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Jimmy Wales Starting Campaign Wikis
Posted by
samzenpus
on Thu Jul 06, 2006 03:59 AM
from the how-long-until-the-religion-wiki dept.
from the how-long-until-the-religion-wiki dept.
Billosaur writes "Jimmy Wales, self-described creator of the Wikipedia, is apparently trying to bring the functionality offered by the Internet encyclopedia to a new realm: politics and political campaigns. He is starting a new website, the Campaigns Wikia, which '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.' Sounds intriguing, but one has to wonder if it will be plagued by internecine feuding, punditry, and political manipulation."
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Not at all like wikipedia then (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Not at all like wikipedia then (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Not at all like wikipedia then (Score:3, Interesting)
As for the c
Already being done (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Already being done (Score:3, Insightful)
This sounds familiar (Score:2, Interesting)
As much as I respect Wales and Wikipedia, I don't really think th
Re:This sounds familiar (Score:5, Funny)
no, No, NO! That's childish! (Score:4, Funny)
See, that's how adults do it.
Re:This sounds familiar (Score:2, Interesting)
However, if it were to work, they coul
Interesting, we'll see (Score:5, Interesting)
At least an initiative like this will bring the discussion more in the open and make the process of policymaking a little more transparent.
Careful (Score:3, Funny)
Objectivity, please! (Score:4, Insightful)
No... you provide the facts, we provide the opinion. That's how this works.
I wish people would stop trying to put their own spin on
Re:Objectivity, please! (Score:2)
No, please keep ideas of objectivity off this wiki!
Some of the greatest tensions in wikipedia are its struggle to be objective. Objectivity is something which can be aimed for but never achieved. The Neutral Point of View position in wikipedia is freque
Re:Objectivity, please! (Score:2)
Re:Objectivity, please! (Score:2)
Spin? I wasn't aware that voicing an opinion is spin, bu
am I too cinical about this? (Score:5, Insightful)
Call me cynical, but this sounds idealistic to me. It is my opinion that in most parts of the world politics stopped being about "serious ideas of inteligent oponents" to transform into:
In a word, mostly propaganda.
Also, I think arguments, hovever intelligent they may be, don't change anything by themselves, but only if people listening to them are actually willing to listen (and I wouldn't bet much on that willingness).
Maybe I'm of this opinion only because I'm coming from one of the countries that was behind the iron curtain; Who knows?
Re:am I too cinical about this? (Score:2)
* "give me your votes"
* "how to look good in front of the voter
Re:am I too cinical about this? (Score:2)
And another big question: Is the propaganda attractive because it's more easily obtained, or because people like it better?
Wikipedia functions, and there are any numbe
Re:am I too cinical about this? (Score:3, Informative)
That must be the point. (Score:4, Funny)
Surely that's the point, by giving them a home maybe he can keep all that crap off wikipedia.
I'm sure this is at least in part his reasoning - after all the "Politicians editing there candidates wikipedia pages" scandals.
Good idea - can we go International with this? (Score:5, Interesting)
awareness of the practise of politics and a central area where peoples opinions
on political issues and agendas can be seen in near real time. Much different
than the "write a letter to your congressman" or (in Ireland), "go meet with
your local councillor", where you have to account for the time it takes for
your opinion/issues to filter up and down the food chain.
There is also the "mob mentality", whereby if enough people have the same
views on a certain issue, then it has the potential to sway political thought.
How about developing this further, into a Wiki for other nations and political
regimes similar to (or dissimilar to) Republican Democracy.
Note: Republican here means the method of democracy practised, not the party.
Re:Good idea - can we go International with this? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Good idea - can we go International with this? (Score:2)
views on a certain issue, then it has the potential to sway political thought
Sure. That's what I want, too. Mobs, ruling. Just give me the chance to buy up stock in some torch and p
Re:Good idea - can we go International with this? (Score:4, Interesting)
As an American voter, I have found myself in bitter debates with conservatives, liberals, moderates and extremists (my parents were both lawyers- it really messed me up). I find it hard to select candidates who represent my hodgepodge of values and opinions. However, after a civil debate, I often find that my "opponent" and I agree in basic principle, but are hung up on some minor detail or interpretation. Other times, I am ignorant of the whole story, and forced to reconsider my position.
Like I say, I'm an American (and proud of it). I live in a counrty in the midst of an unpopular war with Iraq, and high tensions with Iran. North Korea has started to fire missles towards Japan. You are from Ireland, and our countries trade millions of dollars in goods every day. Politics in 2006 are international. I want to hear your opinion on these matters- they affect you too! We Americans NEED to hear the "international opinion"- not from the media, but straight from the ma11achy's mouth.
I love the idea of a civil international forum that encourages *all* sides (there are *always* more than 2) to be debated with courtesy and common respect. It's probably a pipe dream. Then again, they said the same thing about WikiPedia a decade ago. Time will tell.
Three words to the admins of this new venture: structure, structure, and structure. Unless this forum is given a solid structure, and fast, it is going to degenerate into the ugliest of flame wars. The article on "gay marriage" is already a mess.
Re:Good idea - can we go International with this? (Score:2)
In America things like values and opinions have very little to do with who gets elected. Things like intelligence and positions also don't really matter all that much
Re:Good idea - can we go International with this? (Score:2)
While it may be perceived that issues don't matter, I think the problem is that you aren't paying attention to what issues don't matter.
Almost all elections in th
Unlikely to be used outside a narrow group (Score:4, Insightful)
The reason for this is that allowing something to be put down on paper in a way implies that the view is "legitimate" - "it has been formulated, therefore it must be viable".
This is again tied to the principle that 'will' weighs ten times that of 'facts' - since nothing can ever be proven or beyond attack in humanistic subjects. The complexity of human interaction is so that any connection can be argued, and any refuted - e.g. if a reduction in alcohol prices is followed by a reduction in drink driving, you can just jump on the (often justified bandwagon) that "A did not cause B, rather third factor C caused B". And the relevance of any historical experience is in doubt, since all situations are fractally different.
For this reason, as stated, "Will" and "Formulation" is what it's all about. Formulate your arguments in a good-sounding way, and go a long way towards having them relied on. Destroy your opponents formulations, and destroy their capacity to influence politics. This is why political information wars now is so heavily dominated by the credibility of sources - if you discount a source as irrelevant (CNN, Sky News, WHO, UN, World Bank, IMF, Grandmothers for AIDS), you implicitly seek to attack their formulations and will. Chains of arguments and logic are much more rarely sought to be attacked, because of the mentioned difficulty of doing so.
Also relevant is that, usually, the more fundamentalist someone's opinions are, the more vehemetly he or she states and fights for them. 'Fundamentalist' doesn't neccessarily imply 'wants to cook with rocks', rather 'unwillingness to consider validity of other points of view'.
The result of these is that you will get a wiki where, occasionally, a Joe Bloggs will come in and formulate an argument - "I think we should add a tax to petrol, so that more people will buy cars that use less fuel", or "I think we should have more work in prisons, so that prisoners can do something good for society and learn something useful as well".
This will immediately be pounced on by said fundamentalists, and utterly destroyed. As in, Joe Bloggs is made to look like a fool and an ass. Note that the chain of arguments is impossible to attack, since society is too complex to predict an entire chain of causality and morality - it may well be that positive results _will_ happen with few adverse consequences. Because this is impossible to prove or refute, the destruction of Joe Bloggs will simply rather happen through an appropriately shaped rhetorical package, approximately three times the length of his post (length matters). By destroying Bloggs' formulations in the easiest way possible, you implicitly destroy his will and influence to try those formulations in real life. Joe Bloggs predictably leaves.
For this reason, any 'political' blog is very likely to end up with a lot of posturing, a lot of rhetorical barbs and kicks on the shin, a lot of attacks on formulation sources ("was this proposed by X? I think that says it all"), very little actual intellectual discussion of causality and morality, and only containing people with a combination of rhetorical acuity and enough fundamentalism in their guts to supply the stamina to write every day.
Sorry, but I don't think this is going to work (Score:2)
Maybe the point is . . . (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Maybe the point is . . . (Score:2)
Despite my opposition to Jimmy Wales and his self-promotion, I agree that perhaps he's creating a forum that's greater in scope and I applaud the effort, assuming it does not devolve into the petty squabbling and in-fighting that seems to accompany Wikiped
Redundant? (Score:2)
Original definition: 'carnage' or 'bloodshed' as a result of fighting within a group. Today, it is used more to mean 'internal struggle', in which case it is clearly redundant. But if we consider that today's
Why a wiki is a bad choice for a site like this (Score:5, Interesting)
But it is a good place to put stupid ideas (Score:3, Funny)
debatepoint (Score:2)
Re:Why a wiki is a bad choice for a site like this (Score:2)
It works pretty well for Pete Ashdown's site (Score:2)
For those who don't know, Ashdown is running for Orrin Hatch's US Senate seat. One of the interesting things about his campaign is that he uses the Internet heavily for communicating with potential voters, and intends to continue using it if elected -- on
Religion wiki (Score:2, Informative)
from the how-long-until-the-religion-wiki dept.
What, like this [wikia.com]? Or this [wikipedia.org]?
should there be some moderation system ? (Score:2, Interesting)
If political debate on Wikipedia is any indication (Score:2, Interesting)
Brilliant idea! (Score:3, Interesting)
It's hillarious how quick people are to grab onto the negative, when everybody really wants to be happy.. So you have to fight for your cause and ignoring the negativity.
Someone who started Wikipedia.. That speaks volumes to me. I remember when I was a kid 15-20 years ago, and saw a show on Discovery how our society would turn into an "information based economy", or some such phrase.
To be short: I was completely turned off! In my mind, I thought "If we will be able to share all information with everybody, store collections of books online, meet anyone on the planet, virtual tourism, etc, etc. Why shouldn't it be free? Why wouldn't people collaborate to make up information about every concept known to man?
The show touched that subject, but insisted somehow that there had to be money involved, that our society would value information more. Brokers would buy- and sell bits of information, as if it was a scarcity. That can only happen with DRM and stifling IP-laws, and is not natural at all. I just don't understand this way of reasoning. Sharing is very natural I feel.
Jimmy Wales has clearly understood the real power of the internet and how to tame it. To take on such a project and succeed where everybody else has failed, takes talents in many areas.
Yes, information can be shared indefinately. However, doing so, increases the value of the information to humankind. While if you share a bread with everybody, everybody will die of hunger.. unless you have special connections
To avoid bias, ways of moderating and collaborating on changes are also needed. I'm not saying Wikipedia meets the highest vision of automatizing that, but it does a very fine job because of dilligent and serious editors (hats off). Maybe automatizing is, like K5 and
To get the project known, used and collaboration started, is an enormous feat which is hard to quantify, wether it's luck, PR or good looks
What immediately comes up in my mind why a Wiki for political discussions is a good idea:
Wiki's are made to make a consensus. The further in time you get, the articles should become more and more correct, brushed-up and representative.
Democracy also has an interest in making a consensus, with both majority and minority interests in mind. This is solved today by representative democracy.
Politics is today far removed from the actual people. Also, topics tend to gravitate towards the scandalous, superficial, sex or fear-full, rather than important topics.
Forums do NOT make a concensus. They have many conflicting opinions, but moves very quickly on the next topic disregarding the work that has been put in previous topics. Such a waste of time and effort, so MUCH goes into the drain!
Blogs are also limited to just one author, and the commenters. They gravitate towards news and hot topics, but are not trying to systematically cover everything.
Wiki's on the other hand are supposed to converge into one piece of information, or many collaborated articles, about the whole topic.
I am very interested in how to portray conflicting views though. Maybe each article should have links to the related discussions? Or you could use DHTML to hide much of the discussion behind every paragraph, then choose the view you want to see.
Just see here: http://campaigns.wikia.com/wiki/Terrorism [wikia.com]
After reading this, don't you feel compelled to fill in the blanks, or further the argumentation. The idea is to make the articles more whole
What about a KinkyWiki? (Score:2)
After all, Kinky Friedman's [kinkyfriedman.com] campaign for Guv'nor of Texas is already rather odd [kinkyfriedman.com]. Someone send Jimmy Wales one of the T-shirts, maybe the one that says "Kinky for Governor: How Hard Could It Be?"
Hope springs eternal! (Score:2)
-jcr
Magnesium bolts (Score:2)
Its sacrificial protection, but it won't work, because political trolls need attention and w
New features (Score:3, Funny)
Neutral point of view? (Score:2)
Politics are ugly ... (Score:2)
Wiki's are the future! (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:== VOTE FOR !BUSH == (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:== VOTE FOR !BUSH == (Score:3, Funny)
BTW, should I read the ! in "V
Re:Internecine? (Score:2)
I do. I spent a lot of time studying vocabulary in high school; I also edit and publish science fiction on the side. A good vocabulary is essential, though a word like "internecine" d