Difference between revisions of "The Open Lobby"

The goal of this project is to establish an active community, organized around two projects:

• Developing information resources for Oregonians, on the workings of our government and other aspects of society;
• Using a consensus-based process to develop policy proposals, which can then be taken up by the legislature, ballot initiative, etc.

Using modern internet-based technology will be a core aspect of the project, but not to the exclusion of in-person meetings and projects. Accessibility and transparency are the core values, and we will not require people to use an unfamiliar Internet-based tool in order to participate.

Background and general goals

In America's formative days, communication technology as we know it today was nonexistent. A major news story might take days to reach the general public, and active, ongoing communication among large and dispersed groups was utterly impossible.

Actively-engaged citizens were considered essential to the success of our young nation. In light of the technological limitations of the time, representative democracy – in which elected leaders represent their constituents' desires in policy making – was the best available option.

But today, the infrastructure of our world-famous democracy is outdated and crumbling. Many citizens are disengaged – a state often mistaken for apathy – and the ability to influence lawmaking is something we read about in civics texts, more than we experience it in daily life. The devastating consequences of this sad state of affairs are all around us.

The deliberative and negotiation processes that lead to lawmaking have become enormously complex, and lack in transparency. Even today, the public is not aware of who met with Dick Cheney to craft the Bush administration's energy policy, nor do we typically know what developers or out-of-state business lobbyists are bending our City Commissioners' ears. To get a basic understanding of a law (either an existing one, or a proposed draft) virtually requires a law degree, not to mention copious free time. The idea that we are all able to shape the laws that govern us is true in only the most technical sense.

Today, modern communication technologies have altered our daily lives significantly: the telegraph, telephone, radio, television, email, and now wikis, blogs, and extensive online databases.

But the more technology we have at our disposal, it seems, the more complex and uninviting our government becomes. A recent example: an unelected staff worker of U.S. Senator Arlen Specter inserted language into the USA PATRIOT Act reauthorization without, apparently, the knowledge of his boss or anybody else in that body. To anyone familiar with word processors and the "track changes" feature, such a gaffe is almost inconceivable. And outside of government, collaboration and collective decision-making are thriving as never before.

Of course, government tries to adapt to modern technology, but the results range from the embarrassing to the criminal: electronic voting machines that "count" votes according to the whims of their programmers, web sites full of unsearchable PDFs, the need to visit four separate web sites to find information that should be linked together.

Directly changing government to adapt to modern technology would be an enormous project. Thankfully, it is also an unnecessary one. As flawed as it is, our government is designed to respond, on some level, to the will of the people. If we can design and use a system that allows us to develop broad and strong consensus around policy changes, and can communicate our wishes effectively to existing government bodies, they will respond.

It's what advocacy organizations have been doing from the beginning; but we can do it better. Building a solid foundation, and holding transparency and accessibility as core values, we can begin to assess our collective will. We can educate ourselves and our neighbors about important issues, and make good and relevant decisions about how they should be addressed.

We have voices, typing fingers, hearts, and minds. We have friends and contacts, and we are capable of negotiating with adversaries. We also have access to some truly incredible technology.

We can reclaim our democracy. If we don't want it to disappear, we must.

Wiki successes

Systems that are based on new technology – specifically, wiki-based systems – have proven successful beyond expectation.

Wikipedia, an encyclopedia built entirely by volunteers, has yielded some excellent articles. Articles on topics that are deeply controversial, where one might reasonably expect passionate disagreement to prevent meaningful consensus, are often quite good. This results from people talking through the controversial issues, and reaching a consensus on a neutral description that informs the reader, while remaining compatible with various points of view.

But Wikipedia is one example of many. New Zealand set up a wiki-based web site to capture the public's views on what a new Policing Act might look like; by all reports (see "New Zealand Launches Wiki To Help Citizens Draft New Law" and "Police wiki lets you write the law"), it yielded innovative ideas, and was a resounding success.

Please see Wiki success stories for specific examples of how various groups have used wiki-based sites to refine information and/or to be more effective and productive.

Project

The project envisioned will involve two distinct components

• developing objective, factual, and analytical information about how government and society currently operates. (Platform: wiki, database web site, in-person meetings)
• developing policy proposals

It may be best to focus on the first component, first; but both components will be ongoing. (Platform: wiki, Consensus Polling, in-person meetings)

Develop information resources

If a group is going to develop policy recommendations, it is essential that it have information on the issues that will be affected. This information must be accurate, and must be accessible to all participants; in many cases, this means accurate and jargon-free summaries of large quantities of information. Such summaries may be sought out from existing sources, but more often, it will be necessary for this project to research and develop its own resources – for accuracy, impartiality, and in some cases, to respect copyright.

This component of the project will probably rely on a wiki-based web site, but other platforms for more structured information (like online databases dabbledb.com or wagn.org) may be more appropriate for some content. See an example on DabbleDB, a database of (some) Oregon ballot measures. It's also possible that producing pamphlets or other printed media will be desirable.

Existing resources:

• Wikipedia has a lot of good info that's already had broad input. (See the Oregon portal for a good starting point.)
• Oregon.gov has lots of info, including the State Archives, innumerable reports from various commissions, briefs prepared for legislators. this one on taxation looks promising.
• News outlets like the Oregonian, Statesman Journal, etc. are searchable at the Multnomah County Library web site. Portland Mercury, Tribune and other outlets have full archives online.
• Good info often appears on blogs, but is too rarely properly sourced.
• Existing policy analysis and advocacy organizations like Oregon Center for Public Policy, Democracy Reform Oregon have resources online.

Possible projects:

• Complete the Oregon Ballot Measure database on DabbleDB
• Move Oregon Revised Statutes and/or Constitution to wiki, and start linking things up (when were certain laws added, by what process…etc.)
• Overview of taxation in Oregon

Develop policy proposals

Use an online, collaborative process to develop policy recommendations. The idea would be to generate legislation from a truly inclusive process, and thereby influence the relevant legislative body(s) (Portland City Council, Oregon Legislative Assembly, etc.)

This process would rely on wiki software and, most likely, Consensus Polling or some variant thereof. In-person meetings would be essential, to involve those not hip to online collaboration, and to reach new participants. (Talk to John and Leah Frohnmayer.)

Possible issues

• Get government-produced materials released into the public domain, or under a free license (current choice for first project; already underway, achievable, significant)
• (from Jen Yocum) Make and/or implement a street naming policy for Portland!
• (building on expertise of existing core group) Advise government on how to incorporate technology into its web sites, etc. Synergy with continued growth of group. (See video below)
• teacher tenure (Chris Beck)

Side benefits

• Introducing people to wiki technology; see [1] and [2]

Potential pitfalls

Decisions, decisions

• What scale to begin on? (Portland? a school district? Multnomah County? statewide?)
• Privacy, anonymity. My initial thoughts: For development of info resources (part A), real names should be encouraged but not required, and random interlopers can edit without signing up. For policy development, real names should be required, so that we can say at the end exactly who supports it, verifiably. Perhaps some venue, with a fairly high bar, for anonymous comments through an administrator. Finally, it may be necessary to have a totally private area, only available to a select few, for stuff like email addresses, phone numbers etc.
• It's possible, and reasonable, that some participants will want to be anonymous to the public, during the deliberative process, but will be fine with having colleagues know their true name, and with publicly associating their name with the finished product. Is there an easy way to accommodate this?
• Where to host? This needn't be a permanent decision, but what is the best tool and place to begin organizing around this project? Here at AboutUs seems the obvious choice, because of the common interest, the existing community, and the Sponsor a Portal program. However, the lines would be blurred between this organization and the AboutUs organization, due to the skin. This might be bad, especially for a project that will likely be struggling to assert its identity.

Finances and feasibility

A good basic model, as suggested by Brandon, is:

1. Develop the idea to the point where we have a demonstrably committed group of people regularly using the site.
2. Solicit sponsors, who would place advertising on our pages. Sponsors are given the opportunity to "reach a certain audience," as opposed to "influencing a process."

AboutUs is developing a relevant tool: Sponsor a Portal

What expenses:

• Compensation for one person (?) to do recruiting, coordinating, public speaking/media relations, fundraising.
• Any in-person meetings/brainstorm sessions should have ample refreshments.
• Computer equipment?
• Occasional need to pay for extensive research?
• Occasional need for media buys/mailings etc.?

Measures of success

• Community has demonstrable activity, enough to solicit sponsorship/advertising
• Having an elected official or significant candidate for office publicly adopt one of our policy proposals.
• Someone from within the community is inspired to run for office or sponsor a ballot measure based on policy proposal.
• Significant newspaper editorial or endorsement from public figure of policy proposal. (Focus is on content of proposal, not process.)
• Ideal: policy adopted, general public understands how it originated.
• Significant growth of community

Things to avoid

• Putting too much focus on getting the government to change, and incorporate technology. I believe the power of this idea is along the lines of "show, don't tell." The goal is to generate policy recommendations backed by a consensus so strong, that existing government entities will be compelled to adopt them.
• Getting bogged down in technical specifics. The bulk of the work should be in community-building, and on the specific tasks at hand. There will be many technical options, but if we can get the right group dynamic, it won't matter much whether we're on this or that platform.

Participants

Please add your name below, if you're interested in this project. Consider leaving contact info, or a few words about your background, or the nature of your interest. (Posting your email is pretty safe; this wiki site will automatically turn your email into an image, so it can't easily be "grabbed" by spammers.)

• Pete Forsyth,
• Martha Forsyth,
• State Rep. Ben Cannon,
• Christy Splitt,

Random thoughts

Things to incorporate into main text later, maybe. Brainstorms.

Three core values:

• Broad consensus. We seek a unified voice. Where there is dissent, we seek it out, and strive to understand it. We modify positions to make them acceptable to not just any majority, but a broad majority. Decisions that flow from this process will be sensible and stable.
• Accessibility. We will be open to input from absolutely any stakeholder or interested party in any issue we take on. We will find ways to invite people in and help them understand what we're about, and how to contribute. In this way, we will make the parts of government that we touch more accessible to the public.
• Transparency. We will be transparent in our reasoning on every aspect of every project. We will make the parts of government that we touch more transparent.

Related thinkings

• Portal:Consensus Polling
• Pedagogy, Organizing and Wiki (by Mark Dilley)

Similar but actually, different

Blogs

Blogs are a very different animal from what is envisioned here. Blogs can be very effective at bringing people with common interests together, and at providing information. But they are not collaborative tools, and they don't tend to incubate carefully-crafted policy ideas, assess the depth and quality of consensus, or provide the structure that can make a campaign effective. Blogs will make excellent partners though.

Links of interest

• Take a Seat at the Table [3]: Former NEA Chair, and U.S. Senate candidate John Frohnmayer established this organization, which has an approach and mission similar to ours, without as much of an online component.
• DemocracyLab [4]: Another similar project, takes a more "techy" approach.
• The Archimedes Movement [5]: Gov. Kitzhaber is very articulate on the topic of community-driven policymaking. Watch the video if you have time (44 minutes.)
• Free Geek [6] is run on consensus. They have a wiki, too.
• The Bus Project [7] is all about getting folks involved in state politics.
• The Well [8] nurtures online community. Requiring real names is their key to success.
• Baby Wikipedia: start with Wikipedia content, allow it to grow and change on its own.