User:Kiara/Research/notes.md

• Web, communities, wxmen and magic

This is the main topic i will be exploring, here are some random notes of ongoing reflections about it

• Some keywords for references

sirens/mermaids	amazones	witches & fairies	resistance
sorority	magic	community	omniscience
indie web	hacking	sisterhood	rituals

• Starting point

The starting point was to investigate on female initiatives and communities around the world wide web. This entry was imagined through an extensive detective prism with analysis and interviews.
This felt a bit blurry, and by starting some readings, I came to the conclusion that this topic was not precise enough and that the role of femininity and magic is much more important than I was considering.

• Evolution of the reflection: a notes log

30-09-2025 > 02-10-2025
After reading Audre Lorde and some former XPUBers thesis, my focus drifted.
- From Artemis Gryllaki's thesis, I uncovered the principle that wxmen are born-hackers. They don't need tech or the web to hack, they hack their way through life by there mere existence.
- From the combination of Audre Lorde's, Artemis Gryllaki's and Angeliki Diakrousi's writing and my own work, I also realized that wxmen are enchantresses of the web: we create dreamlands, we incite to dream, to escape, to wander. Everything is tied in one way or another to a form of witchcraft or sorcery; and poetry.
- Randomly, I remembered the existence of Madame Web. She is omniscient, clairvoyant, extremely charismatic and very mysterious/mystical.

inspired by the Spider-Man character, her clairvoyance make her a perfect impersonation of the world wide web: she sees, hears and knows all, but will only give blurry or mystical clues, yet also being extremely precise. She's of good help even though she sometimes can be evasive - on purpose.
She also has a health issue and is maintained alive by tubes (cables) that form a spider web shape
-> Internet as an omniscient lady | why internet is the ultimate sorority/coven <3
Bonus: Dakota Johnson hating the movie: women who aren't afraid of their voices and opinions

18-09-2025
Witchcraft and communities
Sacred feminine
Taking the sorority power back (Audre Lorde, sorority as a way of making the world turn)

The web as an act of community

From its creation to nowadays

The indie web

Witchcraft and web: how women populate the web, take part in it, hold power over it and the power of cyber-isms tied to femininity and magic

How wxmen form communities to reform and reconnect the web to humanity

Neocities, tumblr, geocities, Olia Lialina, Doriane, etc.

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• Previous ideas that are not the main exploration anymore

On social media -- Is wikipedia a social media? is it the only one still alive through the earthquakes of internet? brought by the discussion here

FLOSS, getting away from GAFAMs and proprietary software, active participation to ethical design circles → building and maintaining a server on a RaspberryPi; dual-booting

Practices shape community shape practices (ref to Doriane's sticker)

The same issue is raised at every PPP meeting: the publishing workflow is hard to change to turn it into single-source publishing because of habits. Nobody has an answer to get that to work. Snippets of conversation at PPPirates (04-2025): "We need more examples, toolkits and projects to show those people the benefits of it" (Timothée) "The question about power and who holds it in a project" (Quentin) "It is a really present issue and we need to talk about it, what are the tools to talk about it? Do we need to write together about it? Medor manages for years now, the tools we have are so ready, we can set up workflows but it needs a change of tools but also of thinking. Maybe we need to publish about it? How can we be in solidarity with each other?" (Manetta) "The people are aware of the tools they use but they're used to it and it can be violent to tell them they're working the wrong way. Another approach is using InDesign with the pandoc plugin then you can control the output and make websites, e-pubs or whatever you want" (Yann) "But the people using this InDd workflow also work physically together and share the same habits about layout and design practices so that's why it works!" (Quentin)

Real life stuff that is actually happening and shaping community-ies

/Prikbord calendar
/lilasprose.com (coming soon)
/GLG (coming soon)