DARA Community Update: Assemble!

This update contains bullet points describing developments from end of January to the current date, and includes a number of action items in which our community can participate.

The Immutable
5 min readApr 7, 2023

Assemble!

This update contains bullet points describing developments from end of January to the current date, and contains a number of action items in which our community can participate, most of which are in collaboration with our numerous partners.

The action items are eligible for bounties. Join our discord for more details!

  • Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger recently wrote a blog post detailing the Knowledge Standards Foundation (KSF) latest news. DARA was mentioned several times. Check out Larry’s blog spot here. Please give it a read and a retweet!
Knowledge Standards Foundation’s Encyclosphere
  • Larry has reached out asking for people to link any online encyclopedias they know of to the KSF. Please add any encyclopedias not already in the list. The list and submission form can be found here.
  • We recently published our own Knowledge Standards Foundation update. Read it and retweet it here.
  • DARA is automatically archiving all Wikipedia articles nominated for deletion. Check out the full collection at deathrow.dara.global
  • The DARA Decentralized Encyclopedia Aggregator was made in collaboration with the Knowledge Standards Foundation and honours the ZWI standard. Browse and archive any Wikipedia article with a single-click at encyclopedia.dara.global. Anybody unable to connect to Wikipedia can access it through this product.
deathrow.dara.global
  • In support of the Internet Archive we ask you to fill this form to support the Battle for Libraries and the Internet Archive’s lawsuit versus four major publishing companies seeking the destruction of 3.6 million ebooks still in copyright. We contacted Wayback CEO Mark Graham who encouraged us to support the campaign through social networks.
battleforlibraries.com
  • America Mission are looking for artwork to publicize the travesty that is the Restrict Act. Requested imagery could be dystopian with or without a heroic figure (e.g Statue of Liberty breaking chain). We invite our community to provide such images that capture the Zeitgeist. Please post your submissions in our discord. Any outstanding contributions will be eligible for bounties.
  • To support America Mission in their protest over the Restrict Act we are giving away two of their Garbage Fail Journalists NFTs. To participate and stand a chance of winning please read and retweet here!
Garbage Fail Journalist NFTs made by America Mission
  • Our immutable archive of the entire Project Gutenberg collection is well underway and we look forward to sharing the results soon. Project Gutenberg CEO Greg Newby has been notified of the progress and is looking forward to seeing the finished result.
  • Thanks to the GameStop community we made a good deal of noise with our archive of their Superstonk Library. This unique collection of highly detailed reddit posts lovingly preserved by members of the GameStop community, and now by DARA, can be read at gme.dara.global. Our tweet announcing the news received a stonking 24K views, and counting! Special thanks to Ms. Kerri.
gme.dara.global
  • A controversial BBC documentary critical of India Prime Minister Modi was censored by networks, media groups, and even the Wayback Machine which was required to do so following a takedown request. Shortly before it was scrubbed from the Internet, a user archived it to DARA. It can now be viewed at modi.dara.global and also here.
India Prime Minister Narendra Modi
  • In preparation for the DARA Tiering System which introduces premium features including larger file uploads, we are encouraging everyone to begin downloading ebooks in preparation for permanent archival on DARA. We would like to start with their huge collection of 2,290 encyclopaedias which can be found here.
  • We are trying to assemble a list of all published works that have been edited retroactively with the use of sensitivity readers and authentic representation ambassadors like those provided by Inclusive Minds. Affected works include books by Ian Fleming, Roald Dahl and Agath Christie. We would like to compile a complete list of affected works. Please pos you finding in our discord channel at dara.global/discord
  • Last week we attended a live video talk hosted by the Internet Archiving and featuring discussion of the Open Access movement and a new book, Athena Unbound, published on the subject. The talk was opened by Internet Archive Founder Brewster Kahle and by the time it was finished we had archived the book to DARA and shared the link with the two hundred or so attendees. The book can be downloaded from DARA here and you can watch the whole talk here.
Dorian (aka Gig) at the meeting (top row, middle) with Brewster to his left
  • We released new video tutorials for Brave browser and Chrome as well as a community made DARA commercial featuring footage of Julian Assange.

This concludes our community update which covers most, but not all, of the work we’re doing. We’re keeping some cards close to our chest. See you soon with another batch of updates, and if you haven't already done so then try out the DARA browser extension today!

--

--