All posts in the topic What about... why you are here? (Short link)

From: Mike Pearson Date: 2009 Jun 16 13:46 NZST Short link

On Mon, Jun 15, 2009 at 11:28 PM, Nathan Torkington
<email obscured>>wrote:


> Does that sound right to everyone?  I'm happy to listen to "what about
> ...".
>

Hi Nat, No it does not sound quite right to me.

Everyone is free to do what they want as individuals, but if we want good
will, and other people to participate, then we need to discuss our unspoken
expectations up front.  Based on some previous discussion we've had
offchannel (summary <http://docs.google.com/View?id=dfzfjc8z_0pd4ph9dx>),
and on this list, we may all have different expectations.

It is worth taking some time to discuss these things up front.  I've seen
too many groups start well, then fall apart, because of differences of
ideology and opinion.  Similarly I've seen great ideas fail because the
driving force loses interest, or gets run over by a bus.  Failures not only
burn those volunteers involved, but also the public who participate, and any
future group who will find the pessimistic barriers higher.

 This mailing list appears to include people interested in:

   - Copying mysociety initiatives as a "good thing"
   - Creating an open data catalogue as a "good thing"
   - Creating a popular website, to use as a political platform
   - My interest - creating an apolitical charity to hold open democracy
   tools

I think there are a lot of people with a lot of ideas, but devil's advocate
- is that the basis for a group?  Fixmystreet is a prototype, why should
there only be 1 application?  Lets have 3 competing websites; or 30?  What
makes us think there should be only one?
    

---
So here's my expectations...

My interest is in creating a resourced organisation, that cannot be captured
by any interest group, that can act as a home for open democracy tools.  It
might fund creation of new tools.

What should such an organisation be like - it might help to rephrase it as a
question ... if I built a really successful open democracy application, and
had 1 week to live, what organisation would I be happy to leave it with, to
look after it, to grow it and get better?  How would such an organisation
get its funding?

Its charter might be something like...

---

   - We will establish and register a non-profit charity. The charity's
   purpose is to promote open and transparent democracy, while remaining
   politically neutral.
   - The charity will conduct and promote research into the use and effects
   of information and communication technologies in the context of the
   operation of any body or bodies which has or have an electorate...and to
   disseminate the useful results of such research for the benefit of the
   public.
   - By realising the public right to know, we will foster an improved
   culture of corporate and government accountability, thereby contributing to
   social and economic justice.

 I would propose a similar governance structure to the UK model:
http://www.ukcod.org.uk/Structure
---

Mike