You may have heard of Pledgebank, a website where you can pledge to do something on the condition that a number of others will agree to so the same thing. It’s a little tricky to explain this concept in detail, but it’s summarised by the phrase Tell the world “I’ll do it, but only if you’ll help me do it”. (See here for an in-depth introduction.)

Anyway. A recent pledge was:

I will refuse to register for an ID card and will donate £10 to a legal defence fund but only if 10000 other people will also make this same pledge.

This pledge has already exceeded its target of 10,000 signatories, but large numbers of people have said that while they agree with the sentiment, they cannot sign up as their responsibilities mean that they couldn’t make such a commitment. In response, there’s another pledge aimed at those people:

I will actively support those people who, on behalf of all of us, refuse to register for an ID card, and I pledge to pay at least £20 into a fighting fund for them but only if 50000 other people will too.

If you are concerned about ID cards, please consider signing up to one of these pledges. The first pledge, to refuse a card outright, is open until the 9th October 2005. The second, to support those who refuse, is open until 31st March 2006.

FAVE 2005, a Free (as in Freedom) Audio and Visual Event, is taking place in Bristol at the Trinity Community & Arts Centre on Saturday 20th August 2005. Its focus is free and open source creative software – music, film, community media, creative commons, that kind of thing.

It starts at 10 in the morning, and it looks like there’ll be a range of activities including talks, workshops and live performances. From the lists of speakers and performers on the website, it looks like it’ll be really interesting.

Via Bristol Wireless News.