History Commons May Disappear – Please Donate, Tell People

What is the History Commons?* One of the most important and invisible, useful and unknown websites on the internet — and without better funding, it may disappear from the web. You might not have heard of it, but it’s been used and referenced by an array of well-known investigative authors and journalists, including Glenn Greenwald, Craig Unger, James Ridgeway and Peter Lance; see section at this article’s end. HistoryCommons.org is a documentation & research tool driven by a relational database and public input, with editorial oversight. It’s proof-in-practice of the Mosaic Theory of Intelligence Gathering, but for the public interest, the people, our posterity and future generations. HistoryCommons.org is best known for the Complete 9/11 Timeline, but the site hosts over 30 timeline projects on diverse subjects such as elections, wars and foreign interventions, civil liberties, health care, climate change, and other important domestic and foreign policy issues.

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HistoryCommons.org is run by the underfunded, unsung Derek Mitchell of the Center for Grassroots Oversight. No one is paid, current contributions aren’t covering basic maintenance, and the site goes down periodically. A years-planned overhaul and upgrade of the site has not gotten underway due to lack of funds — and fund-raising expertise.

If you care about the History Commons and appreciate its contribution to the world, please donate now at HistoryCommons.org, and/or appeal to others to do so. Spread the word about the History Commons. If you have experience in PR, fund-raising, grant-writing, etc., and can offer your services pro bono, please contact HistoryCommons.org today.

Please click here to donate to History Commons.

http://www.historycommons.org/donate.jsp

*DISCLOSURE: I’m a supporter of and contributor to History Commons – Erik Larson

Full article at Medium:

View at Medium.com

Please take this new survey…it’s only 2 questions

It takes less time to take this survey than it does to slug down a Red Bull, and the information you give us will be tremendously helpful for helping us improve our content and our functionality. Thanks, and please pass this along!

Click the “Take Our Survey!” phrase below to open the survey in a popup. If your browser blocks this kind of popup, the survey can also be accessed here: History Commons Survey

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All results will be noted and discussed in a followup post. Thanks again.

History Commons Enters Knight Foundation Grant Competition

The History Commons has entered a competition for grants from the Knight Foundation’s News Challenge program. According to the About page: “The Knight News Challenge accelerates media innovation by funding the best breakthrough ideas in news and information.”

We’ve submitted four separate applications; descriptions and links are at the end of this post. The primary application (History Commons 2.0) is to increase the functionality of HistoryCommons.org, and the others are for spin-off applications that make use of HistoryCommons.org data. We’ve wanted to make these upgrades and expansions for a few years now, but the History Commons has not received enough in donations from the general public to make it happen.

HistoryCommons.org (and CooperativeResearch.org before it) has always been funded by small donations from the general public, as this is the best way to remain independent and free of influence. No advertising is accepted, and the History Commons has not previously applied for grants from any corporate, government or foundation entity.

We’re only applying for this particular grant is because it is a one-time grant for upgrades; the Knight Foundation will simply choose to fund these projects or not. The continued operation of HistoryCommons.org is not dependent on receiving this particular grant, or receiving funding in subsequent years, which will keep the History Commons free of influence, and the appearance of it. Also, the Knight Foundation has funded projects that challenge oppression and control by corrupt governments, elites and corporations, such as its recent grant of $320,000 to the Tor Project, which anonymizes Internet-based communications.

As we’re seeking the Knight grant for upgrades, this grant application is separate from our current, ongoing fundraising campaign for operating expenses. We are less than halfway toward our goal; what we’ve received so far is a big help, but we still urgently need to reach this goal. If you value HistoryCommons.org and its independence and integrity, please make a donation today, and help keep it independent. Thank you to everyone that has donated so far.

Below are the one sentence introductions to the grant proposal, with hyperlinks to the four submitted applications, where you can read in greater detail about what we’re seeking the money for, and leave a comment or question.

We welcome your input; we assume that Knight will ask for further details later in the grant process, and any ideas you have on these proposals will be appreciated.

History Commons 2.0 Add new functionality to HistoryCommons.org so the public can unlock the full power of its popular crowd-sourced event database.

History Commons News Collector
Develop a module for HistoryCommons.org that collects items from the Internet and positions them in queue for digestion by HistoryCommons contributors.

History Commons Mobile Data Platform (History at Your Fingertips)
Develop a mobile application that utilizes the HistoryCommons API to retrieve auto-generated timelines and bibliographies for any given keyword.

History Commons Fourth Estate App
Develop an application for HistoryCommons.org that will empower citizen journalists with tools to collaborate on investigations and distribute their findings.

Almihdhar and Alhazmi Were Already Part of 9/11 Plot when They Obtained US Visas

There is a story put about by the 9/11 Commission that when 9/11 hijackers Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid Almihdhar obtained US visas in April 1999 , they had not yet been selected for the 9/11 operation. Although this is a fourth-hand account of information allegedly tortured out of a detainee who was demonstrably lying some, if not most of the time, and is contradicted by other evidence, it has gained some currency. I was most displeased to see the claim repeated in James Bamford’s new book The Shadow Factory , which motivated me to write this up.