Welcome to HASTAC Commons!

“The only lasting truth is change.”—Octavia Butler

This is the first time I’m logging into HASTAC Commons and blogging “as a civilian”–and I like it. And I hope you do too. While the platform design will still be evolving in its early days, the site is now open for your registration and activity. We want to hear from you! Tell us what is working, what is not. Use this site to communicate what you are doing, what partners you would like, anything that will help you and your work. It’s a living site. Thank you for being part of what an NSF reviewer has called “the world’s first and oldest academic social network.” We are in our twentieth year and now, as part of the Humanities Commons, we are hoping we will continue to thrive in the future.

I’d be remiss to write my first post on HASTAC Commons without acknowledging the endless year of dedicated, serious, caring work required to migrate from HASTAC.org to HASTAC Commons. Thanks to the hard work of our teams at Humanities Commons, the CUNY Graduate Center, and Dartmouth, the site is live, having been beta tested by HASTAC Scholars. Especially in the wake of increasing skepticism over Twitter, we hope those of you relying on #AcademicTwitter will begin to make the HASTAC Commons—and the Humanities Commons network more generally—a new home for real interaction (not just blogging) and communication.  We are very excited by this very timely alternative—still free, still and always extremely respectful and careful with your data.

To view an instructional video on creating an account and using HASTAC Commons, please see this instructional video from Humanities Commons.