Ian & Stuart's Australian Mac: Not for Sale/Another.not.for.sale (Australia).iso/hold me in your arms/Nexus/nexus.faq

Text File | 1994-06-26 | 37KB | 683 lines

< N E X U S - G a i a @ >  --  NEXUS.FAQ.1  [COMMUNITY & BACKGROUND INFO]

--

> what does it take to make virtual culture into a lifestyle?  i mean to
> completely integrate my net.concerns with my RL concerns?  what does it take
> to gather together the people from the Net i've most grown to love and with
> whom i can work together the most efficiently -- what does it take to get us
> under one roof, to get us a node, and to link that node to yet another NEXUS
> under another roof with a slightly different approach in some other city?

> [free agent .rez, Mon Nov 15 12:55:21 1993]

--

There are TWO [2] sub-FAQs which make up this primer, CommuniTek-oriented
<NEXUS.FAQ.BUNDLE> ... this is FAQ [1] : COMMUNITY INFO.

See the end of this FAQ for further details on the NEXUS project and the other
FAQ in the current bundle.

--


[ 1 ]               N E X U S   C O M M U N I t e k :

C O M M U N I T Y   &   B A C K G R O U N D   I N F O


Q 1.1: What is a NEXUS?

A: The dictionary defines a "nexus" as a "a connection, tie, or link between
individuals of a group, members of a series, etc."  When applied to virtual
cultures and the networked humans which comprise them, a NEXUS is basically a
domicile/workspace/cultural-center formed in real-life by people who have met
and established relationships over the Net.  They purchase and secure group
Internet access, and thus control their own node, living in close proximity,
since creativity blossoms in people when surrounded with creativity. This is
akin to the synergy found on the Internet itself, as local parts of the
Internet also need a close group of people in order to live and breathe and
grow.

There are 2 main ideas behind what a NEXUS can be.

The first is a NEXUS as work-place and local service-provider for a given
community.  In this capacity the NEXUS can sustain itself and its continued
prosperity through services offered to its community.  NEXI can run small,
fast, agile services for folks.  This is what [some] people need and will pay
for: decent service, cheap.  You /can/ make a living doing this, being a
mom-and-pop i.Net provider or a co-op virtual-community-infrastructure
provider.  These services could be Internetworking services [email accounts,
SLIP/PPP services, MUDs, conferencing servers, etc], or services that synergize
with the Internet... digital prepress services for print documents, digital
imagesetting, CAD/CAM [for circuit boards, molds, etc], audio and video
production, CD mastering, and overall information gardening.  Another
possibility is the formation of a day care center for kids. [if you have a
house with a yard for kids to play; there are lots of folks who would give a
lot for their kids to grow up surrounded by cyberculture... most
flexible-minded folks and even some yuppies :) believe that fluency in infotek
is the passport to citizenship in the new society...]  This, of course, leads
into possiblities of inservices for local schools, and businesses as well, on
how to become Internet-fluent.

The second is, of course, the community/co-op itself.  A NEXUS' workers have to
be doing something when not maintaining its system, and that something is the
fostering of virtual communities as they exist on the Net, and of their own
flesh-community as it exists at the NEXUS.  This includes the production of art
and cultural artifacts which are compelling and useful to those within that
virtual culture, as opposed to the mass-produced cultural placebo offered
through mass-media.  At the bottom of the NEXUS is community: lent speed and
flexibility through the Net, lent form and reality through the flesh.  One word
for this is NetWeaving; whatever the name, to many it is a direction and goal
which seems /just/ too insubstantial.  One of the aims of the NEXUS-NetWeave is
to vivify and give form to this vision, to Weave the Net together through
people, and to graft that living Net into life.


Q 1.2: Where'd the idea come from?

A: Seemingly, everywhere at once.  Some had heard the word "nexus" on the
EXTROPIANS e.list during the L.A. riots, where the poster used it to refer to
their house as a place -- a NEXUS -- where others of a kindred approach could
fleshmeet and spend time before moving on.  Eventually others batted the idea
about in its current context, as a workplace/domicile/cultural-center/incubator
for the emerging virtual cultures of the Net.  It found its way into a body of
collaborative prose, based on a fusion of fact and vision, called FIXION.  It
was only a matter of time until we began to form a common base of operations
and set to work...


Q 1.3: Why a cooperative?

Cheap, easy, and fast Internet service is something a lot of people look
forward to.  Why isn't it available now?  One answer is that big companies
haven't found a way to make a lot of money at it.  That doesn't mean it can't
be done another way, though.  If you want a product or service that isn't
available where you are, one way to get it is to form a cooperative to provide
it!  A cooperative is a group of people each contributing a little bit of their
time, money, and organizational skills to the group for their mutual benefit.
Cooperatives have a long and successful history in the United States; there are
electric, telephone, and water cooperatives in many communities around the
country.  Why not an Internet cooperative?

Yet another reason for a NEXUS in particular is that, as issues of privacy and
security of information become greater and greater issues and as the senses of
individuality and community which we now have undergo metamorphosis, stable and
reliable sources of community and co-independance will become not only
desirable but /vital/.


Q 1.4: If Internet access is the main reason for a NEXUS, why not wait for a
commercial for-profit business to provide it for us?

If you don't need Internet /now/, waiting is a possibility.  There is no
telling how long you are going to wait, however, and what kind of service you
are going to get if you do wait.

On the other hand, the point of a NEXUS is to get affordable Internet; so if
you are tired of waiting, if you want some say in what you are getting, when
you get it, and how much it costs, the forming a NEXUS may be for you.  The
savings over a commerical provider will more than pay you back for services you
could afford individually, and by joining tgether you can get access to
services that you would otherwise be completely unable to purchase -- direct
ethernet to the Internet for example, with the ablility to plug and unplug
machines into it at will.

Of course, the cultural, community aspect of a NEXUS is something a for-profit
service will never be able to provide.  Whether your NEXUS is an old shared
house or just an apartment building that has been wired for Ethernet, having a
bunch of dedicated, creative net.heads in close physical proximity has a lot
going for it.  Paying for technical support from some Internet company can't
possibly compare to getting help from a friend who can explain things to you in
plain language or show it to you standing around your computer in your kitchen.
And being in a nexus of worldwide communication as well as being at a hub of
communication for your local neighborhood unites both ranges of human vision:
the local: Home.  And the global: Gaia.

NEXI are meant to be an inherently flexible model, both socially and
technically.  They rely on adaptability to the new cultural ecologies,
ecologies that emphasize community, trust, communication, openness, and
creativity... instead of bureacracy, secrecy, and coercion.  Like mammals in a
land populated by the last lumbering dinosaurs, NEXIans and their NEXIal nests
thrive and multiply in this new world, unnoticed by the large organizations
that dance awkwardly above them.

NEXI can afford to try things that for-profit companies and large companies
would never be able to --  like using new technology, new software, or new
ideas in distribution.  Indeed, NEXI, building on the idea of culture as a
self-organizing, dissipative structure, are positioned to take advantage of the
new ecologies of information -- the impossibility of "ownership" of a piece of
information, the economies of distributing information instead of goods [and
having NEXI make a living off of /producing/ the goods], the economies of
distributed communities of collaboration [hardware, software, and literature
development over the Internet].


Q 1.5: Are there any precedents?

There are already cooperative, person-oriented Internet providers in some
places -- The Little Garden in San Francisco, California, RAINet in Portland,
Oregon, Hookup-net in Ontario, Canada and others.  These networks provide
affordable service to many people, and some have been doing so for several
years!

In each of these places, mostly separate from this movement, there are isolated
nexi already.  Toad Hall, part of San Francisco's RainyGarden Affiliate, The
Little Garden, is an apartment building that has all of its units wired for
ethernet.  The tenants share costs with TLG, who has several communications
servers and other equipment in the building.  There are other smaller nexi in
The Little Garden throughout the Bay area.  Another RainyGarden affiliate,
scruz.net in Santa Cruz, CA is growing many little nexi in shared households in
parallel with a county-wide UUCP network called Cruzio.

In Portland, NEXI are growing in yet another RainyGarden affiliate, RAINet; and
in Seattle, a not-yet-operating RainyGarden affiliate called spi.net, for
Seattle Peoples's Internet Cooperative, is organizing a network of individuals,
businesses, and NEXI.

Although the west coast is a hotbed of cooperative network growth and NEXI
development, small network providers are popping up in Texas and NEXI are
forming in Austin; in New York state; and in Australia.

It /can/ be done. It /is/ being done.


Q 1.6: But most of those are service-providers, at root.  Why take the extra
step to forming a NEXUS?

A: A NEXUS is an environment that encourages flexibility and growth; as a
person, as a community, as a culture.  NEXUS implies NETWORK, just as person
implies society.  NEXI work by themselves and together as intermediate steps
between the individual all alone, and the vast sea of popular culture.  The
NEXUS and the NEXUS-community are the trellises that we weave our person-hoods
and culture-hoods upon, to give them strength and structure and beauty, to help
them grow in the harsh world we live in now.  To help grow our selves, to help
our new culture grow and thrive.  Thus, the NEXUS community is not an
organization in and of itself, nor is it necessarily a commercial enterprise
foremost, as revenue goes back into development.  It is a networked community.
The NEXUS comnity; <[e-mail]>  [see Q 2.4 in the communiTEK FAQ]

Isolated NEXI form and dissolve all the time all around us -- communes,
shared households, co-housing groups, housing co-ops.  Many of them embody the
values we look for -- interdependence, creativity, flexibility, communication,
even net.culture.  But surrounded by a vast and unfriendly sea of popular
culture which encourages isolation, independence rather than INTER-dependance,
and near-pathological materialism, these Temporary Autonomous Zones tend to
disappear, leaving the individuals to fend for themselves.

Enter the Internet.  Here is a vast and flexible meeting-place, an agora
teeming with people of all shapes and ideals; a place where Temporary
Autonomous Zones coalesce and deliquesce without ever leaving the land of
email.  The Internet is populated with many who look to integrate their
net.lifestyles with their real-life, and the NEXUS-community is the place for
people to come together to do this.

NEXI can serve as the frontier outposts -- a Point of Presence [PoP] -- of
emergent global cultures; they are the evolving tropics of the Internet.  NEXI
are integral with Internet.  They are places where Internet is raw, unfiltered,
cheap, and teeming with life.  Where people can plug and unplug their
communications tools from the network at will; where new services and new
virtual environments come into being easily, quickly, and disappear just as
quickly.  NEXI don't just depend on existing networks; NEXIans weave their own
networks.

NEXIans build their networks cooperatively.  A NEXUS is group of people, each
contributing a little bit of their creativity, energy, time, organizational
skills, and other resources to the group for their mutual benefit.  This may
only relate to providing the Internet connection, but hopefully also extends
toward other forms of interdependence and synergy.

Just as some households share food costs and other chores, NEXI share Internet
costs and chores.  Businesses are not the only model for providing Internet;
the whole Internet used to be run cooperatively between individuals, and still
is a cooperative made up of large corporations.  It is relatively easy to
divide up the tasks, technology, and capital needed to keep a network going,
and in fact works well on a household level and among handfuls of households --
human scale.  This is the advantage of the new technologies: that they adapt
with ease to human scale even as we adapt to them, and to the global horizons
they continually provide.

Another vital thing that NEXI share among each other and among their members is
a stable and reliable sense of community.  NEXIans band together to preserve
their net.culture in real-life, for security and common culture, a culture that
respects individuality and co-independence of people, instead of a culture
where each person strives for independence from other /people/ while
nevertheless /cultivating dependence/ on corporate systems of culture.  NEXI
seek to build their own messaging systems, for data and for culture.

If you can't see "why" by now, though, it may not be for you.


Q 1.7: What's involved?

A public-access data-network doesn't require much in the way of traditional
construction -- no stringing wires along poles or digging cable.  All the wires
are already there.  A NEXUS can rent leased lines from the telephone company,
fiber optic cables from other telecom companies, or simply use normal
residential voice phone lines that never hang up.  A public-access data-network
doesn't require much equipment either -- just some boxes called 'routers' that
cost about the same as mid-range PCs, and maybe some modems.  A public-access
data-network /does/ require organization, and maintenance, and planning-- it is
mainly PEOPLE, not hardware!  If the goal is a NEXUS -- an integrated
workplace/home/cultural-center -- then the need for community here and now
becomes the /most/ important thing.


Q 1.8: Those are fine ideas, but how about actually setting one up; that's a
lot of technology to put in place.  How can one place do it?

A: Well, we hope to be able to provide an ever-growing amount of technical and
construction support.  As more are established, logs and archives of what works
and what doesn't and what hasn't been tried yet will be formed.  As for the
actual work, we plan to "train" a group of people at the first NEXUS to go up,
so that this crew can travel in the flesh to the next PoP to come up and help
raise the NEXUS, just as the Amish do barn-raisings.  Details of how these
crews will operate are still being discussed.


Q 1.9: What makes a Nexus a NEXUS?

A: Any household which has secured group Internet access could be considered a
Nexus.  The only difference between such an independantly-run Nexus and a NEXUS
would be that the NEXUS prefix/title is used in local e.lists which are
meta-subbed to larger <[e-mail]>  We hope that people will take the
information and ideas needed to form a Nexus to heart, whether with or without
gravitating into the NEXUS e.list infrastructure which exists and is forming.
We can offer the support of the community which already exists to try and
bootstrap each NEXUS into existence, but hope that the ideas themselves take
root and prosper with or without us.  [see Q 2.4 in the communiTEK FAQ]


"BEFORE SIGNING ANY DOTTED LINES DEPT." -- CAVEATS:

What a NEXUS is NOT:

: It's not free service -- it's people helping each other, pooling resources to
provide network connections for mutual benefit.  This does require some time,
effort, and yes, money.  [Though not a crippling amount, thanks to the
cooperative organization of the network members.]

: It's not precisely a for-profit business -- the idea isn't to get rich doing
this, it is to provide essential services for appropriate cost to enable a
community -- the NEXUS -- to stay alive and comfortable. The money earned by a
NEXUS would best be spent thru re-investment in that NEXUS and expansion of its
services, capabilities, cultural outreach, and fun.

: It's not an attempt to "drop out" of our existing society.  It seems apparent
that any successful adaptation will require us to adapt to the systems in which
we are already immersed.  Then, through each other, we can expand and enrich
our stake in our culture and our world from within the NEXUS-community.

: It's not a 'content provider' -- or a censor.  We have to keep in mind that,
on the business end, all we want to do is move data, and what people do with
the data is their own business.  What we do with the organizational information
we gain as a cultural NEXUS can be seen in the same light as the money gained:
a resource to re-invest in continued growth and prosperity of the NEXUS itself
[and thence of the whole NEXUS community].

: It's not an effort to put other Internet providers out of business -- they
provide specialized services to their own communities, just as a NEXUS does to
its own local city's community.  For example, food co-ops certainly do not put
wholesale distributors or supermarkets out of business.  If the dinosaurs are
going to be convinced to leave us alone, we must be willing to do the same.
Our method is not success through onslaught, but rather slow and steady growth
and adaptations to our changing cultural and world circumstances.


THE NEXT STEP:

...is entirely up to you and those you work with and love on the Net. You can
take the idea and implement it any way you can.  You can start threads about
this idea -- it's strengths and weaknesses, its visions and blind-spots
-- in the virtual communities you now belong to.  For information on this
infrastructure, see NEXUS.FAQ.2 [TECHNICAL & STRUCTURAL ISSUES].  Those
interested in working further on this project from within an existent community
setting can do so by sending a message to <[e-mail]> with the
word "SUBSCRIBE" in the body.  OR, if you simply want the info that's been
gelled into FAQ form, and you know how to gopher, you can simply  <gopher to
carson.u.washington.edu 8888>  where you will find our technical and cultural
FAQs as we develop and post them.

--

< N E X U S - G a i a @ >  --  NEXUS.FAQ.2  [TECHNICAL & STRUCTURAL ISSUES]

[ 2 ]                   N E X U S   c o m m u n i T E K :

T E C H N I C A L   &   S T R U C T U R A L   I S S U E S


Q 2.1: How is such a thing set up and financed?

A: This depends on what kind of access you want.


1: El-Cheapo, do-it-now-approach [adamfast's, at the moment ;) ]

METHOD:  Everyone in the house has their own Unix shell accounts on a local
         public access Unix box.

COSTS:   CAPITAL - $0.
         MONTHLY - Anywhere from $50 to $5 per month per person, depending.
         In some places [rural areas or urban i.Net-ghettoes] this isn't even
         an option.

PROs:    Cheap, easy.

CONs:    Not enough if you get hooked.  Can't run a business easily.  Can't do
         graphics, other cool stuff.


2: Pretty Cheap, techie solution [a la Dwayne and peter van heusden]

METHOD:  Unix box or BBS with a UUCP link to the i.Net via intermittant phone
         calls, possibly long distance or international.  Ethernet or other
         network inside the NEXUS.

COST:    CAPITAL - About $1000 to $3000 for the machine.  From $0 [and hours of
         time, for Linux] to $1000+ [for custom BBS warez]
         MONTHLY - $0 per month if you are close to a free UUCP site.  From $30
         to $80 if you have to pay for UUCP or have to pay long distance
         charges.

PROs:    Easy to set up if you are a nerd. ;) or if you have friends who can
         work on it.  Can learn lots of technical stuff about system
         administration, mail, etc this way.  With a network in the NEXUS, you
         can learn some of the basic network stuff hands-on.  Good transitional
         method, esp. if combined with #1.  Easy to set up email lists and
         personal mail archives.  Good 3rd world solution.

CONs:    Need some amount of technical knowledege.  No direct internet
         connection, so you only get mail at intervals.  No ftp, gopher, irc,
         MOOs, etc, only email.  [Eliminated if you have #1 along with.]


3: Dedicated or dialup SLIP/PPP connections

METHOD:  Voice telephone line; commercial internet provider.

COSTS:   CAPITAL - software for your PC, $0 to $300.  [Lots of freeware like
         MacSlip.]  Intallation charge for provider, $100 to $500.
         MONTHLY - $80 to $350 [$300 average.]

PROs:    Graphic User Interface [GUI], easy to use.  Cool warez.  Can do World
         Wide Web or Gopher using a GUI.  Can run information servers on home
         machines.

CONs:    Slow.  Not enough for more than a few [3-4] people, even if they stick
         to telnetting.  Not enough to do much satisfying multimedia work.


4: Hi-speed direct access.

METHOD:  Leased lines from telephone company; commercial internet provider.

COSTS:   Vary considerably by method, equipment, locality.  Cost sharing is a
         must here, in condos, apartments, artist lofts, or farm districts.
         The same router can server one machine or 30, in one house or in a
         whole apartment building.  As long as you can string wires!
         CAPITAL - To do it right, about $5,000 to start.  [$1500 for a
         CSU/DSU, $3000 for a used Unix workstation or a router, and $500
         installation fee from the phone company.]
         MONTHLY - About $1000-$2000.  [Average, $1700.] [$300 for the leased
         line, $1400 for the Internet.] [If there are several NEXI in a
         locality, this cost can drop radically.]

PROs:    The whole ball of wax.  GUIs, cool fast access, ability to connect
         machines to the i.Net when and where you want, sell any kind of
         service you want.  Becoming the focus for inter-communication and
         creativity for your locality.  Meeting lots of cool people, in the
         flesh.  Helping other NEXI start.  Helping your community...

CONs:    Requires some minimal kind of organizing -- just the willingness to
         spend time talking with people is enough, no experience needed, but a
         lot of time to get people together in the same building or area.
         Willingness to learn lots of weird technical gobblydygook about the
         Internet.  Some financial commitment.  [You basically need 5-20
         people in the same locality; a lot of work to be done.]


NOTES:         For your end of a directly connected network, you need:

CSU/DSU:       Basically a fancy modem that can handle 56kbps or 1.544Mbps [T1]
               stands for Channel Service Unit/Digital Service Unit.  You can
               get these used, about $500, new $1500.  Get a Black Box catalog,
               [phone].  This'll give you a good idea of what to expect.
               Read the back of trade mags like Communicatins Week.  They'll
               confuse the hell out of you, but eventually you'll get it.
               It helps to talk with other people who are learning too --
               that is the whole reason for NEXI!

ROUTER:        You need a standalone box [a Cisco, etc] or a Unix workstation
               [don't try to use a Linux or SCO machine here].  Communications
               Week, again.  College library.  [I don't have an address handy.]

ETHERNET HUB:  About $150-$250, depending on how many machines.  Just gets the
               ethernet to the other machines on your little network.  In an
               apartment building, you need a hub for each floor, probably.

NAMESERVER:    This needs to be on a different Unix box from your router  [This
               part is optional.  You can pay your provider to do it for you,
               or use a Linux box.]

Used equipment is as good as new, here!  Better in many cases, since you may
also be able to sucker the poor soul who sold it to you into helping you learn
it or fix problems later... :)  Used is a lot cheaper too, thanks to this
consumer mentality we have ["gotta have this year's new model with tail
fins!"].  When i comes to Unix boxes, most [esp. Suns] are pretty good, even if
old...

[I hate unix, but for now ya just gotta live with it if you do networking.
<sigh.> ]


Q 2.2: The first step seems so expensive; are there any ideas on how this step
might be more easily managed?

A:  Yes; one is being implemented right now in the Seattle SPI-co-op system.
Initially they are going to use communications servers to feed Internet, using
PPP or SLIP protocols, through regular voice phone lines that never hang up.
Eventually they'll get enough members [about 60-80] that they will be able to
move the communications server out of their Internet provider's
Point-of-Prescence [PoP], and stick it in one of their NEXI.  That way at least
one NEXUS will have a T1 line and ethernet, giving them a lot of flexibility to
grow...  They can then run T1s and 56ks to other NEXI easily, and can change
Internet providers at will.  Then... sustainable growth.

[wherever you see "communications server" below, you can insert "router"
or "file server", "mail server", "web server" or whatever...]

THE PROBLEM:
------------

They can borrow some of the startup costs [$3000] from their members to buy a
communications server; but when the loan is paid off, how do they recapitalize?
They can't keep depending on large loans from their members.  Yet, a
communications server can only hold about 30 ports.  And they only have enough
committed members to fill 15 ports... just barely enough to buy only one
server... yet their first priority is to /grow/....

How do they grow without financing???

THE ANSWER:
-----------

One of their members, Bill McCormick, thought of this one...  obvious, once you
think about it.

What you do is work things out based on having your server half full.  It turns
out this is possible.  Even with only 15 members, they can pay for the server
and pay off the loan and pay for everything in one year, and /still/ have their
costs be low [about a third of what local providers charge].  So that part
works.

But.  They have 15 spare ports.  So when new members come in, they add capital
to the co-op [about $300 per member] and when 15 new members come in, all the
ports are filled up.  And they have $4500 in the bank, which is enough to buy a
new server!

So they buy a new server, and transfer all the new members over to the new one.
Now there are two servers, each half full.  Then /they/ start filling up their
ports...  eventually they will both fill up, and the co-op system itself will
have $9000 capital.  Then they buy two more servers.... and so on... and so
on...

Just like cells fissioning, exponential growth.  And with each doubling, the
costs drop, and drop.  They don't drop by half each time, but soon the
structure co-op reaches the 60 or 80 user mark when it can transplant itself
into a NEXUS and become independent.  Then they can start routing hi speed
lines into the NEXI, and whooosh!!!  Not factored in is growing capital
reserves for new technology replacement, emergencies, etc... but this is a
/start/.  The crucial trigger.

Another thing this approach will eventually provide is a way for the
NEXUS-NetWeave to loan start-up capital [money or equipment] to other NEXI...
since we can recapitalize so fast, we may be able to start a kind of micro-loan
fund, where each NEXUS puts a little of their spare cash into a pool that other
NEXI can use to start up.  This is possible, since while the extra 15 ports on
that server are filling up, the capital that members bring in is just sitting
in a bank somewhere.  It sits there [1,2,3, .., 14] until the 15th and /last/
port is full, and /then/ the NEXUS goes out and buys another server.  But until
then -- for a month, or two months, or a year even... that capital just sits
there.  If 5 or 10 NEXI had similar situations, we could each pool a little of
our capital [maybe one or two shares each, not a crippling risk] and combine
them to loan to a new NEXUS... which would go out and, using the existant
model, pay off the loan in one year [or whatever] and fission [bifurcate??]
when it could.  Then the capital could be put into another NEXI, or given back,
or whatever seemed best.  [Once a NEXI or a co-op has two servers with some
empty ports, it always has a little capital left over between fissionings, of
course.]

Eventually, the number of NEXI around the country [and around Gaia] become
great enough that even by putting a few bucks a month into a kitty, we can pool
enough resources to make start-up loans possible.  This would also make some
sort of loan insurance possible -- although the best insurance is to work with
the new NEXUS through constant tek and moral support, and have experienced
NEXIans close by or part of the new NEXI, to make sure new NEXI don't fail --
by loaning experience and support along with just money.

Sustainable growth for the NEXI.  Yow.


Q 2.3: What is the ideal size of a Nexus?

A: Whatever feels comfortable for you!  If you and 7 other friends think that
you can or want to form a NEXUS, then it looks like the ideal for you is 8.
This is oversimplifying, of course.  To be honest, this is a question of
interpersonal dynamics, and one which is hard to explore without first
establishing a few NEXI to look at.  In each case the numbers will vary, based
on the people interested and, often, their relations to each other before the
NEXUS forms [are there couples involved who are intimate, etc etc...]  It seems
that for a PoP to run efficiently would require at least 5 people, and for it
to remain efficient it couldn't rise too much over 20.  The entire NEXUS
community is in a sense pre-geared towards smaller communities which share
personal connection and then share larger connection to the other NEXI
worldwide.


Q 2.4: What ideas for a living space have come up?

A: There are several ideas which seem to consistently re-emerge.  One is that
of a warehouse space, partitioned off into individual living spaces and perhaps
cultural spaces [cafe's, performance spaces] so that the NEXUS could also act
as a community center.  Another is the wiring of an entire apartment complex.
Still another involves the construction of inexpensive and energy-efficient
foam-bubble modules, connected to each other in a living complex.  Only
experience will show which of these and other ideas works best in practice; the
only way to get to that experience is to bootstrap each other into existence.


Q 2.5: What about the list infrastructure?  How is the virtual community itself
organized?

A: Currently, there is one core list: <[e-mail]> ... This is not the
only NEXUS list, but simply the list on which we will form the core community.
As it grows, we can fission off smaller more focussed topical lists;
<[e-mail]> will remain as an initial hub/roundtable/jumping-off point
and a continual resource.  We also plan on securing a domain name for use by
NEXI worldwide; <[e-mail]> ... we are not an organization or a
business; we are a support network.  Once the domain name is in place, however,
there is a second but of e.mail routing "technology" we plan to implement.

Ideally, each NEXUS-List will run from and provide a home-base for a single
given NEXUS.  You'll note that the name of the list currently up and running is
called <NEXUS-Gaia@>.  Clearly we do not all live in one spot, much less one
spot spread evenly around the globe [well, in a sense we do, but...].

Usually, individuals themselves are subscribed one by one to an e.list.  Every
message they send to that list's address is re-dispersed to all other
subscribers.  This is currently the case with <[e-mail]>.  The idea is
for the NEXUS-community [a net-work based explicitly on self-creation] to be a
home-base and forum for technical and idea-support for those forming new NEXI
around the globe.

When another NEXUS is established, here is what we hope to have happen: we hope
to have that list, which operates as local home-base for that NEXUS, subscribed
/itself/ to the larger list.

Here is the scenario.  We establish a list: <[e-mail]> to act as a global
"hub" for what we call the Cascade.  Then a NEXUS in Seattle starts up, and
establishes a PoP.  They then set up a local list, which they name
<[e-mail]>, to which each individual in the NEXUS is subscribed; there
they can run through local necessities.  THEN, however, they unsubscribe as
individuals from <[e-mail]> and the entire /list/ is subscribed as a
single send-to address for <[e-mail]>.  In other words, they are
"meta-subbed."  The list itself is subscribed to the larger list.  What this
means in effect is that messages sent to <[e-mail]> will be forwarded to
the <[e-mail]> list, and thence to all of its subscribers.

Let's then say that a NEXUS forms in Austin, TX.  <[e-mail]> subscribes
itself to <[e-mail]> and each individual unsubs.  The same mechanix
apply.  Soon, individual NEXI around the globe can be meta-subbed to the next
larger NEXUS-List.  For instance, <[e-mail]> is meta-subbed to
<[e-mail]>, which is meta-subbed to <[e-mail]> which
is meta-subbed to <[e-mail]>.  This does mean, of course, that we are
planning practically to slowly phase the larger meta-lists into more and more
limited use.  Eventually, only items of global import would be sent to
<[e-mail]> so that they could trickle down the Cascade to each and every
individual.  Meta-subbing could be carried through at every level;
<[e-mail]>, Eastern and Western Europe, Asia, Africa, South America,
etc etc etc <[e-mail]>  ...  Unlimited expandability and refinement
of the NEXUS-Cascade based on geographic reality.

This allows for floating "host-status" for <[e-mail]> throughout its
incarnations, so that no single node is the "center" [and so that cases of
catastrophic destruction of the NEXUS-community become increasingly impossible
with every new sub-NEXUS added to the Cascade].

As you can see, we are planning initially for dramatic potential redundancy in
the system, thus failsafing against catastrophe, and we are also planning for
limitless expandability, growth, diversification, and adaptation.  This means
that, in the case of some emergency of which all global NEXI should be alerted,
one message to any existing <[e-mail]> list will work its way down the
Cascade ... through <NEXUS-Europe/Africa/Asia/Australia/Americas> ... through
<NEXUS-LocalCity@Amsterdam/Johannesburg/Bejing/Melbourne/Austin> ... to every
single individual at every single NEXUS on Gaia.

Eventually, we plan on there being many, as many as there are neurons in the
brain...

Use Only As Directed.

Of course, there will be day to day conversation which we will not want to
meta-sub, thus allowing PoP lists to be meta-subbed and still be able to handle
traffic for daily self-organization.  We plan to do that by setting up topic
lists to which interested individuals could be subbed; <[e-mail]>
<[e-mail]>  <[e-mail]>  <[e-mail]>
<[e-mail]>  <[e-mail]>  <[e-mail]> ...


THE NEXT STEP:

...is entirely up to you and those you work with and love on the Net. You can
take the idea and implement it any way you can.  You can start threads about
this idea -- it's strengths and weaknesses, its visions and blind-spots
-- in the virtual communities you now belong to.  Those interested in working
further on this project from within an existent community setting can do so by
sending a message to <[e-mail]> with the word "SUBSCRIBE" in
the body.  OR, if you simply want the info that's been gelled into FAQ form,
and you know how to gopher, you can simply  <gopher to carson.u.washington.edu
8888>  where you will find our technical and cultural FAQs as we develop and
post them.