Hi Seb, Think of this proposal as a political crowdsourcing *platform*. We know that the White House and the Conservatives have already used GM to capture ideas, comments, ratings, etc. and passed on the results to policymakers, giving both GM and the crowdsourcing idea a lot of publicity.
Now that GM has its own API, it's going to be a lot easier to integrate. Therefore by hooking it up to my existing Poblish, which taps into an archive - or rather a live channel - of political content from bloggers, journalists, Wiki contributors, etc., and already has an API for political content, there's the potential for an open crowdsourcing system that is long-lasting, rather than dedicated to 'What should Obama do now' or 'What should be in our 2010 Manifesto'. Furthermore, the results will be available for the entire political data community, rather than just White House or Conservative wonks. As for what *kind of thing* would be crowdsourced, well, there's a task for administrators to frame some discussions, but essentially I think this can be open. If a particular organisation would like to frame a debate themselves and be seen to be doing this in full public view, that can happen. It might also be that a single blog post spawns something: rather than concentrating that debate in the original blog's own comment-box, hosting on this new platform would open it up to all, it would allow the debate to be connected with other debates from different sites, and it would allow any user or developer to follow it, either in their RSS reader, or via the API. I'm happy to get this going single-handedly, but it's much more likely to succeed if I can get other people to "buy-in" to the vision, offer their advice and experience, etc. Hope that helps, Andrew > Hi, > > Sounds interesting. I don't quite understand exactly what you're > proposing WRT crowdsourcing + google moderator, though. Could you > give me a concrete example of the kind of thing you might crowdsource, > and how? > > Re. collaboration with mySociety: I don't work for mySociety so can't > speak for them, but I do know that mySociety time is at a high premium > at the moment; if you wanted more formal support / collaboration the > best thing to do is wait until the next call for proposals. > > On the other hand if you went ahead and implemented this and could > show its use then I am sure various people on this list would support > it through data linkage and the rest, and possibly more. > > Thanks, > > Seb > > On 18 May 2010 17:48, Andrew Regan <[email protected]> wrote: >> Hi everyone, >> >> I'm proposing a political crowdsourcing system - powered by the new >> Google Moderator API (http://code.google.com/apis/moderator/) - that >> has the following (possibly unique) aims and features: >> >> * To raise user expectations massively, in comparison to the "speak >> your mind", "vote in our leadership poll", and blog comment-box >> interaction models. >> * Following directly from this: raise policymakers' expectations about >> the *quality* and *usability* of crowdsourced content. >> * All discussions can/should be seeded with existing political >> content, rather than created out of a clear blue sky. >> * All discussions to be integrated with, and matched against an >> existing political knowledge base: the content from 2000+ top blogs, >> feeds, and Wikis, from 2002 to date. >> * The results of all discussions to feed back into the knowledge base. >> * To be integrated with an existing, long-lasted, non-partisan system, >> so users don't feel their contributions may be wasted or abused. >> * Wherever possible, the results of all discussions should be freely, >> publicly available, and/or queriable, so they can be used by other >> tools. >> >> In short, the aims are to establish the crowdsourcing model, create a >> really usable technical solution, feed the results back to the >> political data/tech community, and improve policymaking: using what we >> already know to produce fewer bad policies, and to make the process >> more efficient. >> >> Is this something MySociety might like to get involved with? >> >> I'm proposing to implement this system as part of my existing Poblish >> system, as I think we're in a great position to deliver all of the >> above, and I'm hoping that if some of these goals inspire you guys, >> you might be interested in suggesting, advising - here or elsewhere - >> or perhaps even deciding to become more closely involved with the >> work. >> >> I guess the main challenges are: >> >> * Usability (for users) and interoperability (for developers). >> * Promotion and community development. >> * Newness of the Google Moderator API, and the need for users to have >> Google accounts. >> >> Background reading / what this is all about: >> >> * >> http://blog.localdemocracy.org.uk/2010/01/13/poblish-when-crowdsourcing-new-policies-dont-waste-existing-content/ >> * >> http://blog.localdemocracy.org.uk/2010/01/26/poblish-better-blogging-and-better-technology-to-help-crowdsource-new-policies/ >> * http://theconnectedrepublic.org/posts/467 (and comment) >> >> WDYT? >> >> >> Andrew Regan >> [email protected] / +44 7906 123390 >> http://www.poblish.org/ >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Mailing list [email protected] >> Archive, settings, or unsubscribe: >> https://secure.mysociety.org/admin/lists/mailman/listinfo/developers-public >> > > > > -- > skype: seb.bacon > mobile: 07790 939224 > land: 020 8123 9473 _______________________________________________ Mailing list [email protected] Archive, settings, or unsubscribe: https://secure.mysociety.org/admin/lists/mailman/listinfo/developers-public
