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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."
Hmm, why does this sound so familiar..? Oh right, it's because it's just another forum based around politics with a wiki-based software and format. And it happens to be run by Jimmy Wales.
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.
This kind of thing has been attempted by a Dutch newspaper http://wethepeople.nrc.nl/. The subject under discussion was/is how to go forward with European integration after the people France and The Netherlands had not accepted the proposed constitution. The software used was not really user friendly, and the discussion was channeled by allowing only 3 alternatives to be discussed, but the experiment is interesting, also because some politiicians of name joined it.
At least an initiative like this will bring the discussion more in the open and make the process of policymaking a little more transparent.
I think this is a good idea. It looks to have the potential to raise peoples
awareness of the practise of politics and a central area where peoples opinions
on political issues and agendas can be seen in near real time. Much different
than the "write a letter to your congressman" or (in Ireland), "go meet with
your local councillor", where you have to account for the time it takes for
your opinion/issues to filter up and down the food chain.
There is also the "mob mentality", whereby if enough people have the same
views on a certain issue, then it has the potential to sway political thought.
How about developing this further, into a Wiki for other nations and political
regimes similar to (or dissimilar to) Republican Democracy.
Note: Republican here means the method of democracy practised, not the party.
Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines
Well it could be a straw man or shield or whatever, set up so with all the upcoming political events, activists do not interfere with the Wikipedia but there energies are absorbed by this one.
My little Linux and tech blog
to give the people who like to argue about politics a forum to do so.
I've got bad news: groupthink sites like wikipedia generally don't bring out the best and most intelligent ideas. Generally a new bright idea is only going to be shared by a few people, and a democratic process will squash those ideas. Combine this with the fact that a majority belief in a statement doesn't make it true and you have serious problems for a site that wants to create an intelligent debate. For a more detailed analysis of the failings of sites like wikipedia see this article.
Philosophy.
I think it's a great idea to allow more intelligent people get involved and discuss policy. We (I don't live in the US any more, but it's not any different here) now have "vote for me because i'm your buddy" lame campaigns, and almost no real debate. Very few people can stand the endless meetings and useless bickering of traditional politics, unless of course they want to be elected or get something in return.
./ ?) be useful in filtering the manipulation attempts, and all the garbage one usually finds in forums ? I am wondering whether a wiki is really the best tool in this case ?
This should get a lot more honest people interested.
But wouldn't some form of moderation (ala
If political debate on Wikipedia is any indication I don't hold high hopes for this. From my experience there are many edit-wars and the complexity of discussion (as in discussing page-lengths about small details of political standpoints) is too high for people who don't have the time to read a book a day on a particular subject and I doubt that there will be any useable "results". I wish my fears will not turn out to be true because I think it's an interesting idea and I am a fan of political debate myself.
It requires a visionary to come up with something new. Sure, many people, often the same people every time, will say it isn't going to work. It won't happen. It's just another blog / forum, etc, etc. Booring. Can't you come up with something new?
;)
/., are not optimal for that job anyways. It is more important that experts are making the calls, than voting on a topic for something like Wikipedia.
;)
It's hillarious how quick people are to grab onto the negative, when everybody really wants to be happy.. So you have to fight for your cause and ignoring the negativity.
Someone who started Wikipedia.. That speaks volumes to me. I remember when I was a kid 15-20 years ago, and saw a show on Discovery how our society would turn into an "information based economy", or some such phrase.
To be short: I was completely turned off! In my mind, I thought "If we will be able to share all information with everybody, store collections of books online, meet anyone on the planet, virtual tourism, etc, etc. Why shouldn't it be free? Why wouldn't people collaborate to make up information about every concept known to man?
The show touched that subject, but insisted somehow that there had to be money involved, that our society would value information more. Brokers would buy- and sell bits of information, as if it was a scarcity. That can only happen with DRM and stifling IP-laws, and is not natural at all. I just don't understand this way of reasoning. Sharing is very natural I feel.
Jimmy Wales has clearly understood the real power of the internet and how to tame it. To take on such a project and succeed where everybody else has failed, takes talents in many areas.
Yes, information can be shared indefinately. However, doing so, increases the value of the information to humankind. While if you share a bread with everybody, everybody will die of hunger.. unless you have special connections
To avoid bias, ways of moderating and collaborating on changes are also needed. I'm not saying Wikipedia meets the highest vision of automatizing that, but it does a very fine job because of dilligent and serious editors (hats off). Maybe automatizing is, like K5 and
To get the project known, used and collaboration started, is an enormous feat which is hard to quantify, wether it's luck, PR or good looks
What immediately comes up in my mind why a Wiki for political discussions is a good idea:
Wiki's are made to make a consensus. The further in time you get, the articles should become more and more correct, brushed-up and representative.
Democracy also has an interest in making a consensus, with both majority and minority interests in mind. This is solved today by representative democracy.
Politics is today far removed from the actual people. Also, topics tend to gravitate towards the scandalous, superficial, sex or fear-full, rather than important topics.
Forums do NOT make a concensus. They have many conflicting opinions, but moves very quickly on the next topic disregarding the work that has been put in previous topics. Such a waste of time and effort, so MUCH goes into the drain!
Blogs are also limited to just one author, and the commenters. They gravitate towards news and hot topics, but are not trying to systematically cover everything.
Wiki's on the other hand are supposed to converge into one piece of information, or many collaborated articles, about the whole topic.
I am very interested in how to portray conflicting views though. Maybe each article should have links to the related discussions? Or you could use DHTML to hide much of the discussion behind every paragraph, then choose the view you want to see.
Just see here: http://campaigns.wikia.com/wiki/Terrorism
After reading this, don't you feel compelled to fill in the blanks, or further the argumentation. The idea is to make the articles more whole
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
You may be on to something here. From the things Wikipedia has been through so far I was very interested in seeing the shitstorm hit the fan when the US elections came along. This may be a smart and sneaky attempt of saving Wikipedia from this.
As for the concept itself, it's completely doomed from day one. Election time is a time when all forms of media will be assaulted with anything the interested people can get away with. Giving them a wiki, any wiki, is simple asking for it. Think of all the crap and manipulation you get to see on TV and newspapers every election. Now imagine it freely posted on a high traffic webpage which everyone can edit.
And if anybody mentions any kind of moderation, they only set themselves up for being accused of taking sides.
i ate crayons when i was a kid and now i have two braincells and the blue ones taste nicer
So a political wiki could be a good thing supposing it is executed correctly. We all know the major issues with most web forums, but we have also seen large, popular web forums frequented by the socially inept moderated properly (ahem). Aside from the question of whether or not Wales will get it right, can we all at least agree that if done right, a political forum open to the public and free from lies would be a boon to American "politics" and more importantly society in general? Isn't the whole problem the fact that ordinary people who hold the vast majority of the world population and actually have the same beliefs don't communicate or coordinate-- but the psychos and crooks do? Isn't it the fact that governments can control what we see and hear that prevents any political change?
Imagine if politics was moderated like