Curating fablab.org

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#21

… we should also discuss for how to approve regional organizations, it’s not that simple nor automatic.

I’d add that we’ve been working on making the approval process better documented, transparent and with more features:

Furthermore, we are also considering to add some categories / labels / badges / visualizations / workflows / … automatically by elaborating data from Fablabs.io, in order to make the management easier or at least to offload some work:

So, for example, instead of deleting labs who are not really active, we show their activity and visualize them accordingly i.e. closed labs that don’t reply? we keep them in the history but it’s clear that they are inactive, or they’ve done very little. How to define if a lab is a full one or a mini one? We could identify this from the list of machines automatically… and so on

#22

Typo there, sorry, my bad.

Totally agree with you here. Someone with knowledge about FabLabs in general should help and guide the newcomers, but with the local point of view, socially, culturally and economically speaking.

@openp2pdesign, the ideas you’re describing are great! There should be a reference point or a measure unit to rank or categorise the FabLabs in their different aspects, but without overcomplicating the site in general. Also, there are labs active only in certain sub networks (like FabLat), so in some way these groups should be the ones with the possibility to back or promote their members and give them visibility to the global community, or maybe the way to go is exactly the oposite one. In my opinion, whichever system is implemented, it has to be, in some way, self cleaning: for example, with the “points” system you mentioned, giving the lab points for posting projects, getting mentioned, etc. and showing in the site the ones with higher scores.

Just my two cents, I really want to help here :slight_smile:

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#23

Yes, as users you would only see some badges / visualizations and an explanation of them, the complexity is in the source code :slight_smile: But these automatic evaluations should be always considered as a partial perspective, and the human interactions should always be part of the evaluation.

#24

[quote=“trox, post:20, topic:4186”]
of the three referees maximum one should be a regional organisation
[/quote] that is a great idea, I dont see a reason of not doing it. The question is “who” is the regional organisation? the labs listed inside? so we again go to labs approving labs, I would say that labs listed in the regional organisation become referees? or you see people doing this? two completely different things

[quote=“trox, post:20, topic:4186”]
Fab City Global Initiative (somewhat hesitant about that)
[/quote] Why are you hesitant? it is an organisation within the Fab Lab network, or not? I see more coming out: Academany, Fab Lat Kids, and so on, but agree that is a different category from regional organisations

What is obvious is that all the digital infrastructure should improve considerably, including fablabs.io and other possible platforms. We have done this for the labour of love, now getting funding to do it in a more sustained basis

[quote=“alejandrocragnolini, post:22, topic:4186”]
giving the lab points for posting projects, getting mentioned, etc. and showing in the site the ones with higher scores.
[/quote] In my opinion tokens based in Blockchain could be a great resource for this, we are running a workshop about this in FAB13, add people reputation, skills, programs, etc

#25

Do you accept pull requests or collaboration? I want to do something new :smiley:

See you there then!

New approval process
#26

Absolutely yes, it would be awesome! :slight_smile: Fablabs.io is free software / open source, see the GitHub repo here: https://github.com/fablabbcn/fablabs

1 Like
#27

I assume that regional organisations do have something like a board, people running the organisation. And that they have somebody who is in charge of liaising with their (existing and potential) members. That person would then be in charge of dealing with the referee aspects.
I think it is OK to keep the principle of “trusted” labs (for reasons that e.g. they have been around for a long time, play a key role in the Academany circuits, …)

#28

I am hesitant because I think the approval proces should be very close to actual lab practice. I am unsure how close to actual lab practice The Fab City Global Initiative is, given it’s remit to change the way cities deal with their “metabolism”.