As pointed out Friday in Stepped-up Enforcement of Two Old Rules, thanks to David Stern and the other folks at MixedInk, interested Kossacks will have a chance over the next two weeks to collaborate in writing (or rewriting) a DailyKos rule. If this democratic process succeeds, then other rules may be rewritten the same way. As some Kossacks may remember, members of the Netroots used MixedInk last year to create The Netroots Platform, an excerpt of which was included in the official 2008 Democratic platform.
I didn’t say "interested" Kossacks just to stick in an adjective. If you’re someone who thinks there should be no rules, that DailyKos should be a total free-for-all where people behave however they wish toward other users, then you’re unlikely to want to be part of this process. And if you’re somebody who doesn’t believe in the whole concept of collaborative process or takes the my-way-or-the-highway approach in group dynamics, then you’re going to be very unhappy as part of this ad hoc rule-making team.
And if you think your time is better spent right now calling up Congresspeople and doing other political work on issues like health care, the climate bill, reproductive rights or the war in Afghanistan, that's perfectly understandable.
If you do have an interest, how much time you commit to the project is entirely up to you. It makes no difference whether you’re one of the users who drafts a version of the rule or one chooses to participate by adding a phrase here or one who takes the what-if role and offers caveats regarding potential unintended consequences. All levels of participation are needed. Lurkers are welcome, too. You need not be a "Trusted User."
Tonight’s task is to pick a rule to collaborate on. That can be an existing rule or it can be one users wish to create. After you’ve weighed in on what you think should be the rule to write or rewrite, I will make the final choice from among those you discuss. As you can probably guess, I won’t choose the 9/11 conspiracy rule. Many users believe that rule should never have been imposed. Or they think it may have once served a purpose but now should be retired or at least edited into a relaxed version of the original. That’s not going to happen. Please don’t make this a diary for arguing the case. We’ve heard all the arguments, every single one of them, multiple times.
I will choose a rule from those discussed here based on how many people seem to want to take it on and on how complex I think it will be to write. Meaning: I’ll most likely select something relatively simple for our first outing.
Before discussing how the MixedInk collaborative process works, it should be reiterated that the guiding philosophy at DailyKos since the beginning has been the fewer rules the better. That hasn’t changed. The idea is to encourage, not stifle, discussion within the progressive, Democratic umbrella. That doesn’t always play out so well in diaries when cliques take it upon themselves to abuse the legitimate goal of eliminating obvious trolls by making it open season on anybody with an opinion they disagree with. Slowly and surely, we’re pushing back against such abuse. This is no easy matter because subjectivity plays such a huge role. And subjectivity is frequently the enemy of fair play. But that’s a topic for another evening.
David Stern started lurking at DailyKos in 2003 and signed up in 2006 to participate here under the moniker entrepreneur. He co-founded MixedInk in 2007 together with Dan Scanfeld and Vanessa Scanfeld, and he has generously agree to set up and help monitor the rule-writing space there for us. David was previously a researcher at the Urban Institute and an associate at a community loan fund. He holds an MS in economic development from the London School of Economics and a BA in economics and anthropology from Cornell University. Before his work at MixedInk, he was a consultant helping local governments and small and medium enterprises work together to promote local growth.
The great advantage of MixedInk’s collaborative writing tool -- something Stanford Law Professor Larry Lessig has called "compelling" -- is that it empowers very large groups, potentially thousands of people, to weave their ideas and opinions into a single text, whether that’s a blog post, mission statement, op-ed, open letter, political platform ... or rule. The tool blends the wiki concept with the Scoop diary recommendation system used by DailyKos. With it, our community can write, remix and rate different versions of text to produce language that reflects our collective voice.
MixedInk’s previous projects include:
• The White House enabled citizens to draft collective policy recommendations for the Open Government Directive.
• The AP invited readers to make the case for and against Sonia Sotomayor's nomination.
• Slate asked readers to write The People's Inaugural Address in the run up to President Obama's inauguration. (The original site, including the full list of speeches people submitted is here.)
• Representative Anthony Weiner invited citizens to provide input on health care reform legislation.
Here’s a demo video to show you how MixedInk works. Or you can go to the site itself and watch it here.
After a rule to work on is chosen following tonight’s discussion, David will set up a space for us and provide a link. We’ll give you the skinny on that in the next diary and provide updates throughout the two-week process.
Let the talk begin. And although I already know how ineffective such admonitions are, I urge everyone to try to keep everyone else on topic.