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To access links, see Steven Clift's blog: http://dowire.org/notes/?p=244 Post: Lessons for Campaigns Wikia - Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, launches anti-broadcast election campaigning wiki on independent .com Wikia service, my seven lessons When Jimmy Wales speaks, people listen. He is the founder of Wikipedia. He also started a company with Angela Beesley that has raised $4 million dollars in venture capital called Wikia. It aims to freely host wiki communities which appear to be supported by adverstising. I've been checking out his call a new Campaigns Wikia and related buzz via Technorati and Google News. Because this effort might drive a real force of volunteers, even if it is not part of the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation, I've decided highlight some of the lessons I've learned from over 12 years of direct experience with efforts to improve politics and democracy online particularly as it relates to elections. My seven lessons are just below the text of Jimmy's open letter to the "political blogosphere": Let's ramp up the intelligence of politics An open letter to the political blogosphere Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales, July 4, 2006 For more than 50 years now, we have been living in the era of television politics. In the 1950s television first began to have a major impact on politics, and the results were overwhelming. 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. 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. One hallmark of the blog and wiki world is that we do not wait for permission before making things happen. If something needs to be done, we do it. Well, campaigns need to sit up and take notice of the Internet, take notice of bloggers, take notice of wikis, and engage with us in a constructive way. The candidates who will win elections in the future will be the candidates who build genuinely participative campaigns by generating and expanding genuine communities of engaged citizens. 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. 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. How will we do that? Is it possible? Jimbo, are you crazy? ... for the rest of his letter see: http://campaigns.wikia.com/wiki/Mission_Statement Steven Clift's Lessons for Improving Elections Online 1. The vast majority of candidates (political parties outside U.S. context) will only do online what is politically imperative or viewed as required by political competition. The democratically interactive exceptions online emanate from extremely rare individuals involved with campaigns not stopped by normally risk adverse campaign managers. Response: The negative consequences of not participating must outweigh the campaign�s predominate expectation that no real voters will care. Campaigns will do something online if they think it will generate free positive media or avoid likely negative public attention. Time limited, asynchronous, online candidate debates (diagram) I�ve worked on, like those hosted by E-Democracy.Org starting in 1994 and the Web White & Blue Presidential online debate in 2000 met the online competitive environment requirement. 2. Candidates only care about THEIR voters during election periods. Those outside the district need to be campaign donors to have any relevancy. Response: To engage candidates, the online system must be geographically relevant because that is how most electoral districts are based. National-based "non-partisan? election issue information is only relevant outside the Presidential campaign if specifically tailored to area candidates/districts. 3. Candidates view the Internet as a way to raise money and organize core supporters not engage voters. Response: The REAL challenge of any non-partisan effort online is to present actual undecided or persuadable voters to competing candidates. Television advertising, often negative, is the primary way to reach this group which determines who wins elections. There is an online solution somewhere, but very nature of the online medium where user choose what to read/view/listen to makes often less engaged undecided/persuadable voters the most difficult to persuade to click through. Most candidate do a terrible job of promoting their websites online. Perhaps Campaigns Wikia can simply make candidates easier to find via search engines. 4. The problem is not "broadcast campaigning? it stoking a fire under broadcast voters. Candidates down the ballot are often extremely conversational one-on-one and in small group meetings. Participatory media should first be used to create participatory citizens. We will be waiting a long long time for "candidates who build genuinely participative campaigns by generating and expanding genuine communities of engaged citizens.? (I am actually a fan of political blogging. It just isn't about bringing people from across the political spectrum together. On DoWire.Org I am hosting an international tactical online community of practice on the topic (debates on political issues are not allowed): http://groups.dowire.org/groups/polblog ) Response: Civically-spirited citizens need to take the lead and create local or geographically defined online participatory spaces. These conversational many-to-many spaces must be hosted in a trusted non-partisan "public? manner and attract area citizens (voters) from multiple political perspectives. If such forums are made up of real voters and play an agenda-setting role through the generation of new public opinion and influence on the local media, candidates and elected officials will monitor them and sometimes participate when it makes political sense. Most politicians will not publicly participate in any activity without a perceivable benefit no matter the moral imperative or call to civic duty. (E-Democracy.Org hosts local Issues Forums in this manner in the U.S. and the UK: http://e-democracy.org/if ) 5. The political blogosphere is an extension of television-style broadcast punditry. While political blogging does represent a democratization of the "pundit panel? on television, most (not all of course) political bloggers are not motivated by civic goals such as abstractly improving the electoral process � they want their side or perspective to win. They are partisans first. Response: The Campaigns Wikia should broaden their volunteer appeal to civic-minded citizens. Perhaps even say things like, "stop political bloggers from further destroying civility in elections? or something. :-) Also, Campaigns Wikia should map out where the information gaps are in promoting informed voting. In the U.S., check in with folks like the League of Women Voters Education Fund, take a look at Project Vote Smart and work to get candidates to fill out their NPAT issue position forms (perhaps you can convince them to release the responses under a creative commons license so you too can carry the data), and the only sites that seem to keep up with candidate websites Politics 1 and the (parts of) the Open Directory. Also, the number one lesson from Web White & Blue in 1998 (archived site) and 2000 � the major media sites attract the most eyeballs for political content. Like we did with WWB, syndicate your content to places where voters are online instead of expectin g them to come to you. On the international level, check out sites like Election Guide for election dates. 6. Candidate data is essential. Once you have a campaign e-mail address or better yet a specific campaign contact you can inform them of new opportunities for their campaign to share information or respond to questions. Now, "if I had a millions dollars? ... I�d foster the creation of a database (creative commons most likely with restrictions on bulk use of e-mail addresses) all elective positions around the world, the geographic area(s) they represent, the term of service and detailed contact data on who currently occupies the position. During elections, the database would be adapted to include candidates. Response: You can effectively collect candidate directory details via a wiki if you can reach the campaigns. Minneapolis E-Democracy did this with our city elections in 2005.We�d like to do this with Minnesota legislative candidates in 2006 but we are waiting for the final state government election filings which happen to include e-mail addresses. To sustain the "million dollar? idea on an international basis, governments would need an incentive/requirement to submit updated "who is running/elected" information in standard formats. Perhaps the Wikipedia/Campaigns Wikia volunteer base could build something like this once, but keeping the data up-to-date at the local level may be beyond volunteer capacity. If this database existed then all over the world non-profit, media, and commercial sites could provide geographically tailored access to candidate and election information. (More importantly access to governance between elections can be enhanced.) Along those lines, our volunteer-driven MyBallot.Net project has been our most popular election content since we created the world's first election-oriented website in 1994. People love being able to type in their address and find out who is on their ballot. We use Minnesota government ballot data to do this, but unlike the government our search is a starting point for exploring candidate information rather than a non-linking dead-end. If others can get ballot data from their state into the right format, we might be able to host it in 2006. 7. Voters need the most help down the ballot. High profile races like U.S. Senate, Governor and President get almost all of the media coverage. An online focus on such races will be attractive to volunteers, but when it comes to value-added content use it may be lost in a sea of information choices while races down the ballot remain an information desert. Response: Some sort of creative commons voter guide question and answer database/system is required. Perhaps Campaigns Wikia could create a template-based page that only the campaign in question can edit to provide short answers to a standard set of questions for local, state, and Congressional positions. Alternatively, volunteers could fan out over candidate and media sites to try and put together a best effort at finding candidate positions. Watch out for blow-back for any errors as well as nefarious skullduggery. We've found that people really like comparison charts. Within our online candidate debates, tthe rapid fire short answer responses (under 100 words) are positively received. I hope you have found these lessons and opinions useful. While are we planning to move our "thin directories" to U.S. election information sources to our wiki for 2008, E-Democracy.Org primarily focuses on locally-focused many-to-many citizen forums. Those inspired by Campaigns Wikia might also be excited by the possibility of starting an Issues Forums in their community. Check out our 60 page "how to" guide and videos: http://e-democracy.org/if One two punch ... perhaps we can find a good way to link Campaign Wikia content to any future local forums within electoral districts to make agenda-setting participatory elections a reality. Sincerely, Steven Clift - http://publicus.net/about.html - [EMAIL PROTECTED] Board Chair, http://E-Democracy.Org Editor, Democracies Online Newswire - http://dowire.org *** Democracies Online Newswire - http://DoWire.Org *** To comment/for links: http://dowire.org/notes/?p=244 To network: http://groups.dowire.org Submit posts: http://dowire.org/submit Member profile for Steven: http://groups.dowire.org/main/contacts/stevenclift ----------------------------------------- Group home for Newswire - Steven Clift's blog posts by e-mail: http://groups.dowire.org/main/groups/newswire Replies go to members of Newswire - Steven Clift's blog posts by e-mail with all posts on this topic here: http://groups.dowire.org/topic/120263 For digest version or to leave Newswire - Steven Clift's blog posts by e-mail, email [email protected] with "digest on" or "unsubscribe" in the *subject*. Newswire - Steven Clift's blog posts by e-mail is hosted by Democracies Online - http://dowire.org.
