Jimmy Wales Starting Campaign Wikis

Billosaur writes "Jimmy Wales, self-described creator of the Wikipedia, is apparently trying to bring the functionality offered by the Internet encyclopedia to a new realm: politics and political campaigns. He is starting a new website, the Campaigns Wikia, which 'has the goal of bringing together people from diverse political perspectives who may not share much else, but who share the idea that they would rather see democratic politics be about engaging with the serious ideas of intelligent opponents, about activating and motivating ordinary people to get involved and really care about politics beyond the television soundbites.' Sounds intriguing, but one has to wonder if it will be plagued by internecine feuding, punditry, and political manipulation."

Comments

Not at all like wikipedia then

[Burb]

"Sounds intriguing, but one has to wonder if it will be plagued by internecine feuding, punditry, and political manipulation" How unlike the home life of our dear Queen.

Careful

[Britz]

If this catches on he should be careful that he won't get shot by some people that might not like smart people or meaningful discussions in DC

Squawk

[Anonymous Coward]

Poli want a Wiki?

Re:This sounds familiar

[kkiller]

Not just any forum - a forum where your carefully worded advocacy of a particular candidate can be vandalised and replaced by the image of a scrotum.

Re:This sounds familiar

[Anonymous Coward]

As much as I respect Wales and Wikipedia, I don't really think that this is truly much to shout about. It's just another forum.

Oh no, no, no.

Not just another forum. A wiki!

That means when I don't like your candidate or your point of view I can change things to my liking. Get used to seeing the smiling face of your candidate peering out of goatse man's posterior.

That must be the point.

[Lave]

Sounds intriguing, but one has to wonder if it will be plagued by internecine feuding, punditry, and political manipulation.

Surely that's the point, by giving them a home maybe he can keep all that crap off wikipedia.

I'm sure this is at least in part his reasoning - after all the "Politicians editing there candidates wikipedia pages" scandals.

Re:Good idea - can we go International with this?

[orangeguru]

I would applaud an international politics wiki anytime. But I am afraid it won't happen. Plus the american blogosphere is already so poisened from all these culture wars that - as an european - I don't want to touch these people with a ten foot pole nor discuss any politics with them ...

Re:== VOTE FOR !BUSH ==

[pimpimpim]

I had the same idea. Sounds to me like either "Wiki - kamikaze style" rendering completely useless within 3 days, or the ideal place to test new wiki moderation systems (at least that way something good can come out of it).

BTW, should I read the ! in "VOTE FOR !BUSH" as the way it is used in computercode? :)

But it is a good place to put stupid ideas

[Colin Smith]

Think of it like redirecting a river. It'll allow good ideas and politics to grow and flourish in the absence of the rotting quagmire that is popular opinion.

no, No, NO! That's childish!

[Colin Smith]

If you're going to vandalise a political web page what you do is carefully insert and delete words like "do", "not", "does", "doesn't", "will", "won't". and so on. The result is far more subtle, far funnier and probably won't be discovered, ever.

See, that's how adults do it.

New features

[Rob T Firefly]

In order to better serve the users to whom this is directed, the familiar "Edit This Page" link will be replaced a row of links such as "Flame This Page," "Fill This Page With Ethnic Slurs," "Compare This Page to Hitler," "Replace This Page With Tubgirl," and the all-important "Spin The Extremely Unimportant Data On This Page To Favor My Side."