Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales is kicking off a new "participatory politics" web site called "Campaigns Wikia". As he puts it:
"If broadcast media brought us broadcast politics, then participatory media will bring us participatory politics..."
I am launching today a new Wikia website aimed at being a central meeting ground for people on all sides of the political spectrum who think that it is time for politics to become more participatory, and more intelligent.
"This website, Campaigns Wikia, has the goal of bringing together people from diverse political perspectives who may not share much else, but who share the idea that they would rather see democratic politics be about engaging with the serious ideas of intelligent opponents, about activating and motivating ordinary people to get involved and really care about politics beyond the television soundbites."
Laudable goal, Quixotic, maybe, but his heart is in the right place. His view on how politics is parsed through mainstream media hits home:
"Broadcast media brought us broadcast politics. And let's be simple and bluntly honest about it, left or right, conservative or liberal, broadcast politics are dumb, dumb, dumb.
Campaigns have been more about getting the television messaging right, the image, the soundbite, than about engaging ordinary people in understanding and caring how political issues really affect their lives."
So count me in.
I've signed up for the mailing list, and to participate in the Wiki.
Let the Wikification of Politics begin.
UPDATE 1:
As a start, I've posted the following suggestion on an additional organizational frame-work for Campaign Wikia:
"In addition to organizing Campaigns Wikia by topics (International Affairs, Education, Civil Rights) etc., with attendant sub-topics, we may want to consider a temporal organization approach as well.
By that I mean setting up chronological templates like 2010, 2015, 2020 etc., where Wikia members can contribute their thoughts on the issues that are likely to be most pressing for the country BY THAT time-frame.
The idea behind this is simple.
Most of the imperatives that drive political discussions by politicians and the media, are driven by short-term political time-tables, like the upcoming mid-term elections, or the next Presidential elections.
They're then debated through the filters of the right and the left (or the left and the right, depending on your perspective).
Even when we discuss major issues like immigration, education, etc., we're really talking about them in 2-4 year time frames.
And while politicians and the media talk about issues like Social Security in the longer term, due to the nature of the issue, they're talked about in the context of the issue itself, BUT NOT in conjunction with other issues like immigration, education, trade relations with China/India, etc., that are likely going to influence Social Security in the long term.
When you think about it, we have no political or media institution that really has a stake in nurturing discussion and debates on truly long-term issues, especially ones that are not influenced by near-term politics.
At least in the area of economics and the judiciary, we've created institutions like the Federal Reserve and the Supreme Court that truly deliberate on issues and policies for the truly long-term, independent of near-term politicla agendas.
We need to have a similar discussion template for discussing today's issues in the context of tomorrow."
If you have thoughts on this approach, please feel free to comment below.
Alternatively, feel free to edit this suggestion on the site itself here.
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