Stephen Downes

Everybody wants to build a social platform. Michael Foster, in this article, observes, "in Europe, the Rebuild initiative has mapped more than 200 social platforms." There's also Good Commons case studies describing JamiiAfrica in Tanzania, Mutante in Colombia, and Magamba Network in Zimbabwe. Fediverse projects include "Acorn from Blacksky, Bandwagon from Emissary, Mosaic from Bonfire, and Roundabout from New_ Public." But they're almost all silos, they're almost all "tightly focused on unique needs." What they have in common is that they start with community, have issues around governance, and are based on scale. In other words, they're based in groups, not networks. I personally think this is the wrong approach (not that anybody is paying attention). I think we should start with individual people, and enable them to connect, to create and join networks, which are in fact how we build our communities.