WikiDemocracy is the first experiment in the world to write the parties’ programs bottom-up.

It is still under development and focused on Italy, but we plan to internationalize it as soon as possible. If you wish to cooperate in order to translate some pages, if you want to support with donations, and/or you are a no-profit organization and willing to support us for deployment in other countries.

Involve, a UK-based independent organisation focused on the practicalities of giving more power to ordinary people, just launched a new participation website.

People and Participation.net is a new radical resource to help people across the UK influence Government decision-making. The site combines the strengths of an expert guide to participation with interactivity and inclusiveness of a wiki.

Key features include:

• An interactive tool which helps practitioners to select participatory methods based on their specific circumstances
• A comprehensive methods database, covering over 30 traditional and innovative approaches to public participation from around the world
• A selection of case studies, showcasing good practice and allowing site users to post their own success stories to inspire others
• A section for site users to post their questions about participation. Involve staff will respond to these questions and thereby create an ever growing knowledge bank of answers to common.
• News and events information from the UK and beyond
• A comprehensive library of written and web-based resources from around the world to help site users make sense of public participation

It has been designed by social media specialists Headshift, with funding from a couple of UK Government departments. Involve hopes that the site will be a creative space where officials, councillors and citizens can share their success stories.

New Zealanders have been given the chance to write their own laws, with a new online tool launched by police.

The “wiki” will allow the public to suggest the wording of a new police act, as part of a government review of the current law, written in 1958.

Police say they hope to gain a range of views from the public on the new law before presenting it to parliament.

The wiki, one of the first of its kind in the world, is open to any internet user, police say.

Read full story

‘Digital Dialogues‘ is an independent investigation into the use of online technologies to promote dialogue between the UK’s central government and the public.

The Digital Dialogues pilot is an initiative established by the Democratic Engagement Branch in the Department for Constitutional Affairs (DCA).

The Hansard Society’s eDemocracy Programme was commissioned to administer ‘Digital Dialogues’ and produce the case study evaluations. The Hansard Society is an independent, non-partisan educational charity.

Phase One of ‘Digital Dialogues’ took place between December 2005 – June 2006. The interim report released in December covers Phase One and contains case studies and draft guidance from that phase.

Six case study evaluations were completed in Phase One, involving a cross-section of central government agencies, departments and ministerial offices. The case studies used web-based applications, including blogs, forums, surveys and webchats.

Evaluations were generated through analysis of site statistics, interviews with case study owners in government, and surveys with registrants and site users.

Phase Two of ‘Digital Dialogues’ is scheduled to be conducted between August 2006 – February 2007. It provides an opportunity for longitudinal evaluation of case studies to test the guidance created following Phase One. In addition, phase two will make available applications that are beginning to see mainstream use – wikis, podcasting, file-sharing directories, audio-visual blogs, mapping software, virals. New case-study leaders will also be encouraged to combine applications – for example, converging polling software with forums, or photo-sharing with mapping tools. Any applications will be offered the opportunity to make use of one or more of these platforms in isolation from or in parallel to conventional, offline techniques.

The report from this phase is scheduled for April 2007.

Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, now contains pages on e-democracy in English, Hebrew, German, Italian and Portuguese.

The English page is by far the most exhaustive.

More Perfect is an interesting new site for collaboration on policy prototypes. Built on MediaWiki, the site allows anyone to add or change issues or policies. For example, you can rewrite the United States Constitution, and you can question/discuss changes or additions. This is potentially a great tool for evolving policy with a high degree of openness, transparency, and citizen participation.

In the words of More Perfect’s co-founder and CEO Tim Killian “We want to become the place were people gather to discuss, improve and create better laws and public policy. More people. More ideas. More perfect.”

More Perfect has just announced its first direct partnership, with the People’s Waterfront Coalition (PWC) in Seattle to facilitate citizen involvement in a “transit and streets” proposal for replacement of the Alaskan Way Viaduct. There are sections for defining the problem, setting goals, and determining a plan for action. Much of the content already on the site focuses on Seattle and Washington State, but there’s sections for all states to have voters’ guides and townhalls. The site also integrates a WordPress blog and phpBB forums.

Read full story

Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales has recently announced Campaigns Wikia, an effort to bring political discourse to the masses using the humble wiki as the platform.

“Blog and wiki authors are now inventing a new era of media, and it is my belief that this new media is going to invent a new era of politics. If broadcast media brought us broadcast politics, then participatory media will bring us participatory politics.”

“[It is] 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.”

“Together, we will start to work on educating and engaging the political campaigns about how to stop being broadcast politicians, and how to start being community and participatory politicians.”

- Read Campaigns Wikia mission statement
- Read background article

Recently, reports FutureLab, Motorola created a new community edited “user manual” for its new Q Phone. Essentially Motorola has set up a wiki, using the same software as wikipedia, that anyone can edit to serve as the new phones user manual.

Because the possible applications for the Q will always expand, the “ideal” user guide would also be able to grow and change. This wiki is an attempt to do that. It’s a place to capture and share the knowledge of the greater community of Q users. If, for example, you have added a new application to your Q, you could post instructions on how you did it here, for the benefit of all Q users.

Again, only a tiny percentage of the customer base will actually contribute to this wiki, but it will provide a huge amount if value to the larger community.

What if a public authority did the same for how to best interact with public services? Citizens would write from their perspective, rather than from an institutional perspective, and could help guide other citizens within a system which is sometime difficult to navigate initally?

Wikis, blogs and other interactive tools are making it easier to find out what people really think of their government and its services.

Read full story

Open Polis è una community di persone che si interessano di politica e nuovi media. Alcuni lavorano da anni nel campo delle nuove tecnologie, altri stanno nelle universita’ e nella scuola.

Open Polis is a community of people interested in politics and new media. Some work in the field of technologies, others are at educational institutions and universities.

Democrazia elettronica partecipazione pubblica (DEPP) è un’associazione senza scopo di lucro che promuove l’uso delle rete per favorire la trasparenza pubblica e la partecipazione collettiva al controllo delle informazioni e delle scelte politiche.

Crediamo nel potere della collaborazione, della condivisione, della creatività collettiva, del dono, del gioco, della passione disinteressata, del controllo comunitario senza centri di comando.

Sosteniamo e utilizziamo il software libero e aperto , il sapere, la conoscenza e la creatività liberi da diritti d’autore, i Creative Commons , le reti peer to peer.

Ci proponiamo di lavorare a progetti che sperimentino forme evolute di democrazia che favoriscano nuove relazioni tra rappresentanti e rappresentati.

Intendiamo collaborare con le istituzioni pubbliche e sviluppare progetti indipendenti sostenuti da comunità di persone e gruppi.

voi siete qui è il primo strumento del progetto openpolis, per una politica liberamente accessibile, modificabile e migliorabile dalla comunità degli utenti.

Un intervento permanente nella cosa pubblica, di controllo e influenza sulle scelte politiche.

L’idea è dare uno strumento che permetta a tutti di confrontare i programmi dei partiti su 25 temi fondamentali.

I prossimi strumenti saranno progettati per permettere il monitoraggio comunitario, per ognuno dei 25 temi, delle posizioni di tutti i partiti nel corso della prossima legislatura (prima delle elezioni hanno detto questo, dopo hanno fatto…).

Tutti i progetti di openpolis sono geneticamente open publishing, open content, open source creati e moderati dalla comunita’. Per saperne di piu’ vai su openpolis.

L’idea del progetto openpolis, di cui voi siete qui è il primo strumento, parte dai soci dell’associazione democrazia elettronica e partecipazione pubblica.

Poi si e’ allargata a un gruppo di persone che si interessano della politica e di nuovi media. Alcuni lavorano da anni nel campo delle nuove tecnologie, altri stanno nelle universita’ e nelle scuole. Tutti condividono i principi del progetto. Siamo una comunita’ che vuole crescere, in fretta.

Il sito Voisietequi.it nasce come nuovo strumento per un’azione attiva sull’amministrazione pubblica

Di quali strumenti dispongono i cittadini che intendono monitorare e valutare la politica del proprio paese? Da tempo due siti britannici, Theyworkforyou.com e Opendemocracy.net, lavorano per consentire alla popolazione inglese un controllo più attivo della pubblica amministrazione. Queste esperienze segnalano dunque internet come un valido sistema per avvicinare le masse alla politica favorendo il coinvolgimento trasversale degli individui.

Adesso, attraverso il sito Voisietequi.it, è stato avviato anche in Italia un simile percorso per incentivare la partecipazione. Tramite questo nuovo progetto i cittadini avranno la possibilità di confrontare le posizioni dei partiti sulle questioni più importanti della campagna elettorale, di comprendere quale formazione politica è più in sintonia con le proprie idee e, soprattutto, di conservare un archivio di tutte le promesse dei partiti per poi verificarne in seguito il mantenimento. Questa iniziativa nasce come strumento di lancio di un progetto più vasto, che si svilupperà sulle pagine del sito Openpolis.it.

Read full story