What

“Building a space for active, healthy engagement with each other, with media and content; creating the conditions for involvement, participation, collaboration, creativity and innovation. A place/community where there is beauty, art, belonging, warmth, ease, acceptance, trust, fun, joy, safety, connection, shared purpose & meaning and hope.”

“A safe, beautiful and accessible space where everyone can come together/connect – a space that fosters understanding & healthy engagement with each other & content – an accessible space that creates the conditions for collaboration, creativity & innovation”

“Make a space which is accessible, easy to use, secure, and which helps us all get together and unleash our creativity in an atmosphere of collaboration and trust & Beauty”

“Create the kind of space that has been embodied so far in the co-creation process; one which is beautiful, accessible, safe and relaxed, where all voices can be heard and where we can really create the conditions for trust, creativity and collaboration.”

“The initial platform will be a safe, welcoming, inclusive, accessible place for all of us to come together to connect and share things, skills, knowledge, events and ideas; and then as it grows to build all of the other things that we need from a platform to create the world we want to live in.”

Click here for an explanation of the diagram e.g. animation/video/explanation etc in future

This diagram shows the total roadmap of where we want to get to and how.

Where we are at right now is that we have built a community (the blue diamond shape) which creates the conditions for connection, collaboration and creativity (the purple circle in the middle), supported by the four pillars of Commons Ownership, Trust, Safety and Consent (green outer triangles) Find out more about How we built the Commons Platform so far…
and about our values, and conditions for collaboration

WeWE have done this to

Our next step is to build an online space that supports this and is aligned with those values (see design workshop outcomes)

After that we can come together to create the world we want to live in (green circle).

What this website is now:
A place for information about where the Commons Platform has got to so far, information about the vision, mission and values, ways of working, the community, our our next steps, our collaborations, what we need (etc…)
A place to build thriving, resilient, sustainable community that is in one place. Until now all of the 7-800 people who are interested in or involved with the Commons Platform have been spread over other platforms, so this is a place where we can start to live our values and move away from email lists and platforms like Facebook
A place to post our news, workshops, events and IRL community events
Our own Commons Platform community where we can create, test out and keep improving on a space and community
which creates the conditions for collaboration –
that is inclusive, accessible, easy to join and get involved with no matter what skills or experience anyone has
that is welcoming to new people you so that you can feel you belong, can get involved, and share your skills/interests and contribute if you would like to
where all people and contributions are valued,
that fosters understanding and healthy engagement with each other and content,
That is based on our values
Which is based on a culture of consent rather than any kind of coercion or extraction of data
and where we can build on the skills in the community to handle any difficulties or conflict that arise through skilled moderation, a framework for learning and development: personal, interpersonal, community and systemic, restorative practices and building a community accountability
Where we build a culture where we keep our own and each other’s data safe, where we can identify security threats, paid trolls and bots that may seek to undermine the Commons Platform from within or without

A kind of working prototype of what we want to build over the next 6-12 months, built from easily available plugins that don’t require expertise to use or coding skills, that can be tried out, changed, tested again to enable very fast adaption – all whilst still being able to communicate on a forum. We know it’s not beautiful or easy to use yet – but we hope it gives a sense of what we are aiming for – and we would really appreciate any help you can offer in any way.
A place where we can gather more links with similar organisations with similar aims, and start talking about how to integrate our platforms, protocols, tools, technologies, communities and cultures so that we can all share rather than working separate silos (show list of collaborations)

What the commons platform aims to be in 6-12 months
All of the above, but in a much more streamlined, beautiful, easy-to-use bespoke website and community platform.
A platform that is – or that is at least working towards being – secure, decentralised, open source, commons-owned, and can start to be interoperable with all of the other technologies and tools that our collaboration partners have developed e.g. local marketplaces, skill-sharing, other groups and communities. (see collaborations)
A community that can build and grow sustainably, and organise in a decentralised semi-autonomous way that embed the values, aims and ways of working into each piece (see why decentralised organising is like jellyfish)
Please do get involved and help with that in any way you can (see how to get involved)
To have developed a system of governance and stewardship/custodianship of this commons-owned asset

What the Commons Platform aims to be in future
A secure, decentralised, open source, commons-owned, social network that anyone in the world can join (see digital inclusion) and that will never be extractive of resources or data (see our promises on data etc)
A community that anyone can join and use safely and be themselves, including those whose identities are currently marginalised or vulnerable
A place where anyone can share anything with anyone else – things, skills, data
Where people don’t need to set up their own website or need a bank account to be able to share or trade with each other
A new economy within the platform, where people can negotiate according to their needs rather than exploitative ‘market value’, and where that value/money/cryptocurrency stays in local economies
Where people can act together in large numbers to change the prevailing narratives – e.g. an ethical commerce portal where everyone can share data about which companies are most ethical, and decide in large numbers to put their money where their values are, or get group discounts on ethically produced goods
For what that could look like and how it is will make a difference read this: (citizen sci-fi article currently in drafts)
See other examples e.g. Humanitarian Tech, ‘Broken Shoe’, Ethical Commerce. Insert use cases etc.