Cognitive Surplus and Reclaimed Wastewater
I think the idea of participation being significantly increased on the web is an interesting argument. I know that personally consume much more information than participate on social media, online articles or blogs. While the internet does give more opportunity to contribute I still think many people simply consume the information.
With that in mind, I admire the people who do actively contribute on the internet. Because of their interest in sharing their knowledge, we have valuable resources like Wikipedia.
After reading a few pages relating to reclaimed water, I was amazed at the amount of detail and information the pages contained. Knowing the time and effort it takes to do research and find information makes me appreciate the contributors even more. While most of the pages I reviewed had a plethora of information, one stood out to me because it was lacking information and actually had a request at the top for additional accurate information. The page was about NEWater; Singapore’s name for recycled wastewater. Because this water resource is new and mostly talked about in newspaper articles, there was not a lot of reliable information. I am hoping to find some more reliable sources and add more information for my Wikipedia contribution.
On Indiegogo I found a campaign that was interesting to me. It is raising money to build artificial glaciers that essentially hold the water which makes the water melt slowly so that the community below has a water supply throughout the summer to farm. I think the video was successful because the engineer has interviews with townpeople, explains how his artificial glaciers work, and he has proof that a highly regarded official approves of his work and has asked him to expand the concept to another community. These three elements make the campaign seem legitimate and beneficial to the communities in the region. The cause is actively gaining support and has already raised $45,218! This shows that if approached the right way, people will donate to a cause and become contributors to society even if it is indirect.
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