Information

What this experiment is

This is an invitation to take part in an experiment, not to sign onto a finished plan. The experiment is about building and using a community-owned digital commons: a shared online space where people can have ongoing discussions, work together on documents, coordinate practical efforts, and—when it makes sense—publish some of that work to the wider world. In short, it’s meant to be a place not just for talking, but for thinking together, getting things done, keeping track of commitments, and making collective work visible.

Why try this now

The reason for trying this now is straightforward: many of us feel that things are taking a very bad turn—politically, socially, economically, and culturally—and that the usual ways of responding aren’t working very well. Commercial platforms fragment attention, reward outrage, and make sustained coordination difficult. Existing institutions feel increasingly distant or unresponsive. This project is an attempt to respond to those conditions by rebuilding some of the basic capacities that make collective action possible in the first place.

What “community-owned” means here

Unlike commercial platforms, this commons will be owned, operated, and maintained by the people who use it. There’s no advertising, no engagement algorithms, and no hidden incentives to extract attention or data. The aim is to create shared infrastructure that supports continuity, memory, accountability, and mutual responsibility—things that are hard to sustain on most of the platforms we currently rely on.

Replicability and connection beyond this group

The project starts locally, but it’s meant to be replicable by other groups and potentially federable with similar efforts elsewhere. It might stay small and practical, it might grow into something more durable, or it might fail. Any of those outcomes would tell us something useful. The point of this phase is to learn what kinds of shared capacity can actually be sustained under real-world pressures.

Starting with infrastructure, not neutrality

Rather than starting with fixed goals, programs, or agendas, this effort starts with shared infrastructure—but not from a neutral stance. It’s likely to appeal most to people who feel some form of resistance to the current direction of things, and who believe that values like equality, openness, mutual responsibility, and collective agency are being eroded rather than strengthened. The aim isn’t to impose a single political line, but to create a space where people who share those concerns can think together, deliberate seriously, hold one another accountable, and—when the moment calls for it—coordinate responses that aren’t dictated by commercial or institutional logics.

What “collective resilience” means in practice

When this description talks about “collective resilience,” it doesn’t mean vague optimism or personal coping strategies. It means the ability of a group to stay oriented together over time: to deliberate without flying apart, to notice and follow through on commitments, to coordinate practical efforts, to preserve shared memory, and to act together if circumstances demand it. The experiment doesn’t assume these capacities will magically appear. It asks whether they can actually be built and maintained.

Why we’re starting small and online

We’re starting online and at a deliberately small scale. Online tools make it easier for people with different schedules and capacities to stay connected, and they make patterns of participation and follow-through visible. Starting small helps keep things human-scale long enough to see what actually works—and what doesn’t.

What already exists at inwoodnexus.nyc

The experiment is grounded in a working setup at inwoodnexus.nyc, which already includes tools for discussion and deliberation, shared documents, project and task coordination, event planning, and publication. No one is expected to use everything. The point is to have different tools for different kinds of collective work, instead of forcing everything into one fast-moving chat or feed.

How participation is meant to work

Participation is tiered, but it isn’t meant to be passive. The intended entry point is shared conversation, which allows people to ask questions, get oriented, and decide whether they want to engage more fully. You don’t need technical expertise to participate—but especially at this early stage, you do need to come in with the intention of participating regularly. This won’t work if most people are just watching from the sidelines. Shared understanding, accountability, and momentum only form if people show up often enough.

Money, maintenance, and leadership

There are also some unavoidable practical realities. The infrastructure costs money to run — currently about $25/month, but more if we end up hosting hundreds of people, lots of photos, or more than a few videos and/or podcasts — so over time there will need to be enough people willing to contribute financially to cover basic expenses. It will also take people who can help with technical maintenance and documentation, and people who are willing, at times, to step forward and take responsibility for specific tasks or decisions. Pure consensus and perfectly equal participation usually aren’t enough on their own. Leadership here is understood as fluid and situational—people stepping up when needed, and stepping back when they’re not—rather than as fixed authority.

Governance and action as things we learn into

For that reason, governance, accountability, and collective action are treated as things that emerge through practice, not as rules imposed in advance. A central question of the experiment is whether a group can sustain regular participation, shared responsibility, material support, and temporary leadership well enough to mount meaningful responses when conditions call for it.

Next step

If you’re curious but unsure, the next step is just conversation. Email baslow@inwoodnexus.nyc and I’ll send you a link to a shared chat where you can ask questions and get a feel for how this might work. If, after some discussion, you decide you want fuller access—or think you have time, skills, or resources that could help—I can set you up with a login. At that point, the expectation is a good-faith commitment to ongoing participation, enough for shared work, accountability, and trust to develop.