[Campaigns-l] Enemies of Democracy

[Janet Hawtin]

On 11/11/06, CH Rob J King <kuriosiesuschristos at abidinglifephoenix.com> wrote:
>
> without engaging an intellectual argument

This is not the place for argument
This is the place for putting things together to make a forum for debate.
This is where we talk about how to build your soapbox.
It is hard to build it while you keep standing on the planks to speak.
Basically think of this bit as a backstage room for the roadies of
political debate.
We are interested in wiki structure and process. Basic nuts and bolts
about how to make the wiki a good place for intellectual argument.
Spruiking backstage is not a good use of your energy or ours,
regardless of whether I agree with you. The wiki faces the world and
is the forum for the debate.
Use the wiki and see how it serves as a soapbox, how you can engage
people in discussion of your ideas on the wiki.

> In the business world, Bill Gates
> was able to put the most attractive set of software together, and so by
> extension, now wields considerable world power as a result.  Fortunately
> (for all of us), Gates is a humanitarian of the highest caliber (i.e. Gates
> Foundation helping orphans, the sick & dying in Africa, etc.), so a
> benevolent on-line Emperor do we now have . . .

This is not related to building this soapbox.
This is something you could post in the wiki to generate debate.
Post it there, feel free to send me the link, and I will be happy to
participate =).
A good idea for setting up this topic as a wiki page is to do
- a front page with the summary of overall ideas
- a tab with your perspective,
- a tab with an alternative perspective,
- perhaps a tab inviting comments from people about what they think
This is a way to use the wiki technology to explore your ideas with
other people.

You might need to break down the idea into distinct topics,
ie looking at microsoft technology as one topic, looking at gates
medicine as another topic, and linking them to a parent page.
this gives you room to be specific in each issue.

How do you feel you could best structure your topic to encourage input
from other people. To encourage their participation in the debate in
the wiki, so that the project becomes a more extensive and robust
soapbox, and the volume of people, the lights on the stage become
larger because the soapbox is sturdy and is used effectively.

Janet