[Campaigns-l] changing politics

[Joe Daverin]

I totally agree with this, except that I'm not quite so frustrated as some
of you guys sound with the thing so far. To get anything truly new going
will take time. As I've been futzing around on the wiki, I've come to the
same kinds of conclusions that have been voiced here. Specifically, that
discussions about specific races are probably going to be too quiet or too
loud, that candidate information is widely available elsewhere, and that
there's only 6.5 million (approx) forums to discuss political issues.
 
I like the middle question mentioned here. What is "participatory politics"
to everyone? To me it is still vague, but I think of accessibility to the
inside of campaigns. I guess if I were to make up a buzzword-laced
meaningless tagline I would say that a non-participatory campaign works to
influence people while a participatory campaign works to involve people.
 
But yes, I totally agree that what has been done is not all that new or
interesting, and continuing to do more of the same will continue to not be
new or interesting. I also think that most of the people here are smart
enough to come to that conclusion as they survey the campaigns wiki
landscape, and I'm sure that people will start thinking about these same
questions pretty soon... perhaps they should be made wiki topics for those
who were turned off by the initial volume of the email list?
 
Joe D

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From: campaigns-l-bounces at wikia.com [mailto:campaigns-l-bounces at wikia.com]
On Behalf Of Asa Hopkins
Sent: Monday, July 10, 2006 12:56 PM
To: campaigns-l at wikia.com
Subject: [Campaigns-l] changing politics


Hey folks, 

I just wanted to jump in and second some thoughts from Stephen Abbott and
Erik Mueller which I think get at the heart of what Jimmy Wales' open letter
indicated the site would be about, but which the content so far doesn't
reflect at all: "a central meeting ground for people on all sides of the
political spectrum who think that it is time for politics to become more
participatory, and more intelligent."


To me, this doesn't mean "a place to discuss a particular race" or even "a
place to post info about candidates" or even "a place for background info
about issues." All these things are available elsewhere, and making the info
available in a central place doesn't change the game at all. 

What I was hoping for was a place to work on how to change the way that
campaigns are run, the way the game is played. Questions I'd like to see
discussed are along these lines: 
-- How does one run a campaign to represent hundreds of thousands, if not
millions, of people, and still maintain a connection to each individual
voter, or ever each individual volunteer or donor?
-- I'm a single supporter, and I have a great idea for a policy position I'd
like my candidate or elected official to take. How can the campaign make it
easy for that communication to happen, and that idea get serious
consideration? This is what participatory politics means to me.
-- In each electoral district across the country there are experts on each
of the policy issues that an elected official makes decisions about. How can
we set up the system so that our representatives easily tap this knowledge
in order to make more intelligent decisions?

Unfortunately, the front page of the Campaigns Wikia site is set up as an
issues discussion, and a discussion of upcoming elections. This is exactly
what we don't need yet another site to do.

Asa

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Work is love made visible
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Asa S. Hopkins
MC 266-33, Pasadena, CA 91125
asa at caltech.edu
http://www.its.caltech.edu/~asa/
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