Featured image: Emergence by Paul Lewin
Community by Design
Social media empower distributed content creation by algorithmically harnessing "the social fabric" (explicit and implicit signals of association) to serve this content. While this overcomes the bottlenecks and biases of traditional gatekeepers, many believe it has unsustainably eroded the very social fabric it depends on by maximizing engagement for advertising revenue. This paper participates in open and ongoing considerations to translate social and political values and conventions, specifically social cohesion, into platform design. We propose an alternative platform model that includes the social fabric an explicit output as well as input. Citizens are members of communities defined by explicit affiliation or clusters of shared attitudes. Both have internal divisions, as citizens are members of intersecting communities, which are themselves internally diverse. Each is understood to value content that bridge (viz. achieve consensus across) and balance (viz. represent fairly) this internal diversity, consistent with the principles of the Hutchins Commission (1947). Content is labeled with social provenance, indicating for which community or citizen it is bridging or balancing. Subscription payments allow citizens and communities to increase the algorithmic weight on the content they value in the content serving algorithm. Advertisers may, with consent of citizen or community counterparties, target them in exchange for payment or increase in that party's algorithmic weight. Underserved and emerging communities and citizens are optimally subsidized/supported to develop into paying participants. Content creators and communities that curate content are rewarded for their contributions with algorithmic weight and/or revenue. We discuss applications to productivity (e.g. LinkedIn), political (e.g. X), and cultural (e.g. TikTok) platforms.
The Local Connection Crisis: New Data on What Communities Need
npmx: converging communities
The story of the many people and communities that converged to build npmx together
AT-Communities #1: the Concierge, the Vault, and the Fuck-ass Astro Website – Essential Randomness
In which I try to make sense of communities on ATproto.
Nature Photographers Network
An authentic community for nature photographers
Gradients of intimacy and creating shelter: An interview with Erin Kissane
How might we use nature as an inspiration for creating online communities?
🔭🖤🚀 Social media’s next evolution: decentralized, open-source, and scalable
How Blacksky grew to millions of users without spending a dollar
Digital Spaces Directory | New_ Public
As the social media landscape changes and a new wave of digital spaces emerges, this Directory is meant to be a resource for our field — a jumping-off-point for further exploration and research for anyone who’s interested in studying, building, stewarding, or simply using digital social platforms. We hope this will inspire creative exploration, spark new collaborations, and highlight important progress.
Building for Organizers - The People Layer
The most enduring social networks aren’t the prettiest or the most addictive – it’s the ones that empower organizers.
Building for Organizers - The People Layer
The most enduring social networks aren’t the prettiest or the most addictive – it’s the ones that empower organizers.
Can AT Protocol Fix Monolithic Platforms?
Habitat's road to release: 07 bridging traditional SaaS apps - building [at] habitat
building bridges to the (organizational) atmosphere
The promise of ATproto is social media without corporate overlords