The Sunlight–Berkman confab on providing more access to more information about politics and government was terrific. The thirty attendees are (by and large) working fulltime with their sleeves rolled up to provide citizens with better information about how our government and political system work. Some of the information is presented in slick graphics and some is pretty raw, but all of it can be used by any citizen to peg opinions to facts, and to find illuminating patterns and relationships. This is unalloyed good for our democracy.

So, here’s my question: Most of the attendees are progressives, although some are non-partisan. But even the people behind the non-partisan services tend to be left-leaning. Yet what these folks are devoting their time to building are tools that help all citizens no matter how they lean—seeing patterns of private infliuence on public events, exposing corruption. Why is it that these tools for a better democracy are coming from the left? Or are there similar tools developed by the right that I don’t know about? [Tags: berkmansunlight sunlightberkman sunlight berkman politics]

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I read the book. I’ve heard the speeches. I’ve heard him address a small group. I love Obama.

Now he has to live up to being Obama.

The last thing any of us want is for his arc to be like Wesley Clarke’s: Enormous (and well-deserved) initial enthusiasm, quickly deflated by not being able to live up to inflated expectations. (I wouldn’t want to make a lot of this, but in Obama’s announcement video—on the Web first, btw-the only sign of TOWL (the Obama We Love) is that he’s not wearing a tie.)

I’m excited about Obama in 2008. I’m a little more excited about Gore-Obama in 2008. [Tags: obama gore politics]

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Timothy Killian and Chad Maglaque are giving a lunchtime talk about MorePerfect.org. They refer to it as “Civics 2.0.” In 1787, Tim says, the 55 men invited to the Constitutional Convention did not represent the full diversity of the population. MorePerfect wants to open up the process, taking the opinions of anyone who wants to participate in the democratic process. “We take the notion that everyone has a good idea.” “Experts are certainly important in any given field, but someone outside that field may have a perfect idea.”

Rather than making laws out of public view, citizens ought to be involved early on in the creation of law and policy. MorePerfect uses Wikimedia, the same software used by Wikipedia. But the application is different. Wikipedia aims at “NPOV”— neutral point of view—and ends up with edit wars on some political topics. MorePerfect is structured differently. (More later.)

The idea came when Timothy’s brother was supporting a medical marijuana bill in Washington state. They took the language of the proposal from Arizona where the measure had passed. The referendum lost in Washington 60-40. So, they went to all sorts of groups, pro and con, with new language and got tons of good suggestions about how to word the proposal better. E.g., the police chiefs, who had opposed the measure, explained that they would need a way to tell if someone they’ve stopped on the street is a medical or recreational user of marijuana. They took these suggestions and crafted better language. In the next election, they won 60-40. It worked because they collaborated.

While they’ve built tech, tech is not enough, they say. So, beyond the online component, they intend “to conduct face-to-face conferences wherein citizens can learn more about specific policy issues directly and interace with policy advocates.” Each conference will present multiple issues. These will be local, but they also want to do a nationwide whistlestop tour.

Chad is frustrated by the way most of the online media have worked, scrolling great ideas down the page, rather than providing persistence of discussion and improvement.

They’ve posted the Constitution and the Bill of Rights as an example, enabling people to wikily edit it.

Q: [me] I’ve played with the Bill of Rights wiki and it’s a good marketing gimmick to get people in, but it’s actually not a great example of how the system will work because you can’t fork it—people who don’t want gun control are constrained to come up with a Second Amendment that works also for pro-gun folks.That’s not the way the rest of the site works
A: Yes, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and insists on having a single article for a topic, whereas we’re happy to have multiple pages representing different points of view. Our corrolary to NPOV is “constructive, not destructive.” So, if it’s a gun control measure, we ask that you only be constructive about it. If you just fundamentally disagree with it, then start your own page. We have “the flip side” page for any policy: If you fundamentally disagree with a policy, you can go there and tell why.

In Seattle there’s a leading conservative and a leading progressive blog. We’ve sat down with both of them and we’re going to put up a joint page where each of them is working on their priorities for government. Then we’re going to ask them to try to merge them.

Q: How do you prevent there being many, many pages on a single topic?
A: Only a few of them will take hold, we think.

They give as an example a coalition with a proposal for Seattle’s Alaskan Way Viaduct. The group came in with a policy about it, but invited people to comment on it. People are constructively engaging. Their page also lists other options, so if you disagree, you can go there.

Q: (ethanz) It becomes obvious how difficult it is use to a wiki for this if you look at the discussion of the Bill of Rights. You should have access to the original. You should be able to see the history of edits for particular sections. Wiki is probably the worst solution you could come up with, except for every other solution. To what extent are you committed to the Mediawiki software?
A: We’re not committed. We like that people are used to it and it’s open source.
Q: Maybe you should be rolling your own…
A: The key is iterative development. Get people working with it and find the problems.

Q: (Gene) It might help to adopt a code of good process. And your story about the medical marijuana bill sounds like success came from pulling together the right folks, whereas MorePerfect is opening it up to the public.
A: We’re trying different things. And we’re not saying that what the public comes up with will be the final draft. Instead, a group proposing a bill can learn the trends and get some good ideas.

Q: (Lewis Hyde) In the 18th Century, people would use pseudonyms and anonymously. In your system, do reputations emerge?
A: We allow pseudonyms but not anonymity. We require a valid email address and a zip code. We encourage people to provide a real name. We don’t yet have ratings for users or edits. In the next rev, we want to build in the civic networking capabilities, with users who have ratings and locales.

Q: (Amanda Michel ) Typically there are a few people who contribute a lot, and lots of people who are drive-by contributors. I wonder if by centralizing things in MorePerfect.org if you’re limiting its potential.
A: I think there are upsides to the centralization. I work in the drug reform movement in Washington State. We have conferences all the time. We’re speaking to the choir all the time. I’d like to have a conference with maybe three big issues that are diametrically opposed. So, maybe you came for an education policy discussion, but there’s a drug reform discussion you would never have gone to. There’s a potential for that online because of the centralization.
Q: The functionality of the site is clear, but the community isn’t. People may show up for one issue they care about and not come back for years. The cost of getting people to MorePerfect is higher because it’s centralized. Perhaps people could replicate it…
A: We’re thinking about letting people create their own branded “wing” within MorePerfect. The Seattle City Council is thinking about this.

Q: How do you get people to know your page?
A: We’re writing grant proposals to get funding. We hope to do a whistle stop tour where we get in an RV, go town to town, and teach people how to use this tool. And finding groups who have pre-existing policy needs is key. We want to start small so we can figure out exactly what people need.

Q: I love the idea. In terms of political effectiveness, how are you thinking about explicitly making links to policy makers, including them in the discussions. It would be wonderful to engage more democratic participatory, but this is the wrong medium: technology, language and time are barriers. I’m glad you’re thinking of f2f, and you can think about them in some similar ways. Can you partner with other groups that can help you think this through and do the design?
A: Wikimedia does look stark and technical. In terms of engaging policy makers, it helps that I can talk with just about any of the political leaders in the state.

Q: (ethanz) The lead seems to be “Let’s draft legislation through a wiki,” but I think that’s the wrong one. The medical marijuana story’s point isn’t about wikis but about a consultative process. Maybe it should be about how to build ballot initiatives. It would be more focused and probably have a higher chance of success. By putting it in terms of a wiki, you attract online assholes like me [hah!] to poke holes in it. Focus on the purpose, not the technology. What’s cool about you’re doing is that you can build a ballot initiative in public, get input from people who agree and even disagree…
A: I think there’s room for lots of silos. You’ve been thinking about wikis since Ward developed them, but most people have never been there.

Q: (Erica George) For local political organizations that are trying to make internal decisions, maybe you could limit it to particular people, e.g., Somerville Democrats. I’m excited about where MorePerfect could go at the hyperlocal level.

Q: In your presentation I sense a naive belief that people will just come to your site. But political parties already have tools and don’t have an interest in opening it up. I’d focus on the ballot initiatives.
A: Policy drafting is the most tedious process imaginable. We’re talking to the Washington State Democratic party about this.

A: We think this will better at the state and local level.

Q: The stories are really helpful.

Q: (me): (i) Post the final drafts of bills that have been finalized. (ii) Drop the Constitution as an example because it’s misleading, albeit clever. (iii) I think it’s too early to focus on a single application, such as public initiatives. (iv) Wikipedia works because of its dedicated community. Do you need that? How do you facilitate it and the development of norms and pollicies?
A: This is a multiyear project. It’ll take that long for norms etc. to emerge and settle. But as far as this being too complex, I see this as fundamentally democratic.

Q: Business model?
A: Now, grants. We have various ideas for how to make money.

[Tags: politics e-democracy berkman moreperfect policy wikis democracy]

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From a column by Alan M. Collinge in the Denver Post:

When Congress amended the Higher Education Act 10 years ago, defaulted student loans became the easiest and most lucrative debt to issue and collect. The amendments imposed huge fees on defaulted student loans and took away bankruptcy protection for student borrowers. It banned refinancing of many student loans, and also allowed draconian collection measures to be taken against student borrowers, including wage garnishment, tax garnishment, withholding of professional certifications, termination from employment, and even Social Security garnishment.

Yikes. I hadn’t realized it was that bad. And if it’s true, it makes all the more disappointing the Democrats weasling out of their pledge to fix the mess. The Democrats have scheduled a vote to cut the rates on some students loans in half (yay), but only on needs-based loans, and—despite their campaign promises—the Dems are not reducing rates for parents who get loans to help them pay for their children’s education.

Of course, the Democrats are still doing way better than the Republicans, who in the previous session of Congress cut $12 billion from student loans. (Info comes from the AP.) [Tags: student_loans education democrats politcs]

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After lunch, we went around in small groups to stations where folks each had 7 minutes to demo their sites. Some very cool stuff is going on, including (and, damn, I lost my notes so I apologize for what I’m forgetting):

Metavid takes C-SPAN feeds of public domain video of our government in action, strips out the copyrighted stuff, and makes it all searchable by indexing the close captioning provided by our government. Once you’ve found the clip you want, they give you the code to embed it in your site. Way cool.

Front Porch Forum is a Vermont-based service that uses email listservs and the Web to let geographical neighbors talk to one another. It’s a terrific and simple idea that happens to have been executed so well that in one case, 90% of homes have signed on. They’ve found that the optimum size for a virtualized neighborhood is about 300 real homes.

Congresspedia is an open Wikipedia-style wiki with entries for every congressperson, every bill and every rule.

Can you guess what FedSpending has lots of data about? You’re right! It’s a project by OMB Watch, and is funded (as several of these projects are) by the Sunlight Foundation.

The Capitol News Connection feeds 230+ public radio stations with stories pertinent to their localities.

MorePerfect is a wiki where people can use the wisdom of the political crowds to craft language for bills, proposals, referenda, etc. Rather than aiming at “neutrality,” the way Wikipedia does, it aims at contributors being “constructive.” So, if you disagree with a bill, you’re asked not to reverse its meaning and insert stupid comments. Instead, create your own bill. They even have posted the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights as wikis, asking people to improve them.

The Gentilly Project has volunteers in New Orleans color coding houses on maps according to their state of repair. Part of the story is what they’ve learned about getting volunteers to do the work efficiently, which includes having a deadline, breaking a big project down into little steps, and being sure all the sub-projects are transparent to one another. The other part of the story are the results, which reveal that we have to make lots more progress, and that the progress is not as unevenly distributed as one might think.

The Campaigns Wikia is an ambitious attempt to gather information about significant campaigns around the world, using the Wikipedia format.

Lots and lots going on, building an infrastructure of facts and relationships that is direclty valuable, but, perhaps even more important, will be the source for mashups and visualizations we haven’t yet thought of. [Tags: sunlightberkman berkmansunlight berkman politics everything_is_miscellaneous]

On second thought, just read Ethanz’s descriptions of the projects. Way better than mine.

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Susan Crawford blogs about Sen. Sununu’s legislation that would prevent the FCC from creating audio and video “broadcast flags” that would prevent digital recording devices from making copies of content that has a flag set by its owner. Susan quotes Sununu:

“The suggestion is that if we don’t do this, it will stifle creativity. Well…we have now an unprecedented wave of creativity and product and content development…new business models, and new methodologies for distributing this content. The history of government mandates is that it always restricts innovation…why would we think that this one special time, we’re going to impose a statutory government mandate on technology, and it will actually encourage innovation?”

Taken as an argument, this is fallacious, because maybe this is the exceptional case. But taken as a putting of the rhetorical ball in the court where it belongs, it’s right on…. [Tags: susan_crawford broadcast_flag fcc sununu politics digial_rights copyright ]

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Lots of great discussion here which I’m not reporting on because there’s too much, but Dan Newman’s MapLight.org intersects my interest in the miscellaneous, so I’ll mention it here. It lets you slice, dice and — most important — associate information about who’s contributing how much to whom and how that correlates with actual votes (CA only). For example, trying playing around the bill that would have required bottled water to meet the same health standards as tap water. (It lost.) [Tags: everything_is_miscellaneous maplight politics sunlightberkman ]

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Dan Gillmor has posted a useful and link-rich report on the opening of the Sunlight-Berkman conference.

I second Dan’s enthusiasm about the quality of the people here. These are folks who are inventing new ways of accomplishing the traditional goals of democracy. [Tags: berkmansunlight conference politics ]

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At dinner last night with Zephyr Teachout and Steve Garfield (lucky me!), at the kick-off of a Sunlight –Berkman conference (tag: berkmansunlight), we had an idea.

The next time there’s a national speech or a press conference, instead of waiting for the opposition party to nominate a single person to issue a response, let’s vblog citizen responses. If we tag our responses “citizenresponse” and perhaps use a second tag indicating what we’re reacting to (or maybe just the date will do), we’ll all be able to find them. [Tags: politics sunlight_foundation berkman vblog berkmansunlight]

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WGBH (89.7 in Boston) is broadcasting two of Jenny Attiyeh’s ThoughtCast interviews back to back on Jan. 21. At 10 pm , it’s Alan Dershowitz and at 10:30 she’s got Amartya Sen.

Just a couple of years ago, it’d be just about beyond belief that someone could start up an interview series with not much more than a smart brain and a recording device, and not only would come up with a terrific series of interviews, but radio stations would air them as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Yay for blurring borders! [Tags: jenny_attiyeh podcasts media]

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