Workshop: History Commons

Die History Commons-Webseite ist ein Experiment des BürgerInnenjournalismus und verfügt über ein Archiv, in dem Menschen tiefgreifende Nachforschungen zu vielen Themen durchführen können. Das Projekt versorgt die Öffentlichkeit mit einem nützlichen Werkzeug zur Kontrolle von politischen Vorgängen und den Machenschaften privater Konzerne. Die Webseite ist kollaborativ und erlaubt so allen Individuen, auf der Arbeit anderer aufzubauen. Jede Nachforschung wird als Projekt organisiert, welches durch mindestens eine Zeitachse dargestellt wird.

Michael Tuck über History Commons im O-Ton: "We are a community of users, contributors, writers, editors, designers, and database managers, collaborating on creating in-depth coverage of the events and issues of our times. We have no "leader" or "head," instead making decisions about the site and its contents on a communal, peer-driven basis. The contributors own their own content; the Commons provides an information base where the disparate material is brought together in a single, link-driven repository. Researchers and investigative reporters such as Craig Unger, Peter Lance, and the "Jersey Girls," the extraordinary band of 9/11 widows whose passion for truth and justice drove the Bush administration to create an independent investigative commission, regularly use the Commons for information and inspiration. We like to think that these words from journalism professor Philip Meyer encapsulate our vision: "The hunter-gatherer model of journalism is no longer sufficient. Citizens can do their own hunting and gathering on the Internet. What they need is somebody to add value to that information by processing it--digesting it, organizing it, making it usable." The History Commons is an experiment in open-source, open-content civic journalism. Like all such community-driven, citizen-based creations, the more people who participate, the better it functions. The History Commons is a small part of a much larger community, doing what we can to promote truth, honesty, and full disclosure."