There is an event going on in Minneapolis today that is all about what we are doing here (or trying to) at OrangePolitics. The International Symposium on Local E-Democracy may be far away, but they are streaming live audio and video and have an open IRC chat going on.
Chapel Hillian Brian Russell is there in person, and will be on a panel at 3:15 eastern time to talk about podcasting. Watch his blog for updates.
Issues:
I was the founder, administrator, and chief editor of OrangePolitics until I retired from Orange County life in 2014.
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Comments
Ruby, Is Brian in
Ruby,
Is Brian in Minneapolis because Chapel Hill is interested in starting an e-democracy issues forum? This would be a very different animal than OP (don't you think?)
I'm curious, are you contemplating making changes to OP that would help OP live up to the e-democracy charter, goals and rules? (I actually like OP as is.)
(For those interested, go to 'Setting Up a Local Issues Forum' at: http://www.e-democracy.org/)
Mary, Brian is not there in
Mary, Brian is not there in his capacity as a member of the Chapel Hill Technology Advisory Board. He was invited to speak as an activist and a podcaster. However, I'm sure he'll be bringing back some good ideas for Chapel Hill!
I think the e-democracy guidelines are very interesting, but I don't think we can make any major changes here without having paid people-hours to develop additional software tools and actively moderate the community. At least for now.
I think it would be appropriate for the town governments to look into this since they are invested (or should be) in broad, nonpartisan participation. I totally agree that it should be very different from OP.
The e-democracy.org Issues
The e-democracy.org Issues Forums are citizen driven, not government sponsored, so I don't think it would be appropriate for the IT board to get try and start one for Chapel Hill. According to Steven Clift, the founder, they prefer to use email for their discussions rather than a threaded forum such as OP. However, they drive the whole thing with an open-source software application that captures emails and posts them to a website for anyone who wants to read but not participate in the discussions.
I've been subscribed to the St. Paul Issues Forum for about 3 months now and there is some similarity to OP discussions, although the rules subscribers agree to abide to when they subscribe, would not allow some of the comments found here (they have a forum moderator who is tasked with enforcing the rules).
The biggest difference I find between the Issues Forum and OP is that more elected officials and local bureaucrats participate in a substantive way on the Issues Forum. I've been very impressed with some of the responses they have provided both in terms of response to angry citizens and their ability to describe technical problems in easily understood language. Although we have a few elected officials here on OP, I haven't recognized any bureaucrats other than Patrick MdDonough (whose posts I always find to be incredibly informative and well constructed). Although I've invited a few bureaucrats to join certain discussions here, none have taken up the offer yet.
YEP! I'm here as a
YEP! I'm here as a individual who plans on bringing back as much valuable lessons learned from around the globe as I can. Just check out my blog and podcast at audioactivism.org and this thread on orangepolitics.org. Here is the URL for the of the International Symposium on Local E-Democracy. http://www.dowire.org/wiki/International_Symposium_on_Local_E-Democracy