I thought last night’s discussion of where Wikipedia gets its authority (and what “authority” means when it comes to Wikipedia). I may write up my notes at some point and I believe the Berkman Center will post the session as a podcast sometime fairly soon. But I should note that the Harvard Crimson’s small write-up of it gets it a bit wrong; it seems to imply that I was arguing that Wikipedia is unreliable and that SJ Klein, my friend and Wikipedian, had to step in to defend Wikipedia’s honor. In fact, my premise was that Wikipedia is remarkably reliable, but not for the traditional reasons. [Tags: wikipedia]

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Apparently one of Odysseus’ followers has started a blog…

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Peterme has a good post about when we do and do not want slick web pages.

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This is driving me nuts. Someone sent me an email with a link to a site that has podcasts that consist of someone reading a list of stuff. You’re supposed to guess what they have in common. I’m trying to use it in my book to make a point about the importance of the implicit, but for the life of me I can’t re-find the site, plus it’s a tough one to do a search for.

Anyone know what I’m talking about?

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For the past couple of weeks, I haven’t been able to use Thunderbird as my mail client because it can no longer use Gmail as its pop server. I believe Thunderbird is configured correctly. I can’t get the Google settings to stick, though. I go to Gmail > Settings > Forwarding and Pop and select option #1 under Pop Download (“Enable POP for all mail…”) and I press the Save Settings button. I’m then taken back to my gmail inbox. But if I go back to the settings page, none of the options under Pop Download are chosen; the setting seems to be wiped out.

Any suggestions?

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The ancient Romans were small in stature, so I realized today that I could totally have kicked Caesar’s ass.

Yeah, baby! America! #1!

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Our daughter Leah is spending a semester studying in Florence, Italy. Tomorrow night, we’re leaving to spend 10 days with her in Rome, Florence and Venice. Then I’m going to go to Paris, Hamburg and Milan over the course of three days, talking with businesses and some media about corporate blogging, sponsored by Edelman PR, to whom (disclosure) I consult.

Things have been busy around here so I haven’t really focused on the trip, but it should be pretty fabulous, although it’ll probably take me a good eight days to escape the psychic grip the book I’m working on has me in. I’ve been consumed by it, from morning until night. 25% of my time is devoted to fretting about it. Another 32% goes to reading stuff on the Web that I can’t remember how or why I got to. I spend 11% of my time unwriting what I wrote the day before. Then there’s the Commonwealth of Massachusetts’ 8% Attention Tax. Nevertheless, the book is with me all the time.

For those who are keeping track, I am starting chapter 7 out of 9, although I am done with chapters 1-6 only in the delusional sense that the paper has passed through the platen of my typewriter. I’m not done with them until the fat lady sings, the fat lady being in this case my editor who is not fat and would surprise me by singing. (And, no, I’m not really using a typewriter.)

Chapter 7 is about the importance of the implicit in a digital world that tempts us to make everything explicit. Now I just have to figure out what that means, why anyone should care, and how to write it. But nooooo, I have to gallivant off to Italy. You’re right, I should stay home and work on chapter 7 at least until I know what it’s about. Absolutely. I don’t deserve a 10-day break, much less in Italy. You’re right. I’ll stay here and write more. Thank you for that tough love.

(Will someone please pry my fingers off the keyboard so I can pack? Please?) [Tags: everything_is_miscellaneous EverythingIsMiscellaneous italy travel obsessive_compulsive]

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A group from the Sunlight are giving a Tuesday lunchtime talk at the Berkman center. The group here today includes Micah Sifry, Andrew Rasiej, Ellen Miller, and Michael Klein. [As always, what follows is an inaccurate sketch. I make no claim of completeness.)

The Sunlight Foundation aims at bring transparency and accountability to Congress. The name comes from the 1913 Brandeis quotation: “Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants; electric light the most efficient policeman.” “Lawmakers will continue to do what they do,” Ellen says, “so long as they can get away with it.” The Foundation’s goal is “real transparency about the quid pro quo”: Who is giving them money? Who are they meeting with? What are they inserting into bills? Then, this information has to be put into shareable format (xml, APIs).

For this, they need citizens to do some investigation — “distributive journalism.”

Congress still files bunches of disclosure information on paper. The Foundation is working with the Center for Responsive Politics on digitizing this. Ellen shows screen captures of how the government currently makes information available online: Endless lists of cryptically named files, many of which lead to single PDFs of paper forms.

Sunlight’s plan: Collect new information, digitize the old, and invest in connecting the records. Find ways to involve citizens as muckrakers and reporters. Get the information out of DC and into the blogs, etc., where people are lookng for it. And galvanize a national campaign.

Micah says they’d like to have a tool to enable any blogger or journalist to put a box on any page that talks about a Congressperson. Maybe the box lists their top five donors and links to a page with all the info.

kjQ: (Bill McGeveran) Doesn’t this pose a privacy threat to individual donors who have given a small amount of money to a cause that perhaps his neighbors don’t like? How can we have the maximum benefit of sunlight but also not chill a private person who wants to donate $300 to some cause?
A: (Mike) That information is already there. It’s already available.

A: (Ellen) If you give less than $200, it’s not recorded.A: (Mike) There might be some small chilling effect, but the corrosive effect of not having sunlight is an overwhelmingly bad thing.

Q: (Amanda Michel) They key audience for Sunlight are the researchers and activists. They need timely data. Aggregating data and making it available to researchers would be a tremendous service.
A: (Mike) First the data has to be there. We’ll also provide tools for using the data.

Q: (irc) Any support from Congress?
A: (Andrew Rasiej) No. Not publicly.
A: (Mike) Schwarzenegger is going to make his calendar public. And John McCain is in favor of more disclosure.

Q: How can they say no?
A: (Ellen) They say that if they post their calendars, they would be reluctant to meet with groups outside of the mainstream.
A: (Andrew) They just can’t fathom it. “They’re so addicted to topdown control…”

Q: (Dan Gillmor) Are there any states or municipalities that have gone part of the way that you could use as a test bed?
A: (Ellen) We’re working on it.

A: (Micah) It’s a fertile time for doing this.

Q: I ran a campaign for the mayor of Portland. To draw off votes from another candidate, we ran a competing candidate. With full sunlight, we couldn’t have done that.

Q: Will there be an opportunity for candidates to respond?
A: (Mike) They have the world and the platform to respond. And we’re just making the data available.
A: (Ellen) We’re doing a blog that will use the data and people will be able to respond there.

Q: (me) Are you putting forward a Sunlight Pledge of some sort that candidates can take?
A: We’re working on it. (Dan Gillmor adds: Put the draft up on your site and your readers will write it for you.)

Q: (me) Are you working on standardized data formats?
A: Yes. It’s premature to talk about it. We’re talking with people.
A: (Andrew) The data is in silos and the owners of it don’t like the idea that their data might be put into the public.

(This could be an important service on which some killer public service apps can – and I hope will – be built.) [Tags: politics sunlight+foundation disclosure disclosure andrew+rasiej micah+sifry michael+klein ellen+miller congress]

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This morning if you came to this site, you may have been redirected to someone else’s site. Not to worry. There was an error in a config file. That other site belongs to a friend. It’s all well now. Sorry for the confusion…

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SPOILER ALERT: If you have not read the 6th Harry Potter, and have had cotton swabs in your ears for the past six months, read no further!

Our daughter, Leah, recommends DumbledoreIsNotDead.com. It has shaken her confidence in the deadness of the guy. (I am refraining from issuing my official I Told You So until the final book comes out.) [Tags: harry potter fan sites dumbledore spoilers]

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