I'm taking this site at its word, and throwing out a raw concept --- this is mostly stream-of-consciousness and not fully thought through --- Brainstorming in fact.
It would be interesting to develop a site that allows targeted discussion on issues of policy. This would be a cross between a forum, a mailing-list, a wiki, and ultimately a collaborative faq.
This would allow a convener to post a specific matter of interest. This would kick-off a discussion thread, supporting both email and rss/web interaction. There would also need to be a revision controlled "response" page, edits to which would be injected, with supporting annotations and metadata into the thread for further discussion. Then by selecting from amongst these proposed "revision sets", a final draft-response would be able to generated; submitted for consensus sounding; and ultimately advanced to a final editing and polish before final publication.
This would support widespread, open collaboration; while, providing structure, focus, and process-support to help bring the discussion to a concrete result.
The final product would then be a question linked to a response annotated with the discussion, revision-sets, and edits that generated it.
Other features worth considering might include:
- Cross-linking support between discussions.
- Multiple non-authoritative illustrative drafts able to be generated by members.
- Metadata and Source feeds for use in external mashups.
Comments (5)
I endorse this idea. I was going to post a new idea, but this one comes close enough to what I have in mind. In the spirit of collaboration, I'd just like to elaborate on it.
First, the open collaboration written about here is commonly referred to as "deliberation". Please refer to my submission to the Taskforce: http://gov2.net.au/submissions/ron-lubensky/.
In addition to the features listed here, may I suggest:
1. Some processes could step through discussion phases that help build and synthesise a solution or approaches to one. For example, articulate the real policy problem, enumerate past attempts to address it, identify perhaps conflicting societal goals, relate solutions to bridging those gaps.
2. Include a formal way for subject matter experts and stakeholders to inject their perspectives without overwhelming the participation of lay citizens. For example, include scheduled events when participants can chat live online to work through particular items together and view expert or stakeholder presentations.
3. Use trained facilitators, especially those who are members of the International Association for Public Participation (iap2.org, iap2.org.au). We need more opportunities for face-to-face facilitators to gain online experience.
4. For some policy issues that require broad creative input from across Australia rather than partisan contestation, use stratified random sampling to gain a demographically representative cohort of participants.
5. Compel Departments through Cabinet directive or even legislation to always use this method of public engagement, thus embedding deliberative processes in policy-making.
There are several projects underway around the world now to develop software platforms to support the kind of online deliberation described here (e.g. civicevolution.org)
OK,
Just to be clear, the site would use an "aggregation of tools", and a process which is flexible. Kate lundy is making an attempt with this publicsphere.
http://www.katelundy.com.au/2009/07/24/public-sphere-3-australian-ict-creative-industries-development/
But ultimately we're just talking until aph procedures committee undertakes a renovation.
Would be great to 'join the journey' of government policy right at the start i.e the brainstorming phase and see how it shapes up after successive interactions between public and public servant. Be great to get young people involved with a process that delivers the possibility of change based on everyone having a 'say' in a robust discussion that moves policy beyond the confines of the Department of...
A key idea in the whole Govt 2.0 debate I think. The intention is clear (and explicit in a couple of the other comments too) - making it a more natural and reflexive policy development practice to source ideas, discussion and expertise from a wider range of people both inside and outside government.
The idea too of using this model not just to discuss ideas already on the agenda, but to find ways to use this approach as part of the agenda-setting process itself, seems especially powerful.
Can I be explicit, because the agimo team has been doing as good job in pioneering what we're discussing on this thread.
They started with a blog.
Then they used this idealscale (stolen from obama's team, but attracting people who are noticebly more polite). Perhaps it could be massaged into Dell's approach http://www.ideastorm.com/ideaTopContributors?pt=Top%20Idea%20Contributors
The next step, if we follow the usual community growth path, would be a wiki. It would be nice if the guys from wikimedia aus were bought in here, as the main software guy, Tim Starling, lives with WMF's co-founder in Hornsby (syd). Wikipedia is going through this attempt at new governance too you know, so it would be nice to see us helping the yanks out.
The next step after that will be a more inclusive forum, preferably run by a few moderators from different agencies, like whirlpool do (don't like the interface, but the guys at sitepoint might come up with something special, if asked. They're in Mel)
And lastly, when all the stuff is spread around the place, and things fragment around a bunch of domains, cause every agency will start doing a copycat, everyone will start talking about a SSO. Then we'll have to begin to reinvent the wheel, together.