Notices by radio free fedi (radiofreefedi@musician.social)

Ahoy friends hope your mid-week is approaching tolerable.

There are brand new sounds available for you from:
@MOULE
@fluffy
@rybson
@CyberpunkLibrarian
@lehto
@ferociousdesigns

with a lovely sunset station ID from your pal @bgm

And welcome to RFF:
@superlinguo

All channels and playlists adjusted and shook.

Keep lifting one another up out there.

listen and submit sounds:
https://radiofreefedi.net

#radio #music #radioFreeFedi

Impromptu office hours don't seem to be enough. We'll have more motivational power with a bit more notice and structure.

Part organising meeting, part artist support network, part mutual motivation for projects small and large, part stitch and bitch...

Global organising is a pain, but timezones be damned, let's do this.

#mutualMotivation #artists #musicians

The venue will be Jitsi. It requires no login for participants, is browser based for almost anyone and you can text type if you do not want to be on audio or video and a friendly colleague will relay into ther audio for you.

Forums, text platforms etc etc. we have them, but personable direct comms might be best for moving fast and empathetic impact. Move fast, fix things?

I know there are many opinions of platforms. I hope this will be as accessible as possible with what we have to work with.

First meeting will be:

Friday 15 Nov
2300 CET
2200 UK/UTC
1700 NYC
1400 LA

at: https://meet.jit.si/moderated/b94ee45941947b820faf35db51c3bbfde9f3d2cf76e154341de3758fcbc98dfb

Federated Independent Artists For Mutually Assured Creation?

Yeah, I opened a can of worms for Monty Python reference jokes with the slug name of this community initiative.

Hoping it's energising to get folks listening to help other colleagues power through and hopefully keep creating and building their individual things. As opposed to a more central conduit wearing or trying to direct many things, build many things while attempting positivity for all at all times.

Scroll up for meeting info.

As RFF sunsets the streams and considers how to be a less labour and comms intensive conduit for creative support of each other let's lean on more distributed positivity power and explore that as a force multiplier collectively.

Looking forward to some diverse voices and experiences plotting with love how to help foment mutually assured creation with two fingers in the air to the destructors of culture, voice and our energies.

Let the goodwill of the RFF banner and ethos continue to rally us.

Now's not the time to demand more work. Again, no "script" to just "run" RFF.

Agency, consent, deferring to artists wishes, building community, trust and safety, artist support, platform review, advocacy, vibes are not in the code. The database is irrelevent.

There are costs, timing, consent, decoupling to consider what of RFF might be durable, but much has intentionally and by design already been in the playlists and the artist directory. The legacy is community not a husk of a thing 11/

So let's celebrate the ethos and normalisation of agency and consent and as direct as possible artist support we've embraced.

Another behind the scenes effort was trying to get that ethos into other projects out there and in the advocacy and support for many adjacent initatives some of you may have felt.

Sure none of that is required for an audio stream. I argue it is needed to better lift up artists and improve respectful actual empowering discovery layers, not more silos and skimmers.

13/

Please do keep following and submitting.

This account will remain a community advocate and conduit after a post holidays fedi break after 2 years of clocking in 7 days /wk. A patron is securing the domain so no donut can yoink it and leaves options for non audio legacy to be discussed LATER.

Idea guys, I need some oxygen as there's heaps moving parts to plan spin down while operating. Any assistance putting positive in the feed for artists while this all happens much appreciated.

15/

Even though some people might say that RFF is just a radio station, so much more went into our operation than simply running some media streams.

I've worked hard for RFF to be relentlessly pro-artist and positive, when offering artist support of all kinds and when framing critical analysis on struggles and dramas we as independent artsts were facing.

The sad fact of the matter is that RFF cannot sustainably stay in operation despite having put out calls for help throughout 2024.

2/

The response to my asking for help for over a year, the pivots I made to be accommodating have been all proven unviable structurally, temporally and now personally. All of this has been considered to N degrees and has been quite a weight.

Please do not add to the many weirdly demanding comms I've been hit with during these desperate attempts to salvage the project. Asking at this time why or how or "what can you do" even if you think your intentions are sincere is not helpful.

3/

This isn't just about finances. The community were fast to answer the call for annual infra drives so that at least was never a burden on the human.

I never wanted to ask, find, take staff funding on principle and was able to wear full-time volunteerism beyond what my health could afford. Sadly that debt has very much come due.

The project was always too big for a lone hamster, and informed friends and colleagues who respect my privacy will understand: we've overshot any handover options.

4/

Assuming I or you will cancel any existing recurring infrastructure donations, we should still be covered for the transmitter over the sunset period.

For those that have specifically supported me if you might delay cancelling to help through this end period, awesome, but no matter what thank you deeply for trying to include the human backstage in the equation of community service.

5/

Since inception, RFF has spoken in a resoundingly positive voice. It is something many of us need to hear and feel, yet often hard to sustain against web and life factors. It's one of most difficult and exhausting roles I've ever endured.

I hope you might help carry the reigns of music and art chief positivity officer(s) in the feed at least around celebrating independent art. I will need to be less available for this during sunset. This wasn't tech, this wasn't a platform, it was people.

6/

I implore you to take what you hopefully have experienced from this project or the community that rallied and build it into other things you do and demand better from the technocrats or just kick them to the kerb. As independent and marginlised artists and as just good humans we deserve better. Rally communities that use tech don't build tech that makes demands of communities.

I'm proud to have helped any and all that have felt seen, at home, connected with community or supported.

7/

Cheers to the friends reflecting and helping to shout out community not just "radio" things that have made RFF different, resonate. Things we can endeavour to carry through our art, our work and our advocacy.

In fairness I can't really apologise for the experiment becoming a victim of success because you are here and ripples have been made. Nor should I field abuse for my ph collapsing (none of your business) and compiling no longer being able to wear other duress of which there's plenty.

8/

Taking flack from some who didn't read this thread or ANY of the State of the Station and progress report blogs over 18+ months stating in increasing desperation please bear with me, a lone volunteer and need help!

"WHY DONT YOU/CAN'T YOU JUST", "GIVE ME THE 'SCRIPTS'", weird ableist/classist noise, or misguided Angelina Jolie Hackers saviour syndrome will never illicit a desire to handoff community trust to that kind of hostility. I broke protocol! There's no positive RFF framing for that. 9/

There's been a colleague team for over a year to vent & plot for the station.

Even more focused for months learning the ethos and manual points of difference that generate the final outputs of RFF.

Through sounding out all the options you might pitch, attempting to engage others for NON-TECH labour, there was some progress but *I* have run out of time struggling with that added job. The shortage has always been time all around, not skill.

I can't envisage a shell of the thing haunting me. 10/

I'll continue hangouts and live events as we can through the sunset.

New music submissions will be added through mid December! Plenty of time to help hype the drop in, discover then go away and interact and directly support artists vibe.

There may less positivity glitter bombs in the feed while I work out how to untether from the daily comms, feed, stresses and demands that unfortunately are a boat anchor around the neck *I* need to shed.

Gonna need ya'll to carry that positivity torch. 12/

Some of you have already pointed to and posted positive points of resonance, thank you.

I hope there will be ample reflections and sharing of the types of experiences and connections the project has fomented. I hope that will be fuel to continue normalising pro-artist community first and tools second.

While that can be hard and may require heaps of extra manual work, the final output does resonate when there is actual love for independent creatives and humans built in!

Stay vertical!

14/