<div> </div>
<div>I wonder if we couldn't use a set of forums that went along with the Wiki. Wikis seem to do a great job of documenting information, but seem over complicated for a simple topic debate. Forums on the other hand are great for documenting a conversation, and encouraging input in all forms and from many people.
</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Just a thought.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>-bruce <br><br> </div>
<div><span class="gmail_quote">On 7/5/06, <b class="gmail_sendername">Michael Coupland</b> <<a href="mailto:mcoupland@gmail.com">mcoupland@gmail.com</a>> wrote:</span>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid">
<div>Greetings all.<br><br>Here's an initial list of thoughts, concerns, and ideas I've come up with. Campaigns being a Wiki, I realize that some of these are things that I could just go do on my own, but it seems worthwhile to post them here since they're a bit higher level, and I'd like to hear what others have to say before rooting around too much. (Not to mention I'm probably not familiar enough with Wikis to do it all properly...)
<br><br>- The direction that Campaigns seems to have started in, and what I'd like to see (among other potential functions) is to act as a clearinghouse for information regarding various political topics. For any given issue, it seems that there should be a few standard sections: off the top of my head I'd like to see
<br> "The Issue" - an unbiased nonpartisan overview (perhaps a summary of a relevant Wikipedia article?)<br> "Viewpoints" - summaries of the major opinions on the issue<br> "Action" - information about prior, pending, and future relevant legislation etc.
<br> "Resources" - links to outside sources of information, ways to contact major players involved (companies, congresspeople)<br><br>- To avoid ping-pongy and hard to follow arguments, it might make sense to encourage some sort of standard argumentative form, eg. in a given discussion follow something like a Lincoln-Douglas form, where each side has a limited number of rebuttals. The California voter information guide Tom Cross just mentioned seems to have employed this approach.
<br><br>- It would probably be helpful to have a big link to a "Guide to Reasoned Discourse" on the front page, and a small link on every page. This might help reduce flaming.<br><br>- As Tom mentioned, I know Wikipedia has had problems with vandalism on topics that are "controversial." Unfortunately, most pages on Campaigns are likely to fall under that classification, so special handling by administrators might not be an effective solution. Is there a meta-page in Wikipedia discussing the decisions they made and what other options there may be?
<br><br>- I've always admired the site <a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="http://www.theyworkforyou.com/" target="_blank">http://www.theyworkforyou.com/</a> and the way it tries to publicize some of the workings of the British government. It's probably a good source of inspiration for Campaigns.
<br><br>- Given the phrasing of the mission statement, I have been assuming that this is (for now at least) intended for politics in the United States (and relevant international topics...) While I'm all for international discourse, I would expect such wide scope is likely to result in chaos. I would propose starting off with an restriction to US politics. (Parallel wikis for other countries would be suitable, just as Wikipedia has branched into many languages.)
<br><br>I'd love to hear comments on / criticism of the above topics. Thanks!<br> </div>
<div><span class="sg"><br> Michael<br></span></div>
<div><br><br>PS. As with Tom, I feel obligated to give a shout out to BoingBoing for leading me here.<br> </div><br>_______________________________________________<br>Campaigns-l mailing list<br><a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="mailto:Campaigns-l@wikia.com">
Campaigns-l@wikia.com</a><br><a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="http://lists.wikia.com/mailman/listinfo/campaigns-l" target="_blank">http://lists.wikia.com/mailman/listinfo/campaigns-l</a><br>
<br><br></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>bruce boston<br><a href="mailto:bboston@gmail.com">bboston@gmail.com</a>