clicking through POSSE copy original post links), Hacker News permalink that does not depend on JS to view: * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25813836

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    How about Dem peaches? 🍑🍑 #Georgia

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