Contributing to the commons in 2020
Looking back from 2020, many of 2005’s stars look dim. MySpace, Flickr and Delicious have all withered away. Mozilla is struggling. the collaboration tools that technologists of 2005 praised widely, such as wikis, blogs and IRC, have fallen away while closed and mostly-closed alternatives have taken their place.
Around that time, Clay Shirky described a future in which companies that embraced sharing and collaboration would win. Looking forward from 2005, the crowdsourced future was bright. The Internet had enabled anyone to publish thoughts, images and ideas.
Since then, large companies have claimed our social spaces and learned how to use our own interests against us. Their irresistible apps incite dopamine spikes and restless sleep. Doomscrolling for the win.
Despite all of this, many pockets of shared human creativity continue to florish. And you’re very welcome to join them!
Expand wiki with something you know
Wikipedia, built as a cooperative endeavour, has remained relatively strong. It’s the first place that most people look when seeking reference information about new topics. Wikipedia’s coverage reflects the interests of its editors though. It’s missing lots of content from non-CIS male editors, for example.
Map your town
Invisible, yet right there in plain sight, OpenStreetMap is a community of companies and individual collaborators who are building one of the world’s most impressive geographic datasets.
Donate your voice
LibriVox allows you to read books, which become audiobooks enjoyed worldwide. Mozilla Common Voice can use your recordings to teach computers to read.
Observe nature
A favourite hobby of mine is to add observations in iNaturalist. Our mobile phones are surprisingly capable. For extra Internet points, upload photos to the Wikimedia Commons.
Write down your thoughts
You don’t need to wait for universal basic income or the technological singularity before you engage creative outlets. Blogging isn’t as fashionable as it once was, but it’s still there. It’s cheap and easily searchable. Make sure that you’re indexed by the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine - it’s the best way to ensure that your writing will outlive you.
Thanks to Tim Heany for reviewing this article.