Fundraiser for History Commons 2.0

It’s officially on. 🙂 http://www.razoo.com/story/Historycommons

The new application and paradigm for the History Commons is in development right now (currently in alpha, soon to go into private beta). But to make this happen, the History Commons needs your help.

We don’t like to solicit donations, and we have largely refrained from doing so in the past. But the History Commons 2.0 is too important not to happen because of financial shortfalls.

From the fundraising page:

A new version of the History Commons crowdsource journalism app is under development now. The app will make the History Commons an increasingly important tool in empowering the public to keep tabs on the very powerful interests that are destroying our planet and impoverishing most of its inhabitants.

The new app will make it very easy for people to collaborate with each other on investigative efforts to shine a bright light on the people and organizations most responsible for destroying the planet and impoverishing its people. The app will leverage all the advances in social media that we have seen during the last 10 years so its content can be easily embedded in other published pieces, shared across multiple platforms, and then published in a format that can easily go viral.

The new app will offer the public an API so others can leverage the History Commons data and intelligence analysis capabilities to create other activist-oriented apps.

We will develop a mobile version of the app so that people can access History Commons data and source information easily and quickly wherever they are. This is an immensely important feature for people who often find themselves in situations where they have an opportunity to educate people, but lack a means to access the facts they need at that particular moment.

Help us make this happen. We need your donations and we need your participation. Remember, anyone can contribute — some of the best material on the Commons comes from anonymous contributors who write material based on their own interests, knowledge and passions.

The direct fundraising page for the History Commons is here: http://historycommons.org/fundraiser.jsp

The personal fundraiser from executive director Derek Mitchell is here: http://www.razoo.com/story/Turn-Every-One-Into-A-Muckraker/

Thank you!

The History Commons Needs Your Support

Historycommons.org (fka cooperativeresearch.org) is a unique and useful web-based tool for documenting facts that are suppressed or spun in Establishment narratives, for researching complex events and sometimes murky relationships between entities and events, and for educating the public (thus increasing transparency and facilitating accountability). The principal feature is the ‘timeline’, which is composed of written entries based on events and facts from mainstream or otherwise credible sources. These facts and events may or may not be well-known; often important details, which may have been buried in a document release, court filing, congressional testimony, the end notes of a government publication, or in a mainstream news report, can be discovered by skimming or searching a timeline. Also, the significance of certain facts, events and relationships generally becomes clearer in the contexts provided by the entry and through association with other entries; the timelines also reveal the bigger picture. Members of the public are welcome to contribute information or edits to historycommons.org, but, unlike Wikipedia, each new entry or edit undergoes at least two levels of editorial review, to help ensure accuracy and stylistic consistency.

The History Commons has received praise from a number of respected independent journalists, such as Glenn Greenwald, Craig Unger, Philip Shenon, James Ridgeway and Peter Lance.

If you’re unfamiliar with historycommons.org, or are mainly familiar with the Complete 9/11 Timeline that it has primarily become known for, please explore the site. In the last several years, the 9/11 coverage has been improved and expanded, and the site has grown to include more than 30 timelines covering a diverse range of topics, including health care, climate change, elections, foreign interventions and civil liberties: http://www.historycommons.org/timelines.jsp. Many more have been proposed: http://www.iraqtimeline.com/hctopics/index.html.

This website, first as cooperativeresearch.org, and then as historycommons.org, has existed continuously since 2002, but it is now in dire need of financial assistance; if funding does not significantly increase, the site may go offline by the end of this summer. The History Commons does not accept advertising and has never received funding from government, corporations or foundations. It has relied on the support of the grassroots, and needs to in order to remain independent. More information, including links for donating, is available here: https://hcgroups.wordpress.com/2012/05/19/fundraising-alert-2/

If you can’t offer financial support but do believe in the work the History Commons is doing, you can still help by letting others know about historycommons.org. And if you’d like to contribute research, writing or editing on any timeline topic, that would be welcomed. Also, any feedback or ideas you have would also be appreciated.

Erik Larson aka paxvector
Volunteer History Commons admin, editor, contributor

All hell’s breaking loose…

in the news. Economic meltdowns, Blagojevich going psycho in Illinois, torture revelations coming thick and fast, Bush sneaking new regulations in under the wire, and more. And I read that after Obama takes office in January, former Bush officials and confidantes are preparing to let loose with a mudslide of revelations that will bury us all. Are we ready to handle this? Aside from everything else on our plates, how are we going to try to keep up with some of this info? Contributors, users, just plain folks, your thoughts are very welcome.

I’m sticking this to the front page to keep it going.

Thoughts on the Elevate Festival

Elevate Festival logo

A few thoughts on the just-concluded Elevate Festival, in Graz, Austria. Remember, all of my observations about the History Commons are from my perspective as a contributor, NOT as any statement of official site policy. No one’s made any decisions about anything yet, and the decisions are not mine to make. We do them as a group.

Welcome to the discussion!

Okay, you’re here, now what? The basic information is in the About This Page article–it’s to your right. Take a quick look and come back.

Now, the next step is to get the discussion going. We want to know what you think about what you’re reading on the Commons. Fire up a post and let us hear your thoughts. We’ll respond as quickly as we can. Better yet, you guys will get some lively discussions going without us. You’re very welcome to do so.

You’ll notice that there aren’t any separate threads for the different groups on the site: the 9/11 Timeline, the Iraq Occupation project, the investigation into the torture of detainees, the Neoliberalism and Globalization group, etc. That’s because we’re in the middle of revamping the taxonomy of the site and the titles may change. Instead of putting ourselves through the hassle of making a bunch of categories and then having to change them, we’re opening up the blog with one big free-for-all discussion. We’ll differentiate when the new taxonomy is in place. Sorry for the initial lack of focus, but it won’t be for long.

Again, welcome aboard, and let us know what you think. Be respectful of one another, but don’t be shy. We’ll be tossing in some conversation starters periodically as well as some more factual content, so check back regularly to see what’s being talked about.