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Invented example · built on Kindling · Why Kindling · The library · The spec · The Circular

Foul Weather Friendsmutual aid in and around Port Ellery
3PRINTED2LIBRARY COPY1OUR SITE

Foul Weather Friends Port Ellery · since the long outage

The list that stays up.

A neighborhood’s list of who can lend what, who can drive, who will cook and who would like a knock on a storm day. We keep it as a plain file anyone can copy, and people reach each other by email, so it does not depend on one service staying up. Including ours.

Play a storm dayAsk to be listed

Nobody pays to be listed, to borrow or to be introduced.

  • 1Our own sitefoulweatherfriends.exampleAnswering · read now
  • 2The library’s copyAt the Port Ellery Free Library, on its own serverCopied at 09:00 UTC
  • 3The printed sheetThe Mariners’ Hall, the library and the ferry waiting roomPrinted Sunday

Today all three places answer, so a reader opens our own site first.

Four lists

Four lists, each one a Kindling Pool

Three are public, copied to the library and printed every Sunday. The fourth, the Check-In Circle, is unlisted and never leaves the hands of the people in it. You can be on one and not the others.

Public · copied and printed foulweatherfriends.example/pools/lend-and-borrow.json

1 7 listed

Lend and Borrow

Neighbors in and around Port Ellery who will lend what they have: tools, ladders, a truck, a generator, a wet vacuum, a roof tarp. Each person says on their own page what they can lend; you write to them by email and they say yes or no each time. Nothing is rented and nobody pays. Borrowers are never listed.
Kept by
Elena Vasquez Email verified, Bet Larkin Signed in with OAuth
Who is on it
People who lend. Borrowers are never listed.
How you join
Say yes to a link at the email address on your page.
Messages
Anyone email verified may write to a lender; each lender says yes or no each time.

See the list

Public · copied and printed foulweatherfriends.example/pools/rides-to-appointments.json

2 3 listed

Rides to Appointments

Neighbors who will drive you to an appointment, the pharmacy or the ferry, and wait if you like. Cyrus rides along once with every new driver before vouching for them here. Write a day ahead when you can; on storm days, write anyway. Nobody pays for a ride. People who ask for rides are never listed.
Kept by
Cyrus Otero Signed in with OAuth
Who is on it
Drivers. People who ask for rides are never listed.
How you join
Cyrus rides along with you once, then vouches for you here. You say yes or no.
Messages
Anyone email verified may ask a driver for a ride.

See it on the sheet

Unlisted · never copied its address travels by hand

3 4 listed

The Check-In Circle

Neighbors who live alone and would like someone to check on them in storms and cold snaps, and neighbors who will do the checking. Bet or Maggie meets each person at their own door first. You choose who checks on you, and they say yes too. Unlisted, never copied and never printed: its address travels by hand.
Kept by
Bet Larkin Signed in with OAuth, Maggie O’Rourke Email verified
Who is on it
People who live alone and want a knock on storm days, and the neighbors who knock.
How you join
Bet or Maggie meets you at your own door, then invites you. Only you can say yes.
Who can see it
The people in it. Never the library, never the sheet, never an app.

How someone is invited

Public · copied and printed foulweatherfriends.example/pools/meals-when-its-hard.json

4 4 listed

Meals When It’s Hard

Neighbors who will cook for a household going through something: an illness, a new baby, a death, a long week. Hester keeps the list and the calendar. Say what you cook and how often. People who need meals are never listed: a friend writes to Hester, with that household’s yes, and Hester asks the cooks.
Kept by
Hester Oduya Email verified
Who is on it
Cooks and drivers. Households that need meals are never listed.
How you join
Say yes to a link. Tell Hester what you cook and how often.
Messages
A friend writes to Hester, with the household’s yes, and Hester asks the cooks.

See it on the sheet

How it works

Five things, in this order

  1. 1

    Your page says what you can do

    You keep a short page of your own: what you can lend, whether you drive, what you cook. We read it when you say yes, and link to it. We never copy your photos.

    Your page is your profile §2.1 §2.5

  2. 2

    You say yes to one list at a time

    A keeper sends a link to the email on your page. Nothing happens until you say yes, and a no is remembered.

    The handshake §5.2 · no silent listing §5.1

  3. 3

    The list is a plain file

    Each list is a small file anyone can read. The library copies it every hour and the Mariners’ Hall prints it on Sundays. Today the copy’s checksum is 938f 75fc bd7b 1d76, the same as ours.

    A Pool is a JSON document §3.1

  4. 4

    People write to each other by email

    When you need a ladder, you write to the person who has one, from your own address to theirs. We are not in the middle, so we cannot be the thing that breaks.

    Email is the transport §6.1

  5. 5

    Leaving is one email

    You are off the original within sixty seconds, off the library’s copy at once, and struck through by hand on every printed sheet that same day.

    Withdrawal §5.3

The Check-In Circle

Who can see whom, and who decides

The circle is for people who live alone and would like someone to check on them in storms and cold snaps, and for the neighbors who will do the checking. It asks more care than a tool list, so it works differently.

Only the person says yes. A daughter in another state, or a worried neighbor, may tell Bet about someone. Bet or Maggie then knocks on that person’s door, and only they can say yes §5.1. Nobody is put in the circle by someone else, and nobody is listed silently.

You choose who checks on you, and they say yes too. Who checks on whom is agreed between the people involved, by email, and is written nowhere else: not in the file, not on a sheet.

It is unlisted, which means its address travels by hand and it is in no directory §3.2. Unlisted is not secret: anyone holding the address could read who is in it, so the pages members keep for the circle name no street and no door. A checker learns an address from the person, by email.

What the circle is never

  • Never copied.Not to the library, not to anyone’s laptop, and not in our discovery file.
  • Never printed.Each member keeps one card by the phone with their own checkers’ names and email addresses, and nobody else’s.
  • Never read by an app.We ask the apps not to, and its address is not anywhere an app would find it.
  • Never a surveillance list.Pausing check-ins while you visit family, or leaving, is one email.

See Ida’s invitation

Shifts 10, 12, 11 and 8

Why this needs an open protocol

A closed app is only as reliable as its company’s servers, and only as useful as the people already inside it. Mutual aid is needed most on exactly the days servers go down. Kindling makes the list a commons: people keep their own pages, the lists are open files anyone can host and copy, and every copy still carries each person’s yes.

  1. Shift 10 · Nobody owns the directoryThe library can keep a copy without asking anyone.

    A closed app keeps its list in its own database: when the app is down, so is the list, and nobody else is allowed to copy it. Ours are files in the format every Kindling reader understands, announced in a discovery file on our own domain §8.3 §10.1. So Rosa keeps a copy at the Board, Hester prints one, and anyone who wants a copy on their own laptop can take one §3.1. When our site is down, a reader simply opens the next copy. Try it.

  2. Shift 12 · Email is the floorWe were never in the middle of your message.

    In a closed app you can reach people only through the app, so an outage is silence. Kindling messages are structured email §6.1: when Maggie asks June for her generator, the message goes from Maggie’s address to June’s. Our site can be dark all day and the ask still arrives, as long as either of them has a signal.

  3. Shift 11 · It outlives its makersIf Bet moves inland, the lists stay.

    A closed service dies with its company. A Kindling Pool whose keepers take no action for 90 days is marked dormant, its members see a notice, and any active member can nominate a new keeper within 14 days, co-keepers first §9.1 §9.3. Every list here has a second keeper or a copy, and if the domain ever lapsed, the copies at the library carry the same people and the same yeses.

  4. Shift 8 · Safety that travelsRefused elsewhere, refused here, even in a storm.

    We subscribe to two shared block lists, the Kindling project’s and the Circular consortium’s §7.3. The subscription is written into every copy of every file, and the lists live on other hosts, so a storm that takes our site down does not switch the check off. Someone who put a whole household on a list without asking them is refused here too, which matters most in the Check-In Circle.

Apps

Which apps can read our lists

BellowsAsks and offers. Reads Lend and Borrow and Rides to Appointments, so someone can ask for a ladder or a ride from the same place they ask the Ferry Room for a drummer.
Familiar FacesFriendship and groups. May read Meals When It’s Hard, beside the other groups a cook already belongs to.
Card CatalogSearch first. Files Lend and Borrow, Meals When It’s Hard and Rides to Appointments in its drawer for lending, meals and rides, so a neighbor can look up who lends a ladder.
Face Up, Heartwood and SundialOpen the same three lists under their own names. A yes to a cook still goes to Hester, who asks the cooks.
No app reads the Check-In CircleIt is unlisted, and its address travels only by hand. That is on purpose.

Any client that reads a public Pool may read ours, with the members’ consent already given: that is what a public Pool is §3.2. An app that reads our lists still sends every message by email, so it keeps working on a storm day as long as it can reach one copy.

Money

What it costs, and who pays

Nobody pays to be listed, to borrow, to ride or to be introduced, and nobody ever will. Kindling defines nothing to charge for at the connection layer §1.3, and we have nothing to sell. Our costs are small and plain.

  • Not an emergency service.In an emergency, call 911. We are neighbors with ladders and soup, and we do not replace anyone whose job it is to come.
  • Not a rental marketplace.Nothing here is rented, and nobody pays to borrow, to ride or to be listed. A lender can always say no.
  • Not a background check.A vouch means a keeper met you in person, nothing more. Cyrus rides along once with each driver; that is what his vouch says.
  • Not a feed.No streaks, no reminders to come back, no counts of who looked at you. We write when a storm is forecast or a sheet is reprinted, and otherwise we leave you alone.
  • 1The domain nameRenewed each January from a coffee jar on the Fix-It Friday table. Whoever has a few dollars puts them in.
  • 2The siteA few static files on a small computer in the bike co-op’s back room. It goes down when Chandler Street loses power, which is the whole reason for the copies.
  • 3The printed sheetPrinted on the Mariners’ Hall office copier every Sunday. Paper from the same jar.
  • 4The library’s copyKept by the Port Ellery Free Library as part of the Board, at no charge. The library asks nothing in return.

Join, or leave

Ask to be listed

Write to keepers@foulweatherfriends.example, or leave a note here, or tell Bet on her round. A keeper sends a link to the email on your page, and nothing happens until you say yes.

Which list

Leaving is one action

Every email we send has a leave link, and every list has a leave button. It sends one withdrawal message. You are off the original within sixty seconds §5.3, off the library’s copy at once, and struck through by hand on the printed sheets the same day.

Your page stays yours. Anyone you have already written to keeps your email, because it was always your own.

Leave Lend and Borrow