@ -14,7 +14,16 @@ In June 2019, during [Relearn Rotterdam](http://relearn.be/2019/), some of the p
**What would bots of conduct act like?**
Bots can have an important [infrapunctural role](http://infrapuncturalbots.randomiser.info/) that provides a new [logic]( http://infrapuncturalbots.randomiser.info/bot-logic.html). What would it mean to become more entangled with bots, redistribute the labour of making and maintaining a collective, but without falling into the metaphorical understanding of bot as a servant?
Inspired by the potential of [digital infrapunctures](https://www.slideshare.net/debver/towards-a-model-of-digital-infrapuncture) by Deb Verhoeven, we would like to propose considering what a bot logic might look like:
- where platform logic accumulates, bot logic disperses
- where platform logic centralises, bot logic fragments
- where platform logic creates distance between user and infrastructure, bot logic develops an intimate knowledge of the platform - where platform logic reinforces habitual behaviour, bot logic encourages new habit formation
What would it mean to become more entangled with bots, redistribute the labour of making and maintaining a collective, but without falling into the metaphorical understanding of bot as a servant?
Varia members use [XMPP](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XMPP ) as a chat protocol because it enables us to self-host our own instance and [federate with other chat servers](http://varia.zone/images/varia_s2s_federation.svg). We use bots both to communicate and to document our exchanges. Our initial idea was to develop new forms of note-taking based on our interaction habits. We share a lot of different types of information in group chats, from news to recommendations of articles to instigations to clean the fridge. Starting from the conversational nature of our exchanges, we are experimenting with two different bot-users in the chat: one that gathers images shared on the main Varia channel and displays them online, and another one, focused specifically on the topic of digital interdependencies, that gathers images, quotes and looks for books' citations.
