A FEMINIST SERVER MANIFESTO 0.01

source: https://areyoubeingserved.constantvzw.org/Summit_afterlife.xhtml

• Is a situated technology. Her sense of context results from a federation of competences
• Is run for and by a community that cares enough for her in order to make her exist
• Has an awareness of the materiality of software, hardware and the bodies gathered around it
• Treats network technology as part of a social reality
• Is able to scale up or down, and change processing speed whenever resources require
• At the risk of exposing her own insecurity, opens up processes, tools, sources, habits, patterns
• Does not strive for seamlessness. Talk of transparency too often signals that something needs to be made invisible
• Radically questions the conditions for serving and service; experiments with changing client - server relations where she can
• Avoids efficiency, ease-of-use and reliability because they can be traps
• Knows that networking is actually a parasitic, promiscuous and often awkward practice
• Is autonomous in the sense that she tries to decide for her own dependencies
• Takes control because she wants networks to be mutable and read-write accessible
• Faces her freedom with determination. Vulnerability is not an alibi
• Is a paranodal (we did not mean: paranoid) technology. A feminist server is both inside and outside the network
• Does not confuse a sense of false security with providing a safe place
• Tries hard not to apologize when she is sometimes not available