Cultural Foundations

A reading path through the how-we-do-this layer of OGM — its language, patterns, and editorial conventions.

1. OGM Values

Source: OGM Culture/OGM Values.md

A short, fragmentary page — but worth quoting in full because every line is doing work:

avoid quixotic quests (ones that won't ever be successful)

a loose federation ... we build ... connections and ... creating this global mind

broad, expansive in welcoming

(talk about data architecture / philosophy)

Three substantive values plus a stub. Avoid quixotic quests and broad, expansive in welcoming are the most-quoted in spirit if not in wording.

2. What does OGM care about

Source: OGM Culture/What Does OGM Care About.md

A list of issues OGM is interested in. Selected:

polarization by major media (loss of trusted sources)
surveillance capitalism
surveillance governments
alternative health
plant medicine
US-China cold war
systemic racism
deep adaptation
wise collapse
IP collaboration
interoperable / federated data

The page is structured as questions: Does OGM present itself as focused on certain issues? Is there enough attention space to cover everything? Should OGM prioritize particular topic areas into Quests?

3. OGM Community Patterns

Source: OGM Culture/OGM Community Patterns.md

How new sub-communities form within OGM. The pattern is observational:

a couple of people in conversation realize that there is a latent community of practice that could come together

come up with a good and descriptive name!

a mattermost channel is created with a few obvious initial participants

additional participants continue to join the channel, either from invites (direct and indirect), or just because the name is attractive

the participants keep adding content (the more the better) and discussion they think is relevant to the topic

at some point, critical mass is achieved, and the participants deeper and richer interactions both here and elsewhere

Also notable: "Everything Is A Project" — a small section asserting that shared project understanding goes through the project plan template.

4. OGM Languaging

Source: OGM Culture/OGM Languaging.md (fragmentary)

Outline-form, but the headings themselves are content:

OGM as a Verb — see OGMing
Fractal and Holographic — a property OGM claims for its structure
Cooperation and Collaboration (with sub-bullet "co-creation and co-production") — distinguishing terms that often get conflated
Fractal Scale — "circles, out, in, internal, external within, around / not up/down" — explicit rejection of vertical metaphors
That vs. Which — listed but unelaborated

5. How We Wiki — the editorial layer

See How We Wiki (this wiki's synthesis) or read in source order:

Key practices:

Third-person collective voice; first-person allowed if tagged with parenthetical name
Incipient links (links to non-existent pages) are first-class
Page maturity metaphor: seed → sprout → seedling → sapling → adult → elderly → snag → rotting log (proposed, not adopted)

6. Office Hours and the social rhythm

Source: OGM Culture/Office Hours.md

The most-developed page in OGM Culture. It catalogues regular meetings: person-based (any topic), person-based (rotating topics), topic-based, and standing group meetings. Pete's Tuesday Office Hours and Massive Wiki Wednesdays are specific, hosted, recorded.

What's missing from this path

OGM Code of Conduct — referenced from OGM Structure/OGM Structure.md, no source page
OGM Onboarding 201 — referenced, not created
OGM Nomenclature — referenced from OGM Culture/OGM Languaging.md, not created

These would round out a fuller cultural-foundations tour. They live in True Orphans.

Themes Hub, especially OGMing and How We Wiki
Newcomer Tour — shorter, broader tour
Governance Story — for the structural-history thread