Difference between revisions of "Issuepedia:Wikicitizens"

Latest revision as of 21:38, 29 September 2007

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Issuepedia:Issuegroups

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-==Overview==
+#redirect [[Issuepedia:Issuegroups]]
-[[Issuepedia:Wikicitizens|Wikicitizens]] is the working name of a project to create an online forum for reaching group consensus on difficult issues via rational discussion of relevant information.
-While Issuepedia does allow non-[[wikipedia:Wikipedia:Neutral point of view|NPOV]] writing within articles, those opinions are not intended to reflect any kind of consensus or agreement amongst Issuepedia's editors (see [[Issuepedia:About]] for explanation of this policy).
-The purpose of Wikicitizens, by way of contrast, is specifically to arrive at a set of opinions or decisions upon which the contributors can agree.
-==Woozle's take on things==
-===Multiplicity===
-It seems almost inevitable to me that any given social group (online or not) will gravitate towards any of several tenable ideological viewpoints, and that as the group consensus moves closer to any particular viewpoint, those who disagree with that viewpoint will no longer feel comfortable and will cease to participate.
-Alternatively, a group may attempt to be ''too'' inclusive, and nobody will feel comfortable expressing a strong opinion for fear of alienating everyone else, and eventually very little of real substance will be discussed.
-In order to avoid either of these scenarios, it seems to me that it will be necessary to be able to '''split off separate groups as needed''' in order to accomodate irreconcilable viewpoints. This does ''not'' mean that there can be no further dialogue once a viewpoint has become "split off" into its own social group; on the contrary, allowing members of a group to work out their point of view in safety means that when discussions take place ''between'' groups,  underhanded discussion tactics and [[rhetorical deception]]s should be much less tempting (each participant knowing that they are ''not fighting alone'' for truth and justice) and easier to spot (all participants having''having access to the same facts'' and being well-armed with the ability to spot poor discussion technique).
-Ultimately it should then be easier for an inter-group dialogue to work out some acceptable compromises. The design of Wikicitizens should take this into account at the earliest possible stage.
-This mirrors the existence of political parties; these parties originally formed around ideological points-of-view (though in many cases they have moved away from their original positions). It is important, however, to avoid setting up any kind of system where only the top two parties have any notable influence on inter-group discussions (a [[wikipedia:two-party system|two-party system]]); this should be easy enough to accomplish.
-This is not to say that I see wikicitizen groups paralleling existing political parties, though there will probably be some overlap. I hope we can start moving away from the current outdated system and towards something where people stay with a group for two reasons: (a) because they all agree on basic philosophy, even if they're still working out the details of how to ''apply'' that philosophy, and (b) because they like ''each other'', as conversation partners and as people.
-This also means that we are not so much looking at the design of a single "wikicitizens" site as a meta-design for multiple sites to use, of which we will create at least one in order to get things rolling. We will also need to work out how group-forming discussion takes place. Where does someone go if they want to announce "Hey, I want to start a group whose central premise is X"? Should there be a central, non-partisan site? Or should such announcements be posted in appropriate places within groups whose members might be sympathetic?
-Another question: what is the nature of "citizenship" within a wikicitizen group? Can individuals belong to more than one group? We can probably start out by saying that such rules should be decided by each group; some may choose to be exclusive and others may choose to be open &nash; but these are among the considerations which a new group must decide upon during formation. The role of the central, "seed" site, then, will include listing such questions and, as various different policies are tried by different groups, maintaining notes on how the different policies have worked out for each group.
-==Site Roles==
-* '''Wikicitizens''' draws upon the sketching-out of issues and opinions in '''Issuepedia'''. Its job is to allow a group (or groups) of like-minded people to reach rational opinions and make rational decisions, with documentation, making use of Issuepedia as a primary source for what is known about the facts and extant opinions on each issue.
-* '''Issuepedia''' draws upon the more complete and (more or less) unbiased information in [[Wikipedia:Main Page|Wikipedia]], and possibly anecdotal and practical information in [[htyp:Main Page|HTYP]]. Issupedia's job is to extract the "bones" of the issue from the surrounding "matrix" (in the archaeological(?) sense) of related facts (including opinions and arguments) in Wikipedia and elsewhere.
-This page isn't really finished yet, but it's a good start...
-==Links==
-* [http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikicitizens Wikicitizens] proposal in Meta

Difference between revisions of "Issuepedia:Wikicitizens"

Latest revision as of 21:38, 29 September 2007

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