From Users to (Sense)Makers: On the Pivotal Role of Stigmergic Social Annotation in the Quest for Collective Sensemaking

TL;DR

This paper proposes a decentralized socio-technical framework called Open Source Attention, aiming to improve collective sensemaking by managing digital traces of human attention and reducing platform control in online epistemic environments.

Contribution

It introduces a novel framework inspired by open source principles to decentralize attention governance and enhance collective sensemaking through stigmergic social annotation.

Findings

Framework promotes decentralized attention management

Potential to reduce epistemic pollution

Enhances collective sensemaking capabilities

Abstract

The web has become a dominant epistemic environment, influencing people's beliefs at a global scale. However, online epistemic environments are increasingly polluted, impairing societies' ability to coordinate effectively in the face of global crises. We argue that centralized platforms are a main source of epistemic pollution, and that healthier environments require redesigning how we collectively govern attention. Inspired by decentralization and open source software movements, we propose Open Source Attention, a socio-technical framework for "freeing" human attention from control by platforms, through a decentralized eco-system for creating, storing and querying stigmergic markers; the digital traces of human attention.