Updated: 2023-02-25
In the Summer of 2018, I had a seemingly foolish idea. I decided that I should try and organize all the types of information surrounding Bitcoin, Blockchain and Cryptocurrency in the channels of a discord server.
Recognizing the collaborative potential for Discord Chat, during the ICO boom in 2017, I was inspired to begin collecting information about blockchain in the channels of a Discord Server dedicated for that purpose.
After a year or so working relentlessly on whatever was in front of me at a given moment, its time to pause, reflect, and make a way for anyone following my work to be notified of updates.
A reasonably comprehensive grasp
A grasp of so many subjects is required for a reasonably comprehensive understanding of blockchain, cryptocurrency and relevant tech trends; eventually I broke my inquiry apart into multiple categories which spread across a dozen discord organizations with associated twitter accounts.
I learned to follow the professionals and organizations working in each field, using the retweet button to bookmark interesting posts, whose content I could review later with a fresh set of eyes for its substance and relevance.
I never assumed that I could actually accomplish the task, but I felt it was important to act and believe as though it was possible.
While I grew up a total computer nerd, I drifted from that early passion for many years, and only got serious about tech, more recently.
I have had quite a steep learning curve trying to catch up, but I paired that with an infinite curiosity and relentless pursuit of knowledge.
A Collaborative Workflow?
The idea that I could organize the varieties of information surrounding Bitcoin, in a comprehensive fashion, still seems foolish. Then again, it doesn’t seen quite so foolish as it did, when I began.
It’s always been my intent for these resources to be collaborative, and they have been open for such from the beginning.
While I’ve received assistance, in one form or another from a handful of contributors, the work has primarily been my own. I will admit that I’ve not always felt very social, or acted as an effective organizer.
Regardless, I’m pretty sure Discord isn’t the ideal venue for this work.
FOSS Ideals vs Pragmatism
The irony of a dependence on discord and twitter while laying a foundation for a Free and Open Source (FOSS) principled collaborative curation platform is not lost on me.
Discord was a matter of convenience, Twitter has played an essential component of my education, and is a primary public sphere for discourse on most of the subjects I’ve been studying.
Despite it’s shortcomings, there is plenty of value to be gained from studying various fields through the lense of Twitter.
Moving Forward
It’s time to move forward. I’d like to say I’m moving to 100% sovereign solutions, However, I’m not quite there yet. I have no definite answers, except that I’ll be restructuring this information into markdown and then structured data.
I’m just getting to know google sheets, and decided I should get to know the GSuite a little better while searching for a reasonable replacement.
Spreadsheets are extensible, and make an ideal stepping stone between unordered lists and a variety of applications.
I’ve also begun to include Notion as an integral component of my workflow. It allows me to easily transform html into markdown, which is perfect from all the enriched content I’ve been pulling from the social media.
Ultimately, I think a wiki of curated lists is a solid direction to aim towards.
Taking a Break from Socials
This post is meant to provide an update, since I’m taking a break from social media.
I have just been going full blast, trying to make up for lost time. Now its time for me to reassess my workflow, and figure out what is the best path forward.
That’s why I’m backing off from my day to day curation, so I can organize what I’ve got, learn some new tools, and take it all to the next level.
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