An online notebook
Mike Arrington writes about WriteWith, a collaborative writing authoring platform which combines wikis, forums and ajax document editing.
Once you have finished writing, the document can be exported to MS Office or Openoffice.org format, or even published to a blog.
This could be an excellent tool for groups collaborating on documents across the web.
The Cabinet Office are launching a review into how social media can improve public engagement and empowerment:
Minister for the Cabinet Office Hilary Armstrong wants Government to harness the phenomenon of internet advice sharing sites and empower people with information that could help improve their lives.
There’s no point me writing much about this, as David Wilcox has already done so superbly:
On reflection, what is just as interesting is that Ministers and Civil Servants are becoming aware that presence on the Net is no longer a matter of creating – and controlling – your own web space. It is a matter of going to the places where people already are, and so ending up in many places at the same time.
I urge you to read David’s post in full.
Oliver Kamm in The Guardian:
In its paucity of coverage and predictability of conclusions, the blogosphere provides a parody of democratic deliberation. But it gets worse. Politics, wrote the philosopher Michael Oakeshott, is a conversation, not an argument. The conversation bloggers have with their readers is more like an echo chamber, in which conclusions are pre-specified and targets selected. The outcome is horrifying. The intention of drawing readers into the conversation by means of a facility for adding comments results in an immense volume of abusive material directed – and recorded for posterity – at public figures.
The blogosphere, in short, is a reliable vehicle for the coagulation of opinion and the poisoning of debate. It is a fact of civic life that is changing how politics is conducted – overwhelmingly for the worse, and with no one accountable for the decline.
A remarkable view for a political blogger to hold, unless Mr Kamm considers himself a Proper Journalist these days.
It’s early days yet. Political blogging has only really taken off in the last couple of years in the UK. Sure, much of it is unbearably negative and full of inaccuracies, but the same could be said of pamphleteering.
Just because some political blogs aren’t particularly edifying, it doesn’t make the blog format a Bad Thing. In time, some balance will be restored, and as always, the quality will float to the top.
In the meantime, we will just have to trust ourselves to be able to distinguish between fact and fiction.
Tim O’Reilly has posted a draft of a bloggers’ code of conduct. Let’s have a look at it.
We celebrate the blogosphere because it embraces frank and open conversation. But frankness does not have to mean lack of civility. We present this Blogger Code of Conduct in hopes that it helps create a culture that encourages both personal expression and constructive conversation.
1. We take responsibility for our own words and for the comments we allow on our blog.
We are committed to the “Civility Enforced” standard: we will not post unacceptable content, and we’ll delete comments that contain it.
We define unacceptable content as anything included or linked to that:
– is being used to abuse, harass, stalk, or threaten others
– is libelous, knowingly false, ad-hominem, or misrepresents another person,
– infringes upon a copyright or trademark
– violates an obligation of confidentiality
– violates the privacy of othersWe define and determine what is “unacceptable content” on a case-by-case basis, and our definitions are not limited to this list. If we delete a comment or link, we will say so and explain why. [We reserve the right to change these standards at any time with no notice.]
2. We won’t say anything online that we wouldn’t say in person.
3. We connect privately before we respond publicly.
When we encounter conflicts and misrepresentation in the blogosphere, we make every effort to talk privately and directly to the person(s) involved–or find an intermediary who can do so–before we publish any posts or comments about the issue.
4. When we believe someone is unfairly attacking another, we take action.
When someone who is publishing comments or blog postings that are offensive, we’ll tell them so (privately, if possible–see above) and ask them to publicly make amends.
If those published comments could be construed as a threat, and the perpetrator doesn’t withdraw them and apologize, we will cooperate with law enforcement to protect the target of the threat.5. We do not allow anonymous comments.
We require commenters to supply a valid email address before they can post, though we allow commenters to identify themselves with an alias, rather than their real name.
6. We ignore the trolls.
We prefer not to respond to nasty comments about us or our blog, as long as they don’t veer into abuse or libel. We believe that feeding the trolls only encourages them–“Never wrestle with a pig. You both get dirty, but the pig likes it.” Ignoring public attacks is often the best way to contain them.
This seems like a nice policy, and one which could be adapted by local government for use on their blogs to make it clear to users what is acceptable and what isn’t.
O’Reilly also links to the Blogging Wikia, which looks like it could become a useful resource.
According to FeedDemon:
