Issuepedia:Wikicitizens

alacelc

1. redirect Issuepedia:Issuegroups

Site Roles

How all these different-but-similar sites fit together

• Wikicitizens will draw 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 some documentation of how those decisions were arrived at, to help others understand better), 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, and possibly anecdotal and practical information in HTYP. Issupedia's job is to extract the "bones" of the issue from the surrounding "matrix" of related facts, opinions, and arguments in Wikipedia and elsewhere.
• Wikipedia's role, while generally not regarded as authoritative, can be thought of as reasonably thorough and even definitive; if anyone disagrees with its statements on any given subject, there will almost certainly be discussion to that effect on the "talk" page. No significant stone will be left unturned, and many insignificant ones will be checked as well. Wikipedia may not have all the facts, or even have them all correct (though it generally does a pretty good job), but it can at least be a guide to what pieces of information there are which might need verifying and where one might find more definitive information. Its only flaw, for our purposes, is excess: there is much information which, though clearly on-topic, is not relevant to any issues under discussion.

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 deceptions should be much less tempting (each participant knowing that they are not fighting alone for truth and justice) and easier to spot (all participants havinghaving 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 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