Functional Anarchy.

Let me try to explain this succinctly. You have a program which is basically a framework for a "website" in which the user puts his skills, interests, etc. all kinds of useful information to get to know them or to decide if you want to know them. Instead of going on the internet however, the website goes on your computer, which you network up, locally, with your neighbours. First bonus - you don't have to pay for web-hosting.

If you have an internet connection, you get first dibs on that connection but the program gives free access to the web to anyone in your local area network in order of how far the computer wanting to access the internet is from your computer. Second bonus - free internet for anyone who doesn't want to pay for it. The person paying for it doesn't lose anything cos he has priority over the others but no one uses their full bandwidth all the time, he has surplus which he can give away.

People can look around their locality at anyone who has installed and filled in this program and find out about people around them without having to meet them. If there's a plumber in your area you can pay him cash or help him out in someway in return for him doing some plumbing for you if you need that done. If you don't live in a city you won't know how isolated it is, but no one knows each other. It's shite. Third bonus - the growth of community.

I wanna know first, if this would work and second, if there's anyone out there who can program and fancies writing it. If it doesn't get a positive response on this site then I can't see it getting one anywhere - but it still probably won't put me off, I'm pretty stubborn.

 

The problem is that this is illegal, and will very quickly be stopped by the ISP's.

 

"If there's a plumber in your area you can pay him cash or help him out in someway in return for him doing some plumbing for you if you need that done.

say there's an ISP in your area......what you doin' to help them?

 

Takin' it in the ass...as that's exactly what your happy 'ole ISP plans on giving to you.

However, this isn't a bad idea...maybe you should look into Clan Wi-Sharing (or something like that...I can't remember).

 

I'm paying them cash.

Yeah, you don't even have to wire stuff up these days ay. However, I've kinda gone off the idea. The internet is good enough. I'm just gonna build a website that does it instead. Can anyone help me who knows how to program... Javascript would be a good start.

 

You're not going to be able to do something like that with Javascript. Wouldn't one need an internet connection before they were able to connect to your site which is supplying a connection? Doesn't sound possible to me. Please elaborate more on your plan.

 

Did you read my last post? I'm just gonna do a website now but the idea is the same. People who register on the site will enter the skills and goods they need and offer. These will be displayed on a map. I'm thinking 3 frames. One along the top with 5 drop down menus for; personal details, skills offered and wanted, and goods offered and wanted. When you first enter the site, every registered user will be displayed on the map (the second frame) as a blob. If you click on a user their info will come up along the side (third frame).

The other way to use it will be to select a skill or a thing from the drop down menus and then everyone offering that skill (or thing) will come up on the map. Again, you can just click on a user to find out what other skills and goods they want and offer. What language do you think I need to learn (or ask for)? I thought google maps used Javascript. That would be a start but yeah I'm probably going to need an all out computer genius to get this working.

What I meant, in the idea that I've given up on, was simply big LANs. Going through several, or even many, households. Then only one (albeit fast) internet connection would be necessary for all of the users on that LAN. And then an application which would use both the LAN and the internet to display all registered users (of that application). Something like Internet Explorer but it wouldn't have to read such complex stuff - just a few bits of information. Maybe more like Kazaa in a way. I dunno but I've given up on that anyway.

 

I wouldn't bother trying to write a new program for your purposes - especially since there are a considerable number of free, and excellent Content Management Systems available already. Some of them are ideal for 'building communities' - which is what you have in mind, no? To mention just a few:

• Xaraya
• Xoops
• Drupal (..site is down at the moment unfortunately)
• Mambo

Most of these would allow:

• user profiles - where people could list their 'skills' and 'interests' for example
• forums - where people can make with the yakety-yak
• articles/news items - might be useful for a local community
• classifieds - if people want to advertise skills/goods etc.

They would also allow you to do considerably more than that if you wanted - but that would at least get you started.

To get one of these up and running, you would need:

• a permanent, reasonably-fast internet connection (..you possibly have this already?)
• a web-server (e.g. Apache);
• PHP (..at least most of the CMSs I have come across use this)
• a database such as MySQL or PostgreSQL (..MySQL is probably a safer bet, coz it seems to be more widely-used)
• and then a CMS (Content Management System) such as one of the afore-mentioned ones. It would take you a considerable amount of time to test the different CMSs; see which one is most suitable; familiarize yourself with it; and download the necessary 'add-ons' you might need (..such as a 'News section' add-on for example).* I reckon this would be far easier than having someone program the thing from scratch though.

Most, if not all, of this software would be free!

* * * * * *

I like your idea, and if you're in London, I imagine there are a considerable number of people who would be interested in that sort of thing, although it may take time to find them. I would also search to see if there are similar projects already underway in London - maybe you have already? ( e.g. the 'UK Forums' on this site? - there might be a few lib-socialists hovering around there ) - as it may save you some time and/or duplication of effort. Also, I wouldn't be too dis-heartened if you don't get much positive reaction to your proposals on these forums. Although there are some very nice people around, some of them are about as radical as an afternoon-tea in the Four Seasons. Anyway ...

All the best!

* P.S. If you wanted a quick-start, just to gauge the level of interest etc., you could start with a simpler, more light-weight setup which would be considerably easier to install - such as phpBB forums (..it's excellent software from what I gather). That would provide at least some of the functionality you are looking for - i.e. user profiles and a discussion forum, and might even suffice in the long-term?

 

I like the whole idea...
If I can join (or help) I'd be willing to.

 

isn't (or wasn't) there a "second" internet that people had set up in much the same manner? like the darknet or some shit like that, it's totally doable, just servers and client software would be a pain in the ass because sometimes you just need money for that, and money is going to gravitate to the one that the gov't supports.....

 

DSLC, I've had a preliminary look around xoop. Looks interesting, definately a start. I don't have a webserver but I know a man who does and is sympathetic to the ideals, though doubtful about whether it would work. Still, he's willing to let me use his server which is cool, and he might even help with the set-up, which would speed things up considerably as I know little. I need a map though, without that people might as well just do a web search. But yeah, useful stuff D, Cheers.

Nathan, I'm guessing the peyote patch isn't in England. Please, keep an eye on this thread and get involved with setting one up wherever you are - I'm hoping it will be global eventually but at the moment I'm just trying to get a local community started. It probably won't take much extra programming to make it global but it would take a fair bit of information (it would be nice if all you had to do to put your blob on the map was put in your post/zip-code) but that info costs money (ie the location of all the post/zip-codes in the world). Umm, I should make a forum for this, maybe I'll become a hipforums supporter finally. Whatever comes up I'll put it or a link to it here.

QT, I did a search for darknet and "alternative internet" on google and a few things came up but the info about the darknet was hidden in huge volumes of text so I didn't find much out. There was enough there to show you're right though, it does (or did) exist.

Thanks for all your input, I'll keep you posted.