[Campaigns-l] Needs a narrow focus on the Political Climate/New Politics

[Stephen Abbott]

Great! What do you hear?

LOL ;-)


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jimmy Wales" <jwales at wikia.com>
To: "Stephen Abbott" <nhprman at comcast.net>; <campaigns-l at wikia.com>
Sent: Sunday, July 09, 2006 10:45 PM
Subject: Re: [Campaigns-l] Needs a narrow focus on the Political Climate/New
Politics


> I am listening. :)
>
> Stephen Abbott wrote:
> > I fear the ideal of allowing the maximum amount of freedom here (i.e.
> > the least possible amount of guidance and direction) regarding format,
> > mission and policy is creating some rather divergent views about what
> > the Campaign Wikia is all about.
> >
> > Creative chaos can create some interesting things, I admit. But it can
> > also simply create simply ... chaos, a mind-numbing jumble of competing
> > visions that leaves visitors scratching their heads in confusion (and
> > perhaps anger) and wondering what the heck is supposed to be going on
here.
> >
> > The analogy I would give is if, at the founding of Wikipedia, instead of
> > being specific, Jimbo had *not* spelled out that it's an encyclopedia.
> > Instead, someone simply saw the space and said, "Hey, it's a chat
> > board." another: "No, it's a social networking site." and another could
> > have arrived beliving, "It's an experiment in creative anarchy," and
> > then (to keep this analgy going) they had not been diasbused of carrying
> > out these notions, all of which would have been at variance with one
> > another on several important levels.
> >
> > While the results are quite a bit different here from those
> > hypotheticals, a lack of directions in the mission and failure to define
> > parameters is creating some potentially damaging conclusions as to what
> > the real mssion is here. (And I'm assuming, because I like to think
> > positively, that this isn't the way it was planned.)
> >
> > For example, the messages I'm seeing from the categories and articles
> > being created are:
> >
> > "This is the ELECTIONS wiki." - Categories in this scenario include
> > "California United States Senate election, 2006" "Maine Gubernatorial
> > election, 2006", etc., and a listing of every candidate in these
> > races. While not far from the original intent, how does that contribute
> > to a debate on a NEW approach to politics? Isn't it instead just a
> > rehash of what several other very good sites already do? (including
> > Wikipedia!!!)
> >
> > "This is a REGIONAL ELECTIONS wiki" - "Dallas County, Texas" and
> > "Irving, Texas" popped up today. That may lead us to a great listing of
> > local elections, but does that get us to creating a NEW political
> > climate? (Note: There are 254 counties in Texas, 67 in Florida, and over
> > 10,000 local governments in the U.S. - do we get pages for all of them,
> > and to what end?)
> >
> > "This is the DEBATING wiki" - The idea?: "Let's list every issue in the
> > world and debate it, pro and con." Again, close to the mission, but
> > this, too, is fraught with danger and can lead (is leading already,
> > really) to endless debates over *how* those issues are presented, both
> > in their wording and format. The naming of the issues will become
> > increasingly contentious. Minor scuffle over "tax relief" vs. "Taxation"
> > already, but what about "Corrupt politicians" - the first attempt
> > deleted, but hinting at what's to come.
> >
> > In fact, each of these wikia are co-existing at the moment. Perhaps
> > "co-habitating" is a better, less warm word, since I'm not sure they can
> > exist happily as the name "exist" implies, for very long.
> >
> > Someone may say "Why can't the Wikia be ALL of these things - or
> > whatever anyone *wants* it to be?" I'd answer: Because it would make
> > this wikia totally useless, not to mention unnavigable.
> >
> > I suggest some serious discussion about how we can narrow down the focus
> > of the wikia to ONLY bettering electoral democracy - call it "New
> > Politics" or "the Political Climate" or whatever you will. A VAST amount
> > of "creative chaos" can be unleashed and harnesed in accomplishing that
> > project alone, so this isn't a case of tying people down and stiffling
> > them with too many rules.
> >
> > But the *overall parameters* of how this project is set up need to be
> > set up, and set SOON, so this project isn't turned into something ugly.
> >
> > - Stephen A.
> > (Nhprman)
> >
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
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>
>
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