The Power of Open Source Attention: Unlocking Collective Sensemaking

The Power of Open Source Attention: Unlocking Collective Sensemaking

Introduction:
In today's platform-centric digital landscape, user annotations are often locked within data siloes, limiting their potential for collective sensemaking. Inspired by decentralization and open-source movements, Open Source Attention (OSA) proposes a socio-technical framework to liberate human attention from platform control. By creating a decentralized ecosystem for stigmergic markers, OSA aims to empower maker-centric communities and foster emergence of novel system-level behavior.

The Role of Stigmergy in Communication:
Stigmergy, a concept borrowed from the natural world, refers to the phenomenon where modifications left by individuals in their environment provide feedback for others, driving the emergence of new behaviors. In digital communication, this can be seen through two types of modifications: sematectonic stigmergy and stigmergic markers. While sematectonic stigmergy directly alters the content, stigmergic markers serve as signaling cues, indicating human attention. These markers, such as likes, annotations, and hyperlinking of text, are valuable resources for both extractive (ad-tech) and constructive (collective sensemaking) purposes.

The Movement Towards Freeing Stigmergic Markers:
Similar to the open-source software movement, OSA aims to "free" stigmergic markers by starting with basic hypertext primitives. These include emotional valence (likes), bi-directional links, span highlighting, semantic categorization (tags, bookmarks), and textual annotation. By liberating these markers from platform control, OSA seeks to support intentions rather than exploit attention.

Scaling Up for Collective Sensemaking:
One key question for OSA is scalability, particularly when competing against established platforms. However, OSA aligns naturally with the "protocols, not platforms" approach. Instead of direct competition, OSA proposes interoperable protocols and storage for stigmergic primitives, such as links and tags. This allows data from diverse Personal Knowledge Management (PKM) apps to be shared, contributing to collective sensemaking efforts.

The Inside Story of Reddit's Creation:
The creation of Reddit provides insight into the potential of user-generated content and community building. Alexis Ohanian and Steve Huffman combined the ideas of Delicious, a social bookmarking site, and Slashdot, a large geek community focused on news and ideas. With support from Y Combinator (YC), they worked tirelessly on the first version of Reddit. Paul Graham, unbeknownst to Ohanian and Huffman, linked to Reddit in a blog post, giving the platform its initial traction. While early content was initially fabricated, the authenticity of Reddit quickly grew.