Mobilizon. Your events. Your groups. Your data.

Mobi­li­zon is our free-libre and fede­ra­ted tool to free events and groups from the clut­ches of Face­book. After two years of work, today we are rele­a­sing the first version of this soft­ware, along with a whole series of tools so that you can quickly get star­ted.

 

• la version fran­çaise origi­nale de cet arti­cle est ici sur ce blog ;
• Disco­ver how Mobi­li­zon works in pictu­res, with our use case exam­ples

Delayed because of pande­mic

Announ­ced almost two years ago on the Frama­blog (FR), Mobi­li­zon was born  of our need to offer a solid alter­na­tive to Face­book to friends who orga­nize climate walks, LGBT+ asso­ci­a­tion orga­ni­sa­ti­ons and new educa­ti­o­nal works­hops with that plat­form’s limi­ted opti­ons.

The success of our fundrai­sing campaign (spring 2019) rein­for­ced our belief that there was great demand for such an alter­na­tive. To this end, we worked with desig­ners to unders­tand the expec­ta­ti­ons of acti­vists who use Face­book to gather and orga­nize.

We plan­ned to launch the first version (the « v1 ») of Mobi­li­zon this summer. Life, howe­ver, has other plans. A global pande­mic and a French quaran­tine indu­ced a rush on the online colla­bo­ra­tion servi­ces our small asso­ci­a­tion offers. Our entire team, inclu­ding the deve­lo­per who carries the Mobi­li­zon project on his shoul­ders, put their acti­vi­ties on hold to contri­bute to the collec­tive effort.

Howe­ver, the stakes behind Mobi­li­zon are high. In our opinion, to be success­ful, Mobi­li­zon must be :

• Eman­ci­pa­tory. It is a soft­ware that we want to be free, fede­ra­ted and sepa­rate from the atten­tion economy.
• Prac­ti­cal. Mobi­li­zon is above all a tool for mana­ging your events, your profi­les and your groups.
• Welco­ming. We have crea­ted and incor­po­ra­ted tools explai­ning how to use its featu­res, to find your Mobi­li­zon instance or even hos to install it your­self.

Buil­ding the free­doms that Face­book denies us

Fede­rate to foster diver­sity

There is not one but seve­ral Mobi­li­zons. By going to Mobi­li­zon.org you will find a selec­tion of instan­ces : websi­tes crea­ted by those who have insta­lled Mobi­li­zon soft­ware on their server. Each of these instan­ces offers you the same service, but from a diffe­rent host.

Multiplying Mobi­li­zon instan­ces is healt­hier for the Inter­net as it avoids the forma­tion of web giants. Decen­tra­li­zing usage over multi­ple Mobi­li­zon instan­ces prevents the crea­tion of huge data­sets that could be exploi­ted for survei­llance or mass mani­pu­la­tion.

It is also healt­hier for you : it allows you to find your host, the one whose manage­ment, terms of use, busi­ness model, mode­ra­tion char­ter, etc. match your values.

Each of these Mobi­li­zon instan­ces can fede­rate with others, as well as inter­ac­ting with them. For exam­ple, if the « UniMo­bi­li­zed » and « Mobi­li­zedS­ports » instan­ces are fede­ra­ted, UniMo­bi­li­zed user Cami­lle will be able to regis­ter for the karate course her teacher has crea­ted on the Mobi­li­zedS­ports instance.

A soft­ware that respects your free­doms

Mobi­li­zon is a free-libre soft­ware, so it respects your free­doms. This means for exam­ple, that its source code, the « recipe » that allows one to concoct Mobi­li­zon, is made public for trans­pa­rency’s sake. People who know how to code are free to browse the source code as they wish, to see for them­sel­ves whet­her there are hidden featu­res (spoi­ler alert : there aren’t !).

More­o­ver, the culture of free-libre soft­ware is a commu­nity-driven culture of contri­bu­tion. Mobi­li­zon should there­fore be seen as a digi­tal commons, that everyone can use and to which everyone can contri­bute. Your remarks, feed­back, skills (in trans­la­tion, tests, expla­na­ti­ons, code, etc.) will be consi­de­red as contri­bu­ti­ons to the common project.

Finally, if the direc­tion given to the Mobi­li­zon code does not suit you, you are comple­tely free to create your own team and « fork » the soft­ware. Thus, seve­ral gover­nan­ces and direc­ti­ons can be given to the same initial project, which is a strong defence against any mono­po­li­za­tion.

Saving your atten­tion from the economy

The truth is, Mobi­li­zon may feel confu­sing. Where most plat­forms gamble on your user expe­ri­ence and flat­ter your ego to better capture your atten­tion and data, Mobi­li­zon is a tool. It is not a hobby where you can scroll endlessly, simply a service to orga­nize your events and groups.

Mobi­li­zon is desig­ned to not mono­po­lize your atten­tion : no infi­nite scro­lling, no running to check likes and new friends.

Mobi­li­zon makes it futile to inflate the number of parti­ci­pants in your event or the number of members in your group. When each account can create an infi­nite number of profi­les, the numbers displayed by the members­hip coun­ters are no longer an influ­en­cer’s badge.

Mobi­li­zon is desig­ned so that you can follow the news of a group, but not of an indi­vi­dual : it is impos­si­ble to follow a single profile. In Mobi­li­zon, profi­les have no « wall », « thread » or « story » : only groups can publish posts. The goal is to get rid of the self-promo­ti­o­nal refle­xes where we stage our lives to be the person at the center of our follo­wers. With Mobi­li­zon, it is not the ego but the collec­tive that counts.

Finally, if there is no ability to like a comment or a message in a group discus­sion, it keeps the exchan­ges infor­ma­tive. This prevents the common exchange from turning into a dialo­gue-duel where you have to keep and save face.

In fact… we have to stop compa­ring Mobi­li­zon to a free-libre Face­book clone. If user enga­ge­ment is the new oil the giants of the web drill for, Mobi­li­zon is an attempt, at our small level, of a tool desig­ned for atten­ti­o­nal sobri­ety.

A service for your events, your profi­les, your groups.

Mobi­li­zon allows you to regis­ter for events

On Mobi­li­zon instan­ces you can find many events publis­hed by orga­ni­zers : date, loca­tion (geograp­hi­cal or online), descrip­ti­on… The event form gives you quick access to essen­tial infor­ma­tion, as well as the ability to regis­ter, add the event to your calen­dar or share it.

The search bar will give you results that match your keywords, your loca­tion or a speci­fic time. This search is done within the events on the Mobi­li­zon website you are brow­sing, but also across all events on other Mobi­li­zon websi­tes to which yours is linked, or « fede­ra­ted ».

When the orga­ni­zers allow it, you can parti­ci­pate anony­mously in an event : no need to log in a Mobi­li­zon account, only a confir­ma­tion email will be requi­red !

One account, one instance, seve­ral profi­les

If you wish to parti­ci­pate more acti­vely in events and groups (or even orga­nize them your­self), you will need to create an account on one of the exis­ting Mobi­li­zon instan­ces.

Before signing up, remem­ber to find out about the instance you are inter­es­ted in (star­ting with its « about » page). By looking at who admi­nis­ters this instance, their content mode­ra­tion policy, their busi­ness model, who they choose to fede­rate with or not, etc., you will know if the gover­nance they apply to their Mobi­li­zon website is right for you.

A single account will allow you to create as many profi­les as you want. Note that multi­ple profi­les are not a cyber secu­rity measure (which should be provi­ded by other tools and prac­ti­ces). It is a social parti­ti­o­ning tool, allo­wing you to display diffe­rent facets of your­self depen­ding on the social groups you are invol­ved with.

This will allow you, for exam­ple, to reserve one profile to regis­ter for family birth­days and anot­her for work-rela­ted confe­ren­ces, or to distin­guish between groups rela­ted to your hobbies and those where you orga­nize your acti­vist acti­vi­ties.

Groups to discuss and orga­nize

Currently, you must wait until you have been invi­ted into a Mobi­li­zon group before selec­ting one of your profi­les to join. You can also create and orga­nize your own group to invite whoe­ver you want and define roles (and there­fore permis­si­ons) of the new members of the group you admi­nis­ter.

In Mobi­li­zon, groups have a public page where you can display a short presen­ta­tion of the group, upco­ming events and the latest posts publis­hed.

In the group members’ area, members can (depen­ding on their permis­sion level) start and parti­ci­pate in discus­si­ons, create new events and public messa­ges or add new resour­ces (link to a colla­bo­ra­tive writing pad, online survey, etc.) in the group resour­ces page.

Mobi­li­zon.org, the site to share

To help you find your way around and choose your instance, we desig­ned Mobi­li­zon.org. It’s a site that will guide you on your first steps, whet­her you want to get some info, test Mobi­li­zon, find your instance, learn more, or contri­bute to Mobi­li­zon’s future.

There you will find links to our faci­li­ta­tion tools, in French and English, such as :

• Our demo instance, which allows you to test Mobi­li­zon with full impu­nity because all data is dele­ted every day ;
• The site Join­Mo­bi­li­zon.org which briefly presents the Mobi­li­zon soft­ware and tool ;
• The complete docu­men­ta­tion of Mobi­li­zon, to teach you how to use it or how to install it on a server ;
• Our selec­tion of instan­ces fede­ra­ted toget­her (inclu­ding ours, open only to French-spea­kers, on mobi­li­zon.fr), hosted by part­ners who have kindly agreed to jumps­tart this Mobi­li­zon fede­ra­tion with us ;
• A more complete index of the publicly avai­la­ble instan­ces ;
• Our forum to contri­bute to the commu­nity around Mobi­li­zon soft­ware ;
• Our trans­la­tion plat­form for multi­lin­gual people who want to contri­bute ;
• The git repo­si­tory for people who want to contri­bute to the code.

Mobi­li­zon, a common contri­bu­tor

From the very start, Mobi­li­zon has been a collec­tive adven­ture. Frama­soft would first of all like to thank and congra­tu­late the deve­lo­per, an employee of the asso­ci­a­tion, who has devo­ted nearly two years of his profes­si­o­nal life to making this tool a reality.

Of course our thanks also go to all the members, volun­te­ers and employees, who contri­bu­ted to the project, as well as to Marie-Cécile Godwin (concep­tion, UX design), Geof­frey Dorne (grap­hic & UI design) and David Revoy (illus­tra­ti­ons).

Finally, we would like to thank all the people who beli­e­ved in this project and suppor­ted it through their sharing, their atten­tion and their money, espe­ci­ally during the fundrai­sing that helped finance this first version.

In the coming months, Frama­soft is eager to see the crea­tion of a commu­nity that will take over the Mobi­li­zon code and, in the long term, take charge of its main­te­nance. This will be done accor­ding to good will and over time, but we hope that this new chick will one day be strong enough from your contri­bu­ti­ons to leave the nest of our asso­ci­a­tion.

In the mean­time, we are going to be very atten­tive to your feed­back, your correc­ti­ons and your desi­res on the evolu­ti­ons to be brought to this tool. We also have a few ideas on our side and we have no doubt that Mobi­li­zon will grow in the coming months.

 

This work can be achei­ved thanks to the support and dona­ti­ons that finance our asso­ci­a­tion. Dona­ti­ons repre­sent 95 % of our income and give us our free­dom of action. As Frama­soft is recog­ni­zed as being in the public inter­est, a dona­tion of 100 € from a French taxpayer will, after deduc­tion, be redu­ced to 34 €.

In the mean­time, it is now up to you to mobi­lize to make Mobi­li­zon known !

 

 

Get star­ted on Mobi­li­zon.org