Social Synergy

Citizendium: Sanger on Edge.org

Here are some thoughts on Larry Sanger's "Who Says We Know?  On the New Politics of Knowledge".

Putting aside the loaded debate about collective intelligence vs. expert intelligence, there is actually a more important development here:

One of the inherent qualities of a wiki like Wikipedia, with an Open License, is what some people call the "right to fork"

http://www.communitywiki.org/en/RightToFork
http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?RightToFork

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_fork

Wikipedia is itself a fork of Nupedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nupedia

Citizendium took copies only of the Wikipedia articles that Citezendium participants were currently working on at the time of the launch, instead of all of the articles in wikipedia.

(Actually, Citizendium is a "partial" fork,  under http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Text_of_the_GNU_Free_Documentation_License)

It seems that forking in wiki communities is almost inevitable. And, forking need not be adversarial in nature. For instance, MeatballWiki is a fork of the original WikiWikiWeb. Later, CommunityWiki was a fork of MeatballWiki. It was originally an adversarial fork, but relationships re-established over time, and now both communities are close. OBM Wiki Hive is a non-adversarial fork of CommunityWiki, and is set up as a "wiki hive" to encourage forking.

However, Citizendium seems to be a kind of adversarial forking of Wikipedia, in that Citizendium seeks to "unseat" Wikipedia as the "goto" place for information online.

The cool thing about right to fork, and Citizendium, and all of the other wikipedia forks, is that all of the problems with all of them can be potentially resolved in a new fork. Maybe people will end up hating the "expert edited" model of Citizendium, but maybe some other governance innovation will emerge from the Citizendium experiment? This was discussed recently on the Citzendium blog:

http://blog.citizendium.org/2007/04/26/a-sovereign-community/

Just a brief note — an attempt to insert a powerful idea into your brains.

I conceive of the Citizendium as an unusual kind of community. Once it is off the ground, and the work of setting up governance bodies and leaders has been established, it will not be beholden to anything other than the Citizendium Charter (anticipated by our Statement of Fundamental Policies, but not yet drafted) and the various balanced bodies that execute it.

I don’t want decisions ultimately to be made by any small, stable group of people who make up a non-profit board, or (of course) the owners of a private business, or the shareholders of a public corporation. I want society to recognize a new social fact: that there can be rule-governed communities that live online, whose membership is much more fluid, and which are directed by their members, according to agreed-upon rules.

Many open source projects are essentially “benevolent dictatorships,” and others are oligarchies. But there are relatively few examples of communities that are really genuinely self-governed, particularly according to an established charter. Many communities give lip service to democratic governance, but due to the lack of clear, enumerated rules that are actually enforced, they end up more closely resembling mob rule.

We can do better.

So, it's possible that a good community governance innovation might emerge from this experiment, if nothing else. Perhaps something that could be applied to Wikipedia, or even beyond wiki communities?

I'll also be interested to see how article quality emerges from Citezendium. I'll especially be interested to see how disputes are handled between "experts" and "non experts", and how that affects the community over time, and the content produced by the community. I'm interested to know how these tensions will play out in a democratically organized community.

Fellow smartmoblogger Bryan Alexander also recently wrote a great post and commentary on his own blog about the Sanger essay. Definitely worth checking out.

The TechnoSocialGap

Blogging about Wikis: A cursed blessing

It seems that some of the small experiments that I have done with blogging about ObmWikiHive? were mostly successful in attracting spammers.

This is why I believe it’ll better for me in the long run to build ObmWikiHive? slowly, and socialy, rather than through publicity. The blogosphere is a good place to get people to read these pages in short bursts. But, the trade off is that you then get spammers swarming on you for months afterwards. And, the blogging doesn’t really attract valuable participants.

Over the past year and a half, I’ve had the chance to be paid to launch and help grow some VirtualCommunity projects, and do some Wiki:CommunityBuilding using different SocialSoftware platforms, including different WikiEngine installations, such as SocialText, and DokuWiki, and MoinMoin. Plus, of course, launching ObmWikiHive? and KaboWikiHive?. Plus, I’ve worked with DrupalEngine, WikiCalc, Wiki:PloNe, and some non-open source platforms.

To be clear, what I am describing above is not just installing a site on a server and hoping that people will come along and use it. These are projects where there are people actively involved and interested in collaborating online, using text/audio/images and other media.

SilentBarrier

So, in that experience, I (SamRose) am finding that some elements of our WikiCulture that we incorporate into the OddMuse “interface”, plus UseModMarkup? can be a SilentBarrier? to participation for some people. Yet, and this is vey important, these same properties and patterns can be required elements for the participation of people who are immersed in WikiCulture. In fact, some of the InterWiki and WikiNet “functions” will not work unless you are using certain conventions, like CamelCase, etc. So, it is not possible to create easy InterWiki “links” between engines like DokuWiki and MediaWiki, and engines such as OddMuse and MoinMoin, for instance. This is causing the emergence of a TechnoSocialGap? in the internet KnowledgeCommons?.

Emerging Ideas

WikiCreole

People have proposed and have begun to adopt WikiCreole as a standard WikiSyntax and markup. This can at least facilitate InterWiki connections. SocialSotware? and blogging platforms such as DrupalEngine and WordPress are starting to incorporate tools that allow for the import of WikiCreole marked-up content.

WikiCarburator

MattisManzel introduced some OddMuse -centric ideas in WikiCarburator, and AlexSchroeder added some thought there, about the pros and cons of emulating tools that allow for quick and easy contribution. One of Alex’s points was that emulating blogs in wiki can create force the conversation in wiki from NonLinear? to Linear. ArchitectureLeadsPeople?. People follow the lead of InformationArchitecture of SocialSoftware.

MattisManzel has been carrying out the WikiCarburator experiment on OddWiki, ObmWikiHive?, and elsewhere. It would be interesting to see him discuss an overview of what is evolving from it.

MicroContribution and RapidIdeaEntry

Ideas were also explored in MicroContribution (BayleShanks ?) and RapidIdeaEntry. The idea that “people should be able to make a small contribution to discussion or decision-making on an issue (rather than being forced to either contribute nothing or to pledge tons of time to it).”

There are drawbacks or pitfalls to this line of thinking, and some of them are addressed in MicroContribution (and by AlexSchroeder’s comment on WikiCarburator).

MicroContent and MicroBlock TransClusion

MicroContent? is a sort of “shorthand” system HansWobbe is experimenting with. The pattern allows people to make quick note entries, that he refers to as a MicroBlock? of text, then TransClude?? those into different pages. “The MicroBlock?? should include its own Name (URL) so that it can be edited directly, regardless of of the document (context) within which it is found.”

InterWiki and InterSocialSoftware (OneBigSoup) KnowledgeCommons Evolution

From my experience (SamRose), there are some people who will not use wiki at all to participate in conversation and KnowledgeCommons? building. Wiki itself is a SilentBarrier? for these people. They often will use blogs, forums, social media sharing and SocialBookmarking, and SocialNetwork sites, however.

And, in my experience, there are some people who will use wiki, but will only use very simple wiki, like commercial offerings such as WetPaint? and WikiSpaces?. Or, they will only use MediaWiki or similar PHP wikis, for different reasons. Yet there are others who will only use Python or Perl based wikis for other reasons, such as traditional SocialPatterns? or programming language preferences.

One huge drawback is that these preferences are creating “silos” of OpenContent. The blogosphere is seperated by TechnoSocialGap? from the WikiNet, and both are sperated from forums and SocialNetwork sites by a TechnoSocialGap?. The “TechnoSocialGap?” is literally a social gap that originates in technology.

I know that this issue has been addressed in many forms over the years in many wikis, such as OneBigSoup, and others.

MicroFormats

One of the promising emerging areas is MicroFormats, which can potentially allow data and information to transcend the TechnoSocialGap?.

The best way to develop MicroFormats towards the goal of bridgign the TechnoSocialGap?, is to try and bridge it right now with existing tools, and then think about how existing or yet-to-exist MicroFormats could enhance and facilitate that bridging even more.

AIBU?

WIIFM? "What's In It For Me?"

A few years ago, I had a conversation with a friend, who I believe prefers not to be named online, about using a particular question to help frame thinking about people’s motivations for their behavior and actions. The question, probably familiar to many people, is WiiFM (“What’s In It For Me?”).

For example, you could look at a situation where there is a company that is polluting a river, and a group of people are protesting the pollution in front of the company headquarters. What is the perceived benefit for the people who are doing the polluting? And what is the perceived benefit for the people who are protesting the polluting? You may not ever know exactly what people are thinking, but asking these questions gives you a way to start thinking about world views of other people. What’s more, the external view of what is “in it” for someone often looks different than our internal view of what is “in it” for us.

AIBU? ("Am I Being Used?")

Another question that my friend who shall not be named suggested that people should start asking themselves is “Am I Being Used?” (AiBu). This question is not meant to be a vast philosophical exploration. It is meant to be a simple question: In your own view, are you being taken advantage of? Are You being Used in a particular situation or arrangement? Also, I would not pretend to define to you what “being used” means for you. You have to live with the consequences of how you anwser AiBu, so it’s up to you to define what “being used” means to you. Just like WiiFM, external and internal views of the same question can look drastically different.

Another friend, named HowardRheingold, recently blogged about an article by TreborScholz? that looks at how a PassionateUser of SocialNetwork sites like MySpace, YouTube, FaceBook?, etc voluntarily donate their creations, attention, and labor to be commodified by the companies that maintain these sites. Trebor also writes:

The picture of net publics--being used--is, however, complicated by the fact that participants undeniably get a lot out of their participation. There is the pleasure of creation and mere social enjoyment. Participants gain friendships and a sense of group belonging. They share their life experiences and archive their memories. They are getting jobs, find dates and arguably contribute to the greater good.

When people look at their activities online, and ask “Am I Bing Used?”, they are asking whether the trade off they are making for giving up the rights and value of their attention, in exchange for connecting with people, and being given space to create socialize is worth the value they are giving up heir control over.

The question that OpenBusinessModelsWikiHive asks is:

Can people partake in the value of social connection and creativity WITHOUT trading off the rights to their attention or creativity?

I believe that they can. The question is, how?

Some possibilities include:

• FreeCulture: The idea that service providers recognize that people by default own the rigths to all of their content, and that they decide what to do with those rights. Not the other way around. You don’t ask people to give up rights to content they create as a precondition to accessing your online spaces.
• RevenueSharingModel: If you want to monetize people’s time, attention, and creativity, the very, very least you can do is share some of the profit and spoils with them.
• FLOSS (Free/Libre Open Source Software). One of the amazing things about FLOSS is that it increasingly makes the SocialCurrency? and Value exchanges possible without being stuck with using the services of corporations that want you to trade off the rights to your creations, your time, and yor attention. It is now possible to create your own social networks, you ar own photo and movie sharing, your own KnowledgeCommons and SocialBookmarking, your own ProjectManagement, and more. The cost of server space is relatively inexpensive. The same functions and features and performance can be had, and you can make your own rules.

The Future Of Open Business

[via OpenBusinessModels WikiHive blog]

Intro

Open Business.cc blog reports about a Time Magazine article titled “Getting Rich Off Those Who Work For Free”.

The Time article is about the GiftEconomy:

• People who are creating OpenSource Software on a volunteer basis
• People who are creating content for OpenContent publications, like Wikipedia
• People who’s activity is the business model in for-profit ventures, like YoutTube?, MySpace, etc

An earlier oct 2006 Open Business.cc blog post also discussed the open quesitons surrounding this:

“What are the principles for relying on users to build a money-generating business? Or, in more provocative terms, when does user-generated content - at $90 per screen name - become a new form of exploitation? Alternatively, one could argue that users are compensated with a good; a “free” service in return for their data and attention.

“What are the necessary tenets of this new class of software and software company? What is the difference between “open”, “free”, and “commercial” – and how do they interact?”

Trying to fit the emerging future into the structure of the past

Let’s face it, it’s hard to see through the fog of the future, and “predict” what direction OpenSource, UserGeneratedContent?, and OpenContent activities will go in.

Dear Economists trying to figure out what is happening online…

…Welcome to the wonderful worlds of the ForesightPrinciple, and  MediaEcology!

A big reason why it is hard to see how the “GiftEconomy” is going to play out, is that we humans often use the past as a model for the future. When new technologies, mediums and systems emerge, we usually immediately try to adapt them to the ways in which we are already doing things. (see: MarshallMcLuhan).

Wikipedia:Richard_A._Slaughter took the quote from MarshallMcLuhan that “We look at the present through a rear view mirror” and applied the metaphor to Wikipedia:Futures_studies

image source

NeilPostman? had FiveIdeas about technology. Idea number 3 was that “every technology has a philosophy which is given expression in how the technology makes people use their minds, in what it makes us do with our bodies, in how it codifies the world, in which of our senses it amplifies, in which of our emotional and intellectual tendencies it disregards.”

NeilPostman? means with idea number 3 that “To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail.”

We want to look at the emerging network cultures through the lenses of the production-based economies of the past 100+ years, and their Hierarchically-organized social structures. This is why we even bother calling them a GiftEconomy at all. (LionKimbro already made this point in RethinkingCredit in CommunityWiki). But, these socio-cultural emergences are not really a “GiftEconomy” at all.

Instead, if they are any kind of “economy” at all, they are more likely what my friend HowardRheingold calls a “SharingEconomy”.

People Voluntarily Sharing. But why? Because they are reciprocated some kind of value.

Now, sometimes people think thety are “voluntarily sharing”, but really they are being exploited, and that is what NeilPostman? talked about with his Idea number 2:”(in technological change) there are always winners and losers, and that the winners always try to persuade the losers that they are really winners.”

Now, it doesn’t have to happen that way, but it often does. Which brings us to…

Embracing The Future For What It Is Becoming

So, if we try to understand that people are voluntarily sharing for perceived reciprocated value, then we can start to think about the direction this is really going in:

People will share and trust more, when they are reciprocated with more real value

If you try to go the route of Neil’s Idea number 2, you’ll get busted eventually, and people will start moving away from you, and towards where the perceived real reciprocated value is. The scams are going to get harder to pull as control shifts more towards the users, away from the providers/enablers. So, in the SharingEconomy, share the value with people sharing with you, because they don’t have to share with you. Share the revenue, the control. It time to see that even feedback and input can be considered as valuable voluntary sharing, and should be reciprocated with a reward of listening to the feedback and incorporating it into the system. These voluntary sharers can increasingly exercise their RightToLeave.

The future of the SharingEconomy is…

…Sharing.

Multi-way sharing, between all of the parties involved.

of course, no future is guaranteed. We can easily get locked into a culture dominated by centuries-long ruts of walled-off economies, if people continue to design to try and take advantage of Idea number 2 and make a quick buck at the expense of long-term quality.

However, I don’t personally think people are going to be fooled so easily. And, I think that the “market” will eventually drive people towards creators and providers and facilitators who really start to think about “How can I reciprocate back real value to these people who are sharing with me?”

Collactive: Online Political Swarming

Earlier in 2006, Aran Reshef and Amir Hirsh folded their unique anti-spam service, Blue Frog, due to a massive cyber-attack that was following them across the Internet.

Blue Frog worked by automating the provisions in the CAN-SPAM Act that allows a spamming victim to send a request for removal to the spammer's website or email address. Blue Frog software would pool all of the requests and send them at once. Or, if the spammers did not have an email address, then they would auto-submit the requests in order forms at the spammer's marketing sites. This would often take down sites, as there were usually hundreds of thousands of requests to be removed.

Apparently, this rather annoyed a certain spammer named "PharmaMaster", who unleashed a zombie army of distributed servers that pulled down services like Tucows and Typepad, on a hunt for Blue frog websites and blogs online. Reshef and Hirsch decided to pull the plug on Blue Frog before any more services were harmed.

However, recently Wired reports that Reshef and Hirsch have launched new service, call Collactive, that aims to use the same swarming tactics for political activism. From the Collactive site:

We believe people have the right to voice their opinion on the Internet regardless of technical skills. We founded Collactive to bring the power of the Web 2.0 revolution to everyone. Our goal is to empower people to take action on any web site, from the largest social network down to the smallest blog.

Using our patent-pending technology, our customers are transforming their community members into online advocacy experts. We work together with leading marketing firms to help a select number of early customers advance their goals online.

To see our solution in action, please visit WorldCoolers.org.                

On the WorldCoolers.org site, you can download the "Collactive Desktop Application" (windows only at this time). This application feeds pop-up alerts to the desktop on issues relating the political activist group. Then it gives instant action options (write a letter to congress, call a politician, etc). This is similar to MoveOn.org campaign activism. Except that alerts and options for action come directly to the desktop (or through a firefox browser plugin, or adding a feed to Yahoo or Google personal pages). The system also gives participants an easy way to submit news stories that they think the campaign should act upon.
Some of these online activism ideas were originally explored by different authors in the book, Extreme Democracy. The Civic Space system has also existed for a couple of years now as an open source online activism tool set.

In the US, there is political backlash from all of this Internet activism in the form of politicians starting to ignore mass-online activism campaigns. They tend to prioritize incoming messages based upon how easy or difficult they are to compose and send. This means that precomposed emails and online petitions are often discounted, or given less weight by politicians.

However, concentrated efforts can also be pointed at the people and organizations who fund and donate money to politicians. This will probably be the next step in online activism. Combining consumer activism with political activism. The Internet medium, and collaborative activist research makes it easier than ever to "follow the money". And, if politicians ignore or discount electronic political activism, perhaps corporations and political organizations will not. Especially those that stand to lose money when coordinated campaigns are able to pinpoint pressure at the sources of money in politics.

OpenID-Decentralized Open Standards For Online Identity

Slashdot | The Case for OpenID

In the wake of the Internet Identity Workshop 2006, people are talking more and more about the idea of an "identity commons" and basing identity around open standards.

Cooperation in online environments is largely based around trust, and reputation.  Reputation itself is rooted in (relatively) verifiable identity. If your verifiable online identities are locked into identity silos (like Microsoft, Yahoo!, AOL, etc.), then the time that you spend building reputation around your identity must be multiplied times the amount of community silos you participate in. Plus, if that silo ceases to exist, your identity/reputation with them is lost.

This is one of the reasons why systems like OpenID are emerging, and gaining momentum.  OpenID allows you to keep your online identity with an third party "identity provider". Or, you can use your own URL as an OpenID, and be your own identity provider.

A recent ZDNet article describes OpenID as beng both "fully decentralized", and "very low cost".

Furthermore, it states:

As OpenID marches on, we expect many of its benefits to accrue to:

Internet users, who are gaining the ability to control their identity information on-line, through the services of a vendor that they trust (or, if they are technically inclined, by building their own); further:

• users are more secure, e.g. the phishing attack surface is reduced;
• their on-line experience is more convenient, e.g. fewer user names and passwords to remember;
• their on-line experience is more personal, e.g. because sites can more easily take advantage of identity information shared by the user with the site.

E-commerce and other website operators, who have the opportunity to serve their customers and visitors better, because:

• they can simplify user registration, currently a major obstacle for customer acquisition;
• it allows them – with full approval of the user – to learn more about their visitors, and thus target their offerings better;
• they can reduce the attack surface for identity theft, because identity information that can be retrieved on demand through OpenID does not need to be stored by the site, and thus cannot be lost or stolen (e.g. backup tapes from a car)

Entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs, for whom OpenID provides a fertile ground for innovation, such as:

• reputation services, which help both end users and site operators and represent a major business opportunity in itself;
• open social networks that are not confined to a single vendor's site;
• more secure, efficient and accountable messaging systems that one day could replace the protocols that e-mail runs on.

Parakey, and Emerging WebOS Ideas

  Spectrum Online reports that Blake Ross and Joe Hewitt are working on a system called "Parakey", which  essentially will be a downloaded application that turns your PC into a local server, and allows you to seamlessly drag web content (photos, text, movies, calendars, bookmarks, RSS feeds, etc) into you Parakey "site", and easily control who can and cannot view it with a color coded "key" system.

The system will employ it's own programming language (dubbed "JUL" which stands for “Just another User interface Language"). The code will be open source, in the hopes of attracting  developers to create new applications for the platform. The goal will be to allow people to share content online  directly from their computer,  with more control over who can view it and how. And, with easier  publishing capabilities than current systems that force people through many layers. Quote:

Grandparents love seeing their kids and grandkids on Flickr or Snapfish, but they’re often too intimidated to put their own pictures on these sites. The reason, in part, is that they have to jump through many hoops: dragging pictures here, uploading them there. Parakey, inherently (and potentially profitably), is aimed at making it easier for them—and everyone else—to get their stuff online.

It’s not just grandparents who aren’t using the Web as much as they could—it’s everyone. Right now, Ross says, “we have two wildly advanced platforms—the desktop operating system and the Internet. That leaves users with a frustrating choice. Do you want to create content with powerful tools in an ad-free environment and bury it in a system that’s accessible anytime, but only in one place and by one person?” The alternative, he says, is weaker tools and an ad-heavy space that can be accessed by anyone anywhere, but only when you’re online. “We don’t believe people should have to make that choice,” he says.

   
The goal of lowering the technological barrier for users is shared with the goal of making a system that allows developers to make many different content and event streams work well together:

  JUL applications are themselves comprised of other applications that come in all shapes and sizes. The interface for Mrs. Anderson’s recipe application, for instance, might include much smaller ones such as a metric-to-English-units converter or photo-goes-here. “You’re not thinking at [the HTML] level anymore,” Ross says. “You’re thinking one level up. That will make it easier to build desktop applications on the Web.” And despite Ross’s connection to Firefox, Parakey will work with any browser.

JUL applications also notice Web events that take place when someone is reading a Parakey page—an update to a sports score, for example, or a new blog entry—and instantly update the page accordingly. Users of these applications don’t have to request these updates, and neither do the JUL developers who wrote them. They simply include “formulas” behind the scenes that reference different information sources. If a source changes, JUL automatically reevaluates the formulas—much as a spreadsheet does.

Parakey will be a for-profit venture, unlike the non-profit Firefox web browser project that Parakey founders Ross and Hewitt helped create. Parakey apparently intends to profit from an advertising system whose details have yet to be revealed. 

From my own perspective, it seems that Parakey has more than a small chance of succeeding. Although, the area that it is entering is heavily contested for sure. Microsoft and Apple both have efforts to build these functions into their operating systems. Google and Yahoo are quickly buying up the best "pieces" (flickr, del.icio.us, JotSpot, YouTube, etc) that will allow them to potentially build an integrated system for web sharing. Yet, they both currently lack tight integration and ease of use across networks.

The paradox of a company like Yahoo buying a company like Flickr, for instance, is that  Yahoo, on the one hand, needs to get Flickr tightly integrated with the rest of Yahoo's tools (like Yahoogroups, del.icio.us, etc). Yet, huge part of the reason that Yahoo buys an existing system like del.icio.us or Flickr is because of the enthusiastic existing user base. But, if Yahoo or Google make too many changes too soon to a platform like del.icio.us, Flickr, or YouTube, they will risk driving people away, and into the arms of hundreds, sometimes thousands of competing systems. So, this time problem leaves an opening for a system like Parakey to possibly pass through and succeed.   To succeed, it is likely that Parakey will need to:

•     Give people an easy way to move from sites like del.icio.us, Flickr, or YouTube to Parakey  
• Tap into similar energies that made the Spreadfirefox campaign succeed, but this time for an expanded audience (early adopters [creatives and teenagers], as well as Mothers and Fathers/Grandparents).
   
• Possibly consider using an increasing consumer awareness and inevitable backlash to their advantage, over web service providers co-opting the rights of content published to their sites. This could be used to their advantage by including an easy way for people to attach re-use rights, like creative commons licenses, to their content that they share. This can attract early adopter creatives, who then tend to attract mainstream users.
   
•     Work before the Google, Yahoo WebOS, and Microsoft and Apple desktop-to-web efforts emerge as contenders.  

My hunch is that the publicity circulating about Parakey is going to create pressures in this sector of the market, and send a lot of people working in this area back to the drawing board to think about  , whether Parakey itself  succeeds or not.

Another interesting related phenomenon is that users of more difficult-to-use open source social software are also working toward ways to tie together many different open source tools. For instance in Communitywiki, we are thinking about ContentRouting:

(image by LionKimbro  )

Some elements of the  ContentRouting idea is actually remarkably similar to the Parakey idea, except that the ContentRouting idea is being developed in open spaces, and largely enabled by (though not necassarily restricted to) open source software applications.  Yet, ContentRouting also has the potential to interface with very many online destinations (wikis, blogs, social networking sites, etc). One currently working example is OddmuseToInkscape, which allows a few different ways to  automatically route an Inkscape    image directly to  an  Oddmuse   wiki instance. 

CitizenEngagedGovernment

[Via Social Synergy Wiki]

Wikipedia:Zephyr_Teachout, Director of Internet Organizing for HowardDean’s presidential campaign, posted an election day blog posting to New Assignment with some suggestions about how politicians can engage networks of citizens (quoted from Blog posting:

1. Hold weekly online chats for any interested constituents
2. Hold online consultations where your staff identifies 50-400 people (NOT the online opinion makers, but people who don’t generally have a voice) to engage in consultations on particular topics, using existing list-serv technology (yahoo or google groups work fine).
3. Put your daily schedule on the Internet, including all meetings. Just as you put your public campaigning schedule online, you should now allow people to know how you are spending the time they earned for you.
4. List your overall priorities and general schedule for the upcoming four-to-five months, to engage people in the prioritization process.
5. Before you propose or sign any bill, put it online for at least three days for responses, and create “chat times” for discussions of the bills with staffers and constituents. There is a legislative proposal for this, but in the meantime members of Congress can act on their own.
6. Follow the lead of Estonia, and create a forum where people can track, suggest and review legislation – and commit to having your staff review any that gets at least (x number) of people supporting it. American politicians should be chastened — Estonia started that website five years ago.

I would also add that local groups can be given access to easy ways of accumulating their own data, and accessing data accumulated by government about their local area, and inserting it into these engagement platforms.

Also, alternatively, recurring telephone conferences are very inexpensive, and can give an access outlet for people who are not computer literate, or who do not have access to computers. These calls can be recorded and uploaded to websites as well.

For number 5., Post the bill onto a Wiki, and allow people to directly edit a copy of the bill, or place comments on or near it.

A message board or forum, or comment section in ThreadMode, with the document at the top, and a discussion at the bottom allows you to discuss what is wrong with the document at the top. a threaded conversation can become very difficult to read, and possesses a low SignalToNoiseRatio. A wiki page allows you to actually make the change (referred to as DocumentMode). Of course, a wiki also allows the freedom of a MixedMode (threaded discussion, and editable documents). The point is, don’t limit people to just talking about what is wrong. Give them a way to change it, and a way to PeerReview those changes.

Wiki-enabled feedback can help familiarize people with the language and processes of legislation. It would attract people who have expertise in the area of legislation and legal matters, as well as people who have no such expertise. MixedMode talking about, and directly changing proposed legislation in wikis can both generate debate and give people ways to demonstrate exactly how they would like to be governed.

Explore and add to these concepts more at CitizenEngagedGovernment.

Condorcet's jury theorem - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Link: Condorcet's jury theorem - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

"..the average chance of a member of a voting group making a correct decision is greater than fifty percent the chance of the group as a whole making the correct decision will increase with the addition of more members to the group."

BUT

Where average chance of a member of a voting group making a correct decision is  fifty percent or less, the chance of the group as a whole making the correct decision will DECREASE down to ZERO as more people are added.

A Swarm Of Angels:Open Business Meets Film Making

What?:

A Swarm of Angels is about making a £1 million movie and giving it away to one million people in one year. By using the Internet to gather together 50,000 people willing to pay £25 to join an exclusive global online community–The Swarm–the project’s ambition is to make the world’s first Internet-funded, crewed and distributed feature film.

Who?: Team.

How?:

FUND / FILM / FLOW

1. Fund the project. Call for collaborators. Publicize and create marketing materials. Gather the first 1000 members. Develop the project and infrastructure. Start script development. Open the project up to more members.
2. Film. Collaborate. Develop scripts using a ‘wiki’. Crew through The Swarm. Funding drive for pre-production/production/post-production. Create marketing and final materials.
   3. Flow. Master materials. Create spin-off materials. Publicize. Burn. Upload. Seed. Download. View. Remix. Share.

Why?:

I think people would rather pay £25 or so to be part of an entertainment experience for over a year. Especially one based around the creation of an inspirational, cult project. A Swarm of Angels has the opportunity to make a mark on film and Internet history.

In purely material terms, the social and networking benefits of The Swarm should be value for money enough. If you add to this the access to to the filmmaking editorial process, the planned Collectors Edition DVD and other Swarm-only merchandise, it becomes a steal.