Consumerium list of lists

Welcome to Consum(er)ium lists of lists

Lists of consumer convenience services

• Lists of shared and alternative transport and journey planners - Ridesharing aka. carpooling, car sharing, multimodal transport network finders and more
• Lists of review aggregators and review sites - The idea of reviews has been at the core of the Consum(er)ium idea right from the start.
• Lists of alternative financial services looking for affordable personal or SMB credit __or__ steadily profitable investing opportunities? w:Peer-to-peer lending could be the answer satisfying all 2 parties and by-passing the bank.
• Lists of price comparison services - The invisible green hand of Adam Smith is here to help the consumers to get the best value for their money, price comparison services can also be called price search engines or price aggregators.
• List of free education - Information wants to be free. Especially educational information.
• List of types of business entity originated in the article types of companies, was wikipediafied and can now be found at w:types of business entity for nearly all countries and languages.

Info on companies and products in the internet now

If you want to find out about products and companies NOW (not in X years ;) please go try these. Consumerium makes no guarantees about the validity of information offered at the sites. These links are here to save you from hours of search-and-miss-annoyance:

Business Ethics

• The Ethical Consumer - The UK's only alternative consumer organisation looking at the social and environmental records of the companies behind the brand names.
• The Good Shopping Guide - UK
• Responsible Shopper A project run by Co-op America that has very convergent goal with us and they actually have a Searchable DB online with 350 big companies investigated.
• TransNationale - Consumer guides to Multinationals and shopping. Over 21.000 brands and over 10.000 companies covered.

WikiWiki

• WikiApiary - tracking 8,000+ MediaWiki wikis
• Wikitravel (.org) CC-A-SA licensed ( w:Copylefted ) place to discover new places to eat, stay, enjoy and experience.
• Lists of companies in wikipedia ( GFDLed )
• SourceWatch (.org) - A collaborative effort to investigate public relations operations and operatives by The Center for Media and Democracy

Social networks

• Diaspora - a decentralized ad-free and cost-free social network software and social network. https://d.consumium.org serving the consumer informedness effort. http://podupti.me is a site dedicated to provide various views of the pods currently active.

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Lists of essential efforts and projects

Essential efforts and projects are interesting projects we can't really ignore. They are doing things that we have to do, and we are far better off working with them, than ignoring them. In many cases they will be doing something before we do it here, and maybe better. So tracking them closely is useful.

• GFDL Corpus despite the various thugs trying to control it for their own commercial interests - Wikipedia (.org), Simple English Wikipedia simple.wikipedia(.org), Wikidata (.org), Wikibooks (.org) (especially Cookbook mjam ) and Wiktionary (.org)

• Translatewiki (.net) for doing / receiving translations of wikis and other softwares.

• http://www.responsibleshopper.org/ A project run by Co-op America that has very convergent goal with us. They actually have a DB online with 350 big companies investigated. Truly worth a visit.

• Wikitravel (.org) - a travel guide - boycotts should include not going places where people do rotten things, since tourism has an eco-impact and sends messages of approval too. Licensed under the Creative Commons license

• Internet UPC Database http://upcdatabase.com/ - database of manufacturers and products with UPC codes, searchable online and downloadable version which is not as up-to-date as the online version but is strangely licensed under GPL

• FLO fairtrade(.net) - for Redefinition of mandatory label terms like dolphin safe, which we must track closely. what is the best source on this issue, and who tracks whether labels are ecologically sane or not?

• Transnationale (.org) - Consumer guides to Multinationals and shopping. Transnationale.org provides comprehensive information on more than 13,000 companies around the world. We report social and environmental behaviour, financial data, list of brands, membership to the most influential lobbies, public relations and opinion making, managers name and position, shareholders and subsidiaries, plants locations and offshore centers, brand and corporate image management.

• Consumer Reports (.org) - offers comparisons of various product groups. Online since at least 1998 according to Archive.org. Nonprofit and Independent

• SourceWatch (.org) - Propaganda and no body detection, since these always work to the detriment of some body. See SourceWatch:propaganda and the propaganda glossary underlying it.

• UnitedDiversity - Also referred to as "udoo." (United Diversity Open Organisation). A very interesting London based group dedicated to building commons and sharing resources: to improve quality of life for all while simultaneously reducing ecological footprint. [1]

This is a primarily social effort, it seems. They have open space meetings called WTF and interact with large groups of people. It's a pro-democracy group, actively working to organize people. They are interested in things like community currency, flash mob, and open space.

• DBpedia (.org) - http://wiki.dbpedia.org/ data extraction of information in Wikipedia to an w:ontology and datasets.

• Consumer Services Guide (.org) a hefty guide of consumer information mostly for US by http://www.consumer-action.org/

• Ekopedia (.org) - advice on living green in 7 languages ( MediaWiki, CC-A-SA )

• wikitext standard efforts

(note: Meta-Wikipedia is now devoted to software imperialism and mediawiki hegemony, and cannot be considered a valid forum to discuss any such "standard"; As an example of a failed attempt to organize against a cabal, see theUnited Wikipedias Forum - how to get a huge 40-language project governed in Simple English without a cabal taking it over completely. Obviously this has failed.

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Not-for-profit Projects

If you are not sure if a new link belongs here, please check Other Links for other alternatives.

See first the essential projects that are doing what we are doing, and that we have little choice but to work with and improve.

Possible sources of Research Wiki input

GFDL corpus

• Disinfopedia is a collaborative project to produce a directory of public relations firms, think tanks, industry-funded organizations and industry-friendly experts that work to influence public opinion and public policy on behalf of corporations, governments and special interests. And yes, it's in the GFDL part of the world (Running MediaWiki, under GFDL)

• Wikipedia - The free encyclopedia, all content is under GFDL. - (Running MediaWiki) use [[w:Article name]]

• Wiktionary - A spin off from wikipedia. The free dictionary and thesaurus in every language if it gets done someday. GFDL also. Not much happening there now. - (Running MediaWiki, under GFDL)

• http://wikibooks.org - Yet another great idea being put forward by WikiMedia Foundation. Wikibooks is dedicated to developing and disseminating free, open content textbooks and other classroom texts - (Running MediaWiki, under GFDL)

• Cookbook - One of the wikibooks that is of particular interest is the cookbook. Includes information on vegan and vegetarian food as well as other moral purchasing. - (Running MediaWiki, under GFDL)

• Infoshop Open Wiki - Infoshop.org is a portal linking content on the net of interest to the anarchist and anti-authoritarian community. In the spirit of anarchism, it is a collaborative project that encourages participation and networking of resources. Part of this network is the often updated Infoshop News.

• Lsb - no explanation needed. epic wiki named "eg" ( suppose thatäs latin for example gratularis or so ) by the lsb:Efficient Civics Guild use [[lsb:Article name]]

Creative Commons licenced

http://translatewiki.net/wiki/Main_Page - Translatewiki.net is a localisation platform for translation communities, language communities, and free and open source projects. Currently used to localize MediaWiki, pyWikipediaBot and Toolserver. Under CC-BY 3.0.

Non-GFDL

• http://www.theyrule.net/ - Topic map style visual presentations of interrelations of Companies Executives and stuff in the US mostly. Static mapping so they have an advisory about probably being out-of-date.

• "Earth Reforesting System" - not sure if this is going to work, but, at least they started with mediawiki, so maybe they are just waiting for others to chip in, just like Consumerium did. Mostly in Japanese.

• http://www.environmentaldirectory.net/ - lists over 13.000 organisations dealing with environmental issues in the US

• http://www.ladywiki.org/ - open public space for exchange & action against (not only sexual) discrimination, public domain

• TheTransitioner.org - an attempt to build "a Collective Intelligence economy" and Open Source Money. They seem to one observer fixated on currency issues. - TikiWiki, Copyright unknown

• openDemocracy.net - an online global magazine of politics and culture. They publish clarifying debates which help people make up their own minds.

• The Jus Semper Global Alliance - their main programme is "The Living Wages North and South Initiative" which studies the development of w:Purchasing power parity in developed and developing countries - Very good and concise source of w:Corporate social responsibility or CSR information.

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Misc.

• http://www.aflcio.org/corporateamerica/paywatch/ - Annoy yourself by looking up how much US CEOs' get compensated

• http://www.ipjustice.org A project that lobbies against Digital Rights Management and misuse of Intellectual Property.

• http://globalgreens.org - mailing lists automatically set up for any Green Party - or other groups obeying Global Greens Charter

• http://crit.org - annotation software to 'mark up' any site on the web

• http://smartmobs.com - discussion of mobile technologies for politics

• http://slipperycat.com - attempt to nail down ontology for game business - shows what a simple industry looks like from low level code up to production. - a stub at the moment

• http://www.2action.com/main.asp - a commercial vendor of worn device software for meeting and sales support - what does their UI look like? What words mean what? We should always study carefully this kind of example of a decision support system

• Norway Troll Party

• http://planetarycitizen.open.ac.uk/ - A network for the Planetary Citizen

"This project comes out of a vision for a peaceful, sustainable future for the Earth that has been developing in many places. That vision was very evident in the non-governmental side of the World Summit for Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg in August/September 2002, in many of the events that were ignored by the mass media."

• OPTIMAES Wiki (Open Project To Investigate Money And Economic Systems) - Usemod, public domain

• The Open Co-op - "... To build a worldwide commmunity of individuals and organisations committed to creating a collaborative sustainable economy." - Tikiwiki, copyright unknown.

• UnitedDiversity

• SocialForge.net - (tikiwiki, apparently GFDL) "It's a free service for everyone wishes to share knowledge and to collaborate to build projects related to:
  • participative democracy (direct democracy, consensus method, emergent democracy, ...);
  • [self-governance]]
  • community building
  • autonomy, self-reliance
  • alternative economies
  • sustainable development
  • anti-authoritarism in practice
  • technology as a liberation tool"

Projects that no longer exist

• OurAnswer is a method for the people to respond to business leaders and politicians. -(Running MediaWiki, under GFDL)

• http://veganwiki.org/ - for our vegan friends, currently only in German, but English, French and Spanish wikis are being prepared for setup

• The Matrix: An anti-capitalist database - GFDL, MediaWiki

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See also:

• Interesting organisations - Institutions and organisations that provide reference or possibly content
• Interesting companies - Commercial links
• Strange projects for amusing, off topic sites

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Feeling frustrated? Do something useful, it'll make you feel better

• http://www.thehungersite.com - Donate food by visiting this site. You will see some advertisements from companies that are donating the financial capital to make this happen. If you don't want this to happen you should close your eyes.

• http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org - Donate your spare CPU cycles ( processor time ) to work for good of the world at the price of the added electricity consumption of burning your CPU hot instead of it kicking back and lowering electricity consumption when it has much idle time.

All of the above are essential since not doing them leads to the wrong result, or no result (also wrong) at the point of purchase. For instance to not know who owns who can let a company that is truly horrible compete simply by creating a front company. To not have Adbusters helping to create and publicize the standard barcode we agree on, means we lose essential publicity and help from them, and their programs of anti-propaganda billboards and truth-telling. To not include travel is to have no influence on the largest discretionary decision people usually make in a year - where to spend their vacation. The ability to check which tourism packages are best or worst with a single click or code is a huge edge for a happy future! Letting no body convince you that some body doesn't matter, or matters less than the no body who says so, is a sure way to help no-body corporations and ideology destroy some-body apes, dolphins, forests and this planet.

The following has recently moved under the umbrella of an enemy project:

• Simple English Wikipedia simple.wikipedia(.org) - educating people all over the world, finding out what they care about, recruiting those who can keep opinion wiki up to date. This is the translation base for all Wikipedias, and may be necessary for use to provide background notes in any language for Consumerium advice.

Now it will be necessary to fork this project, perhaps working with a valid and neutral international agency such as UNHCR which actually cares about the providing of essential survival and liability and risk information to people in simple language, and which probably has good resources for dealing with this.

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• http://www.wtfcon.org - WTF's The Future? A wiki that organises moots for techno-hippies and anarcho-geeks. A truly cool use of emergent democracy. wtfcon.org is down - content moved to UnitedDiversity, see above Many of the people who were involved in this seem to be somehow involved in Take Back The Web.

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• Minciu Sodas, http://www.ms.lt open laboratory for serving and organizing independent thinkers
• Global Villages, http://www.globalvillages.info wiki for developing a pattern language for global villages
• Modo Fac Central, http://www.modofaccentral.com/mfc/ online social networking system lead by Kerry Santo for social entrepreneurs and all who want to Just Do It
• One Village Foundation, http://www.onevillage.biz responding to the AIDS challenge in Africa by organizing unity centers as catalysts for global villages

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Projects that no longer exist

• Category:Projects that no longer exist

• ConsumerGadget.net - ethical information SMS+XHTML-service mostly in Finnish

• Wikicompany - a community built, free content, worldwide, business directory.

• http://badcorp.org/ - they have very interesting search engine for figuring out who owns who! This is essential to track those constantly-changing names.

• Recyclopedia (at this URL - probably the most closely aligned encyclopedia project, and using GetWiki. We might consider this to be the best prototype yet of the future Development Wiki. Recyclopedia is down for an unknown period Although much of the content seems to be reappearing at the Embodiment wiki.

• Living Platform - useful to emulate to set Publish:policy as it has very similar problems notably with faction and challenges of remaining troll-friendly despite intense feelings about things

• The Surpriv blog is for discussions of RFID-related surveillance and privacy issue

• Interra - interraproject.org - a card to enable "purchasing from locally owned and sustainable businesses" that "donates automatically to community organizations" and even "facilitates connections" like factions or Serendipity.

• CorpKnowPedia - tracking the corporate landscape - dedicated to building a database to track the behavior of corporations.

• http://www.adbusters.org/campaigns/opensource/greenscan/ - GreenScan, an Adbusters project to create a hand-held barcode scanner with a simple output system. Scan a product: if you get a green light, it is ok to buy. Red is bad. What they don't yet realize is that building a specific access device without a database and information infrastructure, won't do much good. Go visit them and keep reminding them of this!

• Tuotewiki.fi

Assortments of links

• Research - Ongoing research works in Wikipedia, Meta-Wikipedia etc.
• Wikipedia - Intersting fairly completed articles in Wikipedia

• Essential projects - projects with close proximity to consumerium goals

• Interesting projects - Non-commercial, Non-institutional links that are useful for Consumerium
• Interesting organisations - Institutions and organisations that provide reference or possibly content
• Interesting companies - Commercial links
• Interesting software - links to useful software projects

• Interesting feeds - Interesting RSS (RDF) feeds
• Strange projects - Amusing, but "not useful" sites
• Bluetooth - All Bluetooth related links go here
• XML - XML links here