The overall goal is the development of Sigala, but this is unconventional, so as a stepping stone attention is being given to more mainstream projects that can generate start-up capital.

MakeStaticSiteWeb

The first of these is to implement MakeStaticSite as an easy-to-use service hosted on the Web.

How you can help

One of the first tasks is to draft a business plan. At this early stage, each contributor needs to be self-financed, until we secure financial backing. The immediate focus is on MakeStaticSiteWeb, which is envisaged as a kind of financial bootstrap. For the longer term, I have expressed some thoughts on economic viability (on the Sigala research site).

We’ll need to form a team. There are many roles for an initiative like Sigala, especially once the project gains momentum and the software development is put on a more formal footing. Some which will be crucial are:

• community liaison — I wish to target early versions at children, so as to make the design inherently safe. I would like the liaison to work with existing organisations such as the Jubilee Centre to develop in conjunction with schools, but also work through community elders, perhaps through bodies such as councils of faith.
• researchers — the project’s research is ongoing and needs to be strengthened by relevant expertise in many fields. This can involve both formal and informal collaboration.
• software development
  • requirements analyst — this technical role, working closely with the community liaison, will translate the requirements from communities into software requirements. Particular attention should be given to safety requirements.
  • systems architect — what software services do we need, how are the components related to each other? Particular attention is to be given to security, which is a role in itself.
  • lead developer — in the early stages of prototyping, this role will be pivotal. Once the project starts progressing beyond that, they will need to build their own team of developers, including testers.
  • usability specialist — a role intrinsic to the design and development process, with particular attention to accessibility.
• legal — obligations and best practice covering accessibility, privacy, intellectual property rights, etc.
• communications — to keep everyone, internally and externally, informed of project progress.

Introduction

Building the right relationships with the right people applies to any context, offline and online. However, the ability to rapidly make connections on the Internet means we need to be more vigilant to ensure that we remain true to this recommendation. Apart from this, the nature of relationships remains fundamentally the same. We argue that a person is an integrated whole; whether engaged in the physical world or online, there is the one life, albeit played out in multiple facets.

We may pretend to be someone else (as promoted in VR worlds such as Second Life and the metaverse), but these only add layers of maya (illusion) and according to Buddhist teachings, karma accumulates around the same stream of consciousness; after the virtual deed is done, the effects will be experienced by the person, in their constituents (khandhas). The key requirement then is to understand what deeds bring happiness and unhappiness. Do we really need VR?

Given the acceleration driven by socialising online, the creation of amenable networking systems is a difficult challenge and cannot be solved by facile means. We may aim for art, but won’t reach that until we’ve worked hard to find workable, if not the most elegant, solutions. That’s a technical challenge, but we can all work on the problem of happiness. Surely, then, a sensible candidate should be able to reflect closely the nature of human relationships pre-Internet, comprising kinship and non-kinship relationships, which have distinct contextual meaning and grow organically.

Fortunately, there is an architectural model that strongly suggests an architectural framework, one that is based on the Buddha’s teachings to a householder, which I explore on the Sigala research site.

Timeline

To indicate how I’ve reached my present position, I offer a timeline of my involvement in initiatives that relate to this theme.

Nov-Dec 1996

“The MiningCo” – taking back the Web

I was one of the first guides (Buddhism) for the MiningCo (later renamed about.com). This aimed to build a community around thousands of guides applying their expert knowledge to assist with the problem of identifying relevant sites. What I particularly appreciated was the support community within the company itself.

2004-2005

Reflective and Private Blogs

Blogging is normally considered a social affair, but the RAMBLE (Remote authoring of Mobile Blogs for Learning Environments), for which I was principal investigator, trialled private, reflective blogs. Undergraduates were encouraged to write about their learning experiences and share them selectively with tutors and peers. Social can be selective.

Summer 2007

Joined Facebook

I was lulled into opening an account by colleagues.

November 2007

On ‘Friends’ and other associations

Dissatisfied with Facebook’s architecture, I sought a design that would properly support the deepening of human friendship and found inspiration in the Buddha’s teachings, resulting in a post on the EDUCAUSE Connect blog.

December 2010

New Architectures for Sustainability

I consolidated some of my ideas in a paper I gave at the 3rd World Conference on Buddhism and Science in Thailand. At the heart of the new architectures is a separation of concerns, especially of different kinds of relationships (kinship and non-kinship) rather than lumping every connection into the ‘friend’ type.

2011 –

Sigala Project

Named after the householder who received the Buddha’s teachings (though with flexible pronunciation!), the project was started, initially as theoretical research.

September 2021

Cultivating Sīla Online: The Use of Cognitive Interventions in Systems Design

This substantial paper, which I gave at Oriel College, Oxford, brings together many elements that I have been exploring. It provides assurance that the software development can now proceed.