[Advocacy Advisors] Connecting knowledge to power: the future of digital democracy in the UK

[Stevie Benton]

Hello everyone,

tl:dr -* Wikimedia UK <https://wikimedia.org.uk/wiki/Main_Page> and Demos
<http://www.demos.co.uk/> are encouraging Wikimedians to participate in an
attempt to crowdsource a submission to a call for evidence on digital
democracy from the Speaker of the House of Commons. You can find the
consultation page here
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Connecting_knowledge_to_power:_the_future_of_digital_democracy_in_the_UK>
and we look forward to hearing from you.*

The Speaker of the House of Commons, John Bercow, has established a Commission
on Digital Democracy
<http://www.parliament.uk/business/commons/the-speaker/speakers-commission-on-digital-democracy/>.
It will report to Parliament in early 2015 with recommendations on how
Parliament can use technology to better represent and engage with the
electorate, make laws and hold the powerful to account. As part of their
work, the Commission have issued a series of calls for evidence. These are
open invitations for members of the public, either as individuals or
groups, to submit responses to a series of questions. They have attracted
responses from unions, academics, non-governmental institutions and private
individuals. The first theme was ‘making laws in a digital age’, and the
second on ‘digital scrutiny’. The Commission plans to shortly publish the
final three themes.

There is a growing sense that the growth of the Internet has not paid the
democratic dividends that it could. Turnout in formal political elections
is steadily decreasing, and trust and support in the institutions and
offices of mainstream political life are low and falling. Despite many
innovative attempts from both within and outside of Government, the daily
reality of democratic engagement for most people in the UK would be
familiar to generations of British citizens who predate Facebook or email.
The rise of the Internet has, broadly, done little to challenge
concentrations of power or structures of unequal representation

Demos <http://www.demos.co.uk/> is one of Britain’s leading cross-party
think tank and it has an overarching mission to bring politics closer to
people. They contacted Wikimedia UK to propose an experiment: can an online
community be used to source a response to this call? Can the ethos,
community and technology like that of Wikipedia be used to engage
Wikipedians to come together and collaborate to create a reply? In
particular, Carl Miller, Research Director of the Demos Centre for the
Analysis of Social Media, wrote this piece for Wired
<http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-05/22/digital-democracy> in which
he describes Wikipedia as a masterclass in digital democracy.

This conversation has led to what is an experimental attempt to do just
that. In theory there are many lessons that any attempt to increase
engagement with digital democracy can learn from Wikimedia projects,
especially Wikipedia. These include the participatory nature of content
development and the nature of content (and policy) being arrived at by
consensus. Wikipedians are from a wide array of backgrounds and represent a
broad spectrum of views. This could lend itself to effective drafting of
the kind of evidence that the Speaker is looking for. Wikimedia UK and
Demos would like to establish whether this is indeed the case. In
particular, we are seeking answers to the following questions:

   -

   How can technology help Parliament and other agencies to scrutinise the
   work of government?
   -

   How can technology help citizens scrutinise the Government and the work
   of Parliament?
   -

   What kinds of data should Parliament and Government release to the
   public to make itself more open to outside scrutiny?

Everyone is encouraged to try to answer these questions collaboratively, in
much the same way Wikipedia articles are approached - using the space below
for content and talk page for discussion. Stevie Benton from Wikimedia UK
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Stevie_Benton_(WMUK)> and Carl Miller
from Demos will happily answer any questions on the talk page but are
equally happy to let the process take its course.

At this point there is no fixed deadline for evidence on the theme of
digital scrutiny. However, the Speaker’s Commission will be publishing
publishing a single call for evidence covering our last three themes (yet
to be announced). The conversation and crowdsourced evidence will be
reviewed at the end of June with a view to either continuing the process or
submitting as is. If there is appetite among the community, and if the
first attempt is successful, there may be further attempts to develop
submissions to the later three themes.

At the end of the process Demos and Wikimedia UK will prepare a report on
the process and the effectiveness of this kind of approach to crowdsourcing
policy and evidence. This paper will be released under an open licence. It
is a real opportunity for Wikimedians to influence the debate about digital
democracy and both Wikimedia UK and Demos thank you for engaging with this
idea.

You can find the consultation page here
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Connecting_knowledge_to_power:_the_future_of_digital_democracy_in_the_UK>
and we look forward to hearing from you.
Thanks and regards,

Stevie
-- 

Stevie Benton
Head of External Relations
Wikimedia UK
+44 (0) 20 7065 0993 / +44 (0) 7803 505 173
@StevieBenton

Wikimedia UK is a Company Limited by Guarantee registered in England
and Wales, Registered No. 6741827. Registered Charity No.1144513.
Registered Office 4th Floor, Development House, 56-64 Leonard Street,
London EC2A 4LT. United Kingdom. Wikimedia UK is the UK chapter of a
global Wikimedia movement. The Wikimedia projects are run by the
Wikimedia Foundation (who operate Wikipedia, amongst other projects).

*Wikimedia UK is an independent non-profit charity with no legal
control over Wikipedia nor responsibility for its contents.*
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