Archive:Wikicracy: Difference between revisions

Latest revision as of 07:49, 12 June 2009

Wikicracy, or Wikidemocracy, the future of democracy, is a model of government based on the open source and "wiki" concepts that have already been brought to the private sector, i.e. Wikipedia. The idea, at its most basic level, is bringing common citizens to the law, and allowing for a transparent law process and maximum public input using the latest technology. The pinnacle of this theory is allowing community members in any given jurisdiction direct access to its laws. Using wiki style editing, people can actually edit their demands into laws.

This is wiki, please contribute to this paper if you feel you are able to add value. Thank you.

Project navigation

Let's imagine the future of wiki

Wikimedia projects

Collaboration using wikis is one of the few revolutionary inventions of the last few years in the social field. The philosophy behind the tool itself is at the same time simple and extremely powerful - everyone can contribute, in their own language, to the building of human knowledge.

Wikis help people to participate together efficiently without having to hold frequent meetings somewhere specific. Everyone can participate, wherever they may be, provided they have access to internet.

And even more extraordinary, is that contrary to forums, chats, e-mail or telephone conversations, wikis build upon what is previously stated; the first contribution made by someone is not forgotten. Over time the information on wikis is corrected (usually), modified, completed (sort of) by all the contributors that will be reading and editing the articles afterwards. Wikis also provide safeguards if someone intentionally or not had come and deleted useful information.

Wikis are already a success:

for the global encyclopedia (wikipedia)
for the dictionary (wiktionary)
for the educational institution (wikiversity)

And other new projects, all having their own part in building a mankind-made information access for mankind.

Wikis are helping to build a global database that can be freely used by all humans, for photos and other media (wikimedia commons).

The revolution has just begun

Where we are

Wikimedia projects have mainly succeeded where information shall be according to the facts, and has focused on the efficient building up of knowledge.

Why ?

Information is always biased in some way, more or less depending on many things. Sometimes, one may focus on one aspect of reality and forget about other aspects; and, in the worst case scenario, false information may be delivered by someone too close to the subject of an article.

Thanks to the community and the wiki tool, a large amount of people check the articles, and thus can complete the other aspects not mentioned in the article, or put a warning if the article is thought to be biased. The more people that are watching the article, the more likely experts in the field will be looking at it, and the less chances are that errors won't get noticed.

This is the key for most perfect information, once we understand that like everything in this world, nothing is perfect, but everything can be improved and can converge to the (unreachable by definition) ideal of perfection.

Are you satisfied with how decisions are made in your community? Would you like to see more transparency?

Where we can go

Just like the facilitation of knowledge creation by wiki that occurs in an article, the wiki tool can become, if adapted, the ultimate tool for building political platforms, public budgeting, and all kinds of public consultation processed. That is, it can become a basic tool for more powerful, more efficient forms of democracy. The efficient facilitation of wide consensus could be achieved. This arguably could be the future of democracy.

Today, what I propose is to build together the tool that will allow a better democracy, this has been called by others political wiki

Requirements:

Accessible from anyone in the world with internet access
Enabling efficient online proposals study/amendment
Vote/adoption procedures and elections
Robust for virtually any kind of group, association, political party, city board, country, international institution
Adaptable to business e.g. shareholders meeting.

To-do list

Discuss name of the project: wikacracy? wikicracy? wikiocracy? wikidemocracy? democracy 2.0? ...
Studying websites related to wiki and software, to democracy and to decision making.
At the same time, listing all the feature that implies this project.
Working on translations of a short resume of the project. Vmandrilly I can do it for French, and maybe Chinese
Designing the interface.
And then later we will need to translate this into computer code...

Existing software

Existing tools and add-ons that may be usefull for this project The fundamental base of the project

MediaWiki --- Here is the available extentions page for MediaWiki.

Vote / poll systems

...
...

Others

...
...

Feature requests

(please post here the functions you would like to see implemented in Wikicracy betas)

Wikipedia

External links

Resources

Guidelines and important related texts:

Open Politics article on wikipedia
ERulemaking article on wikipedia
A speech (video) from Ecuador President Rafael Correa to encourage Web 2.0 democracy! - proves clearly there is a big interest in democracy tools for the internet. Let's build it!

Studying websites related to wiki and software, to democracy and to decision making

These are websites based on wiki and/or democracy principles. They may develop tools for their own wiki that could be used in this project. These websites/wikis may also be the firsts to wish to test Wikicracy betas.

New Zealand Police Act wiki - NZ governmental wiki allowing the internet to input on their police code. While they take input from the wiki, the final decisions are still up to politicians.
Socialtext.com / The Socialtext article on wikimedia / Joi social workspace (a wiki project sharing similar interests) - A wiki developed for businesses / projects. Seems very close to this project.
Metagovernment - More complex that a wiki, but still a mass-collaboration initiative built on openness and transparency. Meant to scale from tiny organizations to major governments. Appears to use something like Slashdot karma to weight users' input. They also maintain a list of related projects.
DemocracyLab - interactive online think tank, similar to Metagovernment
ProtoForge (a similar tool, not based on MediaWiki, meant for organizing engineering laws (requirements))
openpolitics.ca. Note: this project seems advanced, and they have probably made changes/add-ons to their wiki that could be use in this project
DellIdeastorm.com Non politic, but intended to bring democracy in public opinion and gather ideas from the users. The main idea seems to be this 'digging' system in which you can vote to make the issue more or less visible in the ranking. This looks much like the idea of 'priority' flag Vmandrilly designed on the proposal. (see above in 'example' section)
¿WhyNot? Another interesting tool, that integrates some style of debate. and Voting for popularity of ideas flow.
July 2008 P2PFoundation:Deliberative Democracy
Debatepedia.org - a wiki for people in competitive debate
Mass-collaboration.net - Well put together, but low-traffic site
democracy.wikia.com - Another similar site, low traffic
Wikiparty international / Finnish wikiparty - (currently overrun by spammers)
http://wikitution.org
http://our-constitution.org
http://www.policeact.govt.nz/wiki/
http://campaigns.wikia.com
http://change.gov/

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-Wikicracy - Wikidemocracy - the future of democracy.
+{{ntnes}}
+'''Wikicracy''', or Wikidemocracy, the future of democracy, is a model of government based on the open source and "wiki" concepts that have already been brought to the private sector, i.e. Wikipedia. The idea, at its most basic level, is bringing common citizens to the law, and allowing for a transparent law process and maximum public input using the latest technology. The pinnacle of this theory is allowing community members in any given jurisdiction direct access to its laws. Using wiki style editing, people can actually edit their demands into laws.
-Note : this is wiki, please feel free to contribute to this paper. Thanks
+This is wiki, please contribute to this paper if you feel you are able to add value. Thank you.
-----
-== INTRODUCTION : Let's imagine the future of wiki ==
-=== Wikimedia projects : the ultimate tool towards world unification of the human race ===
-[[Image:wikimedia-button.png]]
+==Project navigation==
-Wiki projects are one a the few revolutionary inventions of the last years in the social field.
+{{Col list|3|
-The philosophy behind the tool itself is at the same time simple and extremely powerful : everyone can contribute, in its own language, to the building of humanity knowledge.
+* [[/Proposals/]]
+* [[/Ideas/]]
+* [[/Test website/]]
+* [[/Status/]]
+* [[/Frequently asked questions/]]
+* [[/Joining/]]
+* [[/Features/]]
+* [[/Study/]]
+}}
-It helps humans to participate together efficiently without having to hold frequent meetings somewhere specific : everyone can participate, whatever location he is, provided he has access to internet.
+== Let's imagine the future of wiki ==
+=== Wikimedia projects ===
+Collaboration using wikis is one of the few revolutionary inventions of the last few years in the social field. The philosophy behind the tool itself is at the same time simple and extremely powerful - everyone can contribute, in their own language, to the building of human knowledge.
-And even more, which is absolutely genius, is that contrary to forums, chats, e-mail or telephone conversations, it is building upon what is previously stated : the first contribution made by someone is not forgotten. The information written down on the screen is corrected, modified, completed by all the readers that will be reading the articles afterwards. And it provides safeguards if someone intentionally or not had come and deleted useful information.
+Wikis help people to participate together efficiently without having to hold frequent meetings somewhere specific. Everyone can participate, wherever they may be, provided they have access to internet.
-It is already a success :
+And even more extraordinary, is that contrary to forums, chats, e-mail or telephone conversations, wikis build upon what is previously stated; the first contribution made by someone is not forgotten. Over time the information on wikis is corrected (usually), modified, completed (sort of) by all the contributors that will be reading and editing the articles afterwards. Wikis also provide safeguards if someone intentionally or not had come and deleted useful information.
+Wikis are already a success:
 * for the global encyclopedia ([http://wikipedia.org/ wikipedia])
 * for the dictionary ([http://www.wiktionary.org/ wiktionary])
+* for the educational institution ([http://www.wikiversity.org/ wikiversity])
 And other new projects, all having their own part in building a mankind-made information access for mankind.
-Meanwhile, it helps building a global database that can be freely used by all humans, for photo media ([http://commons.wikimedia.org/ wikimedia commons])
+Wikis are helping to build a global database that can be freely used by all humans, for photos and other media ([http://commons.wikimedia.org/ wikimedia commons]).
 === The revolution has just begun ===
-==== Where we are : efficient building up of knowledge ====
+==== Where we are ====
-Wikimedia projects have mainly succeeded where information shall be according to the facts.
+Wikimedia projects have mainly succeeded where information shall be according to the facts, and has focused on the efficient building up of knowledge.
 Why ?
-Information is always biased in some way, more or less depending on many things. Sometimes, one may focuses on one aspect of reality and forget about other aspects; and, in the worst case scenario, false information may be delivered by someone too close to the subject of an article.
-Thanks to the community and the wiki tool, a large amount of people check the articles, and thus can complete the other aspects not mentioned in the article, or put a warning if the article is thought to be biased. The more people are watching the article, the more likely experts in the field will be looking at it, and the less chances are that errors won't get noticed.
-This is the key for most perfect information, once we understand that like everything in this world, nothing is perfect, but everything can be improved and can converge to the (unreachable by definition) ideal of perfection.
-==== Where we can go : efficient building up of action decision process making - the future of democracy ====
+Information is always biased in some way, more or less depending on many things. Sometimes, one may focus on one aspect of reality and forget about other aspects; and, in the worst case scenario, false information may be delivered by someone too close to the subject of an article.
-Just like the amelioration of knowledge by participation of all people interested in an article, the wiki tool can become, if adapted, the ultimate tool for building up action programs and assist decision making processes. That is, it can become a tool more powerful, more efficient than various basic forms of democracy.
-Today, '''what I propose is to build together the tool that will allow a better democracy''', accessible from anyone in the world with internet access, '''enabling efficient online proposals study/amendment and vote/adoption procedures and elections''', '''for virtually any kind of group of people, association, political party, city board, country, international institution, and could also be adapted to business shareholders decision making'''.
+Thanks to the community and the wiki tool, a large amount of people check the articles, and thus can complete the other aspects not mentioned in the article, or put a warning if the article is thought to be biased. The more people that are watching the article, the more likely experts in the field will be looking at it, and the less chances are that errors won't get noticed.
-== List of ideas for the foundation of the tool ==
+This is the key for most perfect information, once we understand that like everything in this world, nothing is perfect, but everything can be improved and can converge to the (unreachable by definition) ideal of perfection.
-=== Building of Proposals ===
+Are you satisfied with how decisions are made in your community? Would you like to see more transparency?
-* The tool shall be able to do what wiki does already. (writing of proposals classified by categories, history, discussion about the proposals, etc)
-* Categories would not be called ''category'', they would be called ''issues'', and a page would present all issues related facts and if needed, the explanation for why something shall be done about it.
-* The content would not be called ''articles'', they would be called ''proposals''
-* Proposals shall adopt the following structure :
-** main proposition
-** other propositions
-** alternative proposals ('amendment 1', 'amendment 2', etc)
-The pros and against argumentation would not figure in the proposal itself, it would figure in the discussion part of the wikicracy, so that the 'proposal' remains a working document that could be adopted if so decided.
-=== Adoption of proposals ===
+==== Where we can go ====
-((Reminder: this paragraph shall be explained more clearly))
+Just like the facilitation of [[knowledge creation]] by wiki that occurs in an article, the wiki tool can become, if adapted, the ultimate tool for building political platforms, public budgeting, and all kinds of public consultation processed. That is, it can become a basic tool for more powerful, more efficient forms of democracy. The efficient facilitation of wide consensus could be achieved. This arguably could be the future of democracy.
-* Every fixed term or every time administrators of the section believe the proposal has reached a good quality level, a vote is organized. Everyone of the group entitled to vote is contacted by e-mail to cast his vote. The proposal and its amendment reaching a specified % (by default, 50%, but this could be more or less depending of the organization requirements) of the entitled members would be adopted and the executive body shall enforce it. After the % of YES is reached and the proposal is accepted, or after the expiration time for casting vote is reached without reaching the % of YES needed, the proposal shall still be alive and open for modifications, unless a significant % of people vote for abandoning this proposal. Voters will be asked to explain their vote. Votes can be casted on the new amendments, and eventually, if the members are not too many and share common goals, they will all agree to support the final proposal
-(All this to say the objective is 100% agreement on the proposals, but proposals shall be able to be adopted if, let's say between 50% for a very large group with conflicting interests and 100% for a small group of good friends, accept it).
-=== Follow up of action and evaluation of work ===
+Today, '''what I propose is to build together the tool that will allow a better democracy''', this has been called by others [[political wiki]]
-* ''(note: proposal following Gerard remark on the 10th of august)'' : we shall add to the proposal a follow up of decisions taken, (which could take the form of discussion page and/or an evaluation/vote by the members regarding the action of the executive body towards the issue.
-=== Elections ===
+Requirements:
-* A special section shall be available for elections of people.
+* Accessible from anyone in the world with internet access
-** it would present a list of coming elections/nominations and the voting agenda.
+* Enabling efficient online proposals study/amendment
-** people could present themselves as candidates, and a discussion shall be open for those who want to explain why they support this candidate. Another discussion board would be open for each one of the candidate's personal proposals (for or against, and why). And another section would be available to ask the candidates questions. (note : I believe it is not necessary nor good that there be a place available for saying why they hate the candidate. If you don't like someone not because of its proposals, you can just go to another candidate and say why you support him.)
+* Vote/adoption procedures and elections
-** At the time decided and until the deadline is met, every potential voter is asked to cast his vote.
+* Robust for virtually any kind of group, association, political party, city board, country, international institution
+* Adaptable to business e.g. shareholders meeting.
-=== Others ===
+== To-do list ==
-* All vote including choice between more than 2 positions or 2 candidates shall be done by [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condorcet_method Condorcet Method] or other similar systems (a choice between different systems could be proposed later). Results shall be calculated automatically.
+* Discuss name of the project: wikacracy? wikicracy? wikiocracy? wikidemocracy? democracy 2.0? ...
-* For specific demands, a version of the wikicracy should make it possible for the voters to choose to vote/post comment anonymously.
+* Studying websites related to wiki and software, to democracy and to decision making.
-* On the opposite, votes casted by elected representatives shall never be anonymous, representative shall be accountable of their actions towards the people who elected them.
+* At the same time, listing all the feature that implies this project.
-* For specific decision making organizations, it shall be possible to give more weight to the vote of some people than others. For instance, vote for shareholders assembly shall be proportional to its share of the Capital.
+* Working on translations of a short resume of the project. [[User:Vmandrilly|Vmandrilly]] I can do it for French, and maybe Chinese
+* Designing the interface.
+* And then later we will need to translate this into computer code...
-== Status of the project ==
+== Existing software ==
-* Beginning of 2007: idea of a way to put people working together online to make proposals in a cooperative way, and where people could vote on the proposals.
+Existing tools and add-ons that may be usefull for this project
-* Beginning of August: re-discovery of wiki and it appeared that the platform is the best tool for the idea.
+'''The fundamental base of the project'''
-* August 9th 2007: first publication of the project.
+* [[MediaWiki]]  --- Here is [http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Category:All_extensions the available extentions page for MediaWiki].
-* August 10th: first try to make this project known to wikipedians in the perspective of gathering a team of democracy/organization experts and wiki programming experts.
-== People joining the wikicracy project ==
+'''Vote / poll systems'''
-=== Skilled or interested in democracy/organization ===
+* ...
-* '[[User:Vmandrilly|Vmandrilly]]' vmandrillyNOTSPAM@hotmail.com - English Français 中文
+* ...
-* .
-* .
-=== Skilled or interested wiki programming ===
+'''Others'''
-* .
+* ...
-* .
+* ...
-* .
-=== Others ===
-* .
-* .
-* .
-== Already existing tools and add-ons that may be usefull for this project ==
+== Feature requests ==
-[[MediaWiki]]
+(please post here the functions you would like to see implemented in Wikicracy betas)
-=== Vote / poll systems ===
+*
-* .
+*
-* .
-=== Others ===
-* .
-* .
-== FAQ ==
-'''Q:''' Does Wikicracy compete with wiki [http://wikipedia.org/ Wikipedia], [http://debatepedia.com/index.php/Main_Page Wikibate], [[Wikiforum]], [[Wikireason]] or [[Wikireason:Wikireason:related projects]] ?
-:No. Wikipedia, as well as a most (but not all) official wikimedia wikis, are dedicated to gather free content of quality, thanks to the participation of virtualy anyone with access to internet and the work of the community. This project purpose is not to about gathering content. It is not about debating on specific issues either, or setting pools, or whatever.
-:No. This project is about developing further the wiki software so that we can use it better for cooperative working on issues (propositions and debate) / and for decision making (votes) / and for elections. These fonctions are no impossible to do with the wiki software as it is, but is not very functionnal. (not easy to organise a vote and build proposals on a traditional wiki...)
+==Wikipedia==
+{{Col list|3|
+* [[Wikipedia: Wikigovernment| Wikigovernment]]
+* [[Wikipedia: eRulemaking| eRulemaking]]
+* [[Wikipedia: Open source governance| Open source governance]]
+* [[Wikipedia: Open politics| Open politics]]
+* [[Wikipedia: E-democracy| E-democracy]]
+* [[Wikipedia: e-Government| e-Government]]
+* [[Wikipedia: Radical transparency| Radical transparency]]
+}}
-:Yes. It competes with wikis, because ressources/time that would be used and efforts that would be made by programmers to develop this platform will not be availlable for improving even further wikimedia and other information based wikis projects.
+== External links ==
+=== Resources ===
-'''Q:''' Does it concern wikimedia?
+Guidelines and important related texts:
-:No. It sounds like your are just proposing an online debating society, which really isn't something the Wikimedia Foundation would have anything to do with. It will never be a Wikimedia project.
-:Yes. The wikimedia foundation is not only dedicated to free knowledge for all, but is also promoting projects that respects its philosophy, projects where the idea that everyone shall be able to participate to the contents of webpages, for the benefit of all. On the main page is stated "Welcome to Meta-Wiki, a website devoted to the coordination of the Wikimedia Foundation's projects, including Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, and the MediaWiki software on which it runs", therefore, project on improvment of the MediaWiki has its place here
-'''Q:''' ...?
-: .
-== Example / test websites ==
-The project has not yet reach this stage (see status)
-== Links ==
-=== Resources: Guidelines and important related texts ===
 * [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_politics Open Politics article on wikipedia]
 * [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ERulemaking ERulemaking article on wikipedia]
+* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1lsxOnJgp4 A speech (video) from Ecuador President Rafael Correa to encourage Web 2.0 democracy!] - proves clearly there is a big interest in democracy tools for the internet. Let's build it!
-=== Others websites based on wiki and democracy principles, that may develop tools for their own wiki and that could be used in this project ===
+===Studying websites related to wiki and software, to democracy and to decision making===
+These are websites based on wiki and/or democracy principles. They may develop tools for their own wiki that could be used in this project. These websites/wikis may also be the firsts to wish to test Wikicracy betas.
+* [http://www.policeact.govt.nz/wiki/html New Zealand Police Act wiki] - NZ governmental wiki allowing the internet to input on their police code. While they take input from the wiki, the final decisions are still up to politicians.
+* [http://www.socialtext.com/ Socialtext.com] / [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialtext The Socialtext article on wikimedia] / [http://joiwiki.ito.com/jstatic/index.cgi?start_here Joi social workspace] (a wiki project sharing similar interests) - A wiki developed for businesses / projects. Seems very close to this project.
+* [http://www.metagovernment.org/ Metagovernment] - More complex that a wiki, but still a mass-collaboration initiative built on openness and transparency. Meant to scale from tiny organizations to major governments. Appears to use something like Slashdot karma to weight users' input. They also maintain a [http://www.metagovernment.org/wiki/Related_projects list of related projects].
+* [http://www.democracylab.org/ DemocracyLab] - interactive online think tank, similar to Metagovernment
+* [http://protoforge.org/ ProtoForge] (a similar tool, not based on MediaWiki, meant for organizing engineering laws (requirements))
 * [http://openpolitics.ca/tiki-index.php openpolitics.ca]. Note: this project seems advanced, and they have probably made changes/add-ons to their wiki that could be use in this project
-* [http://serv01.siteground193.com/~wikipart/index.php?title=Main_Page Wikiparty international]
+* [http://www.dellideastorm.com/ DellIdeastorm.com] Non politic, but intended to bring democracy in public opinion and gather ideas from the users. The main idea seems to be this 'digging' system in which you can vote to make the issue more or less visible in the ranking. This looks much like the idea of 'priority' flag [[User:Vmandrilly|Vmandrilly]] designed on the proposal. (see above in 'example' section)
-* [http://www.wikipuolue.fi/index.php?title=Etusivu Finnish wikiparty]
+* [http://www.whynot.net/ ¿WhyNot?] Another interesting tool, that integrates some style of debate. and Voting for popularity of ideas flow.
-* [http://democracy.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page democracy.wikia.com]
+* July 2008 [http://p2pfoundation.net/Deliberative_Democracy P2PFoundation:Deliberative Democracy]
-* [http://www.metagovernment.org/ metagovernment]
+* [http://wiki.idebate.org/index.php/Welcome_to_Debatepedia%21 Debatepedia.org] - a wiki for people in competitive debate
+* [http://www.mass-collaboration.net/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page Mass-collaboration.net] - Well put together, but low-traffic site
+* [http://democracy.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page democracy.wikia.com] - Another similar site, low traffic
+* [http://serv01.siteground193.com/~wikipart/index.php?title=Main_Page Wikiparty international] / [http://www.wikipuolue.fi/index.php?title=Etusivu Finnish wikiparty] - (currently overrun by spammers)
+* http://wikitution.org
+* http://our-constitution.org
+* http://www.policeact.govt.nz/wiki/
+* http://campaigns.wikia.com
+* http://change.gov/
-[[Category:Proposed projects]]
+[[Category:Project proposals]]
 [[Category:Research]]
+[[Category:Wikicracy]]

wikademia>Wikademia