IP Democracy: Wikipedia Founder: Ramp Up Intelligence in Politics

Courtesy of Grant Gross at Network World, Wikipedia’s founder Jimmy “Jimbo” Wales has started a wiki on political campaigns called the Campaigns Wikia. The mission for Wikia in brief is

It’s time for politics to become more intelligent, and for democracy to really involve the people. Broadcast media tells you what to think and doesn’t let you get involved. It’s time to focus on what you need, what you care about, and the messages you want to get out.

In a more lengthy mission statement, Wales says he has started Wikia to get campaigns to take notice of bloggers, wikis and the new era of participatory politics.

One hallmark of the blog and wiki world is that we do not wait for permission before making things happen. If something needs to be done, we do it. Well, campaigns need to sit up and take notice of the Internet, take notice of bloggers, take notice of wikis, and engage with us in a constructive way.

The candidates who will win elections in the future will be the candidates who build genuinely participative campaigns by generating and expanding genuine communities of engaged citizens.

Right now Wikia is organized according to seven topics: International Affairs, education, civil rights, public benefit, social welfare, economy and upcoming elections. It looks a lot like Wikipedia, with entries for each category that summarize the topic and include user submissions.

This section, for example, on the Democratic Party provides a brief description of what the party is, the hot topics facing Democrats, key mid-term election challenges (although this section definitely needs beefing up), and the current slate of Democratic presidential hopefuls.

Posted by Cynthia Brumfield on July 7, 2006 9:06 AM to IP Democracy