From douglas at publicsphereproject.org Thu May 18 21:49:31 2017 From: douglas at publicsphereproject.org (Doug Schuler) Date: Thu, 18 May 2017 21:49:31 -0700 Subject: [Pattern-language] Imagining a New Public Information and Communication Infrastructure Message-ID: The idea of a big open-source collaboration for a problem-solving not-for-profit global platform seems to becoming more popular. I wouldn't call it a juggernaut just yet. I wanted to mention my recent article for the Computers and Society Newsletter: "Imagining a New Public Information and Communication Infrastructure which is available at http://www.sigcas.org/newsletter/volume-47-issue-1/6.pdf for a few weeks at least (and on the public sphere project site at http://publicsphereproject.org/sites/default/files/public-infrastructure.preprint.pdf ). Incidentally a reporter at vice.com did a write-up ( https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/a-plea-for-multispace-the-diy-civic-internet-that-will-never-exist) of the article. It was somewhat encouraging while mentioning the technical naiveté of the author a couple of times (a "rosy treatise"). In my note back to him I mentioned that I believe the technical challenges are miniscule when stacked up against the social challenges. The way I'd propose starting something like this from the ground up would be to start developing a "pattern language" that depicts the broad — and evolving —"rules" that would help guide us. These would be incrementally developed by the researchers / developers / practitioners and would change over time to reflect current and expected circumstances. This process bears some resemblance to the Request for Comments (RFC) and the Portland Pattern Repository (which led to Wikis, Wikipedia, etc.) approaches that was used in the development of the Internet. I'd suggest a number of Public Infrastructure Development Pattern Categories under which the pattens would fit. Here's the draft list so far: Purpose Principles Community Architecture Governance Development Functionality and Services Looks and Feels Policy Outreach / Communication Users and Use Cases Projects & Experiments Long View, Strategy, and Planning And the patterns within the categories could be in various states: in development / comments requested / accepted / accepted provisionally / tabled / others? I'm curious whether people think this approach sounds useful or practical. Thanks! — Doug PS. I also looked into this via another perspective in Creating the World Citizen Parliament, http://interactions.acm.org/archive/view/may-june-2013/creating-the-world-citizen-parliament . -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From robert.jacobson at atelier-tomorrow.com Sun May 28 10:43:35 2017 From: robert.jacobson at atelier-tomorrow.com (Robert Jacobson) Date: Sun, 28 May 2017 10:43:35 -0700 Subject: [Pattern-language] New Pattern Language project // Wise Democracy In-Reply-To: <89DEFEA4-7945-433D-B2FB-7A46389B04F8@publicsphereproject.org> References: <89DEFEA4-7945-433D-B2FB-7A46389B04F8@publicsphereproject.org> Message-ID: <741FB34C-9545-402D-A644-334DEEE6045F@atelier-tomorrow.com> Hi Doug, The Wise Democracy project reiterates themes familiar from progressive activities in the civil and civic spheres. This isn’t a bad thing, but it’s not necessarily a good thing. Reiteration is redundancy. If we feel the need for it, in my opinion, that generally means we are treading water because our problem definitions and solutions have not worked for us before. As someone who has championed co-governance in many policy domains — occasionally, with positive results (which remain rare across the board in the policy realm, despite co-governance’s evident sensibility) — I’m seeking forward-looking advice. Patterns from the past are our legacy, for better or worse; like any legacy, as much burden as blessing. What’s incumbent on us as change agents is to persuasively describe and prototype revisions and wholly new patterns for the future that can bring about actionable, favorable social change in response to conditions in our fast-changing present that in so many ways critically threaten our futures. In the immediate moment, this requires taking risks, proposing pattern-based and pattern-centric solutions that are truly novel, resisting falling back on comfortable nostrums that ipso facto need revision, replacement, or abandonment. Hard work but worth the effort, in my experience. Bob Robert Jacobson, PhD, Chairman & Strategist Atelier Tomorrow Inc., A Nonprofit Corporation Smart Citizens • Civic Innovation Lab • Urban and Regional Innovation Platforms Tucson • The West Coast • The World Mobile: +1 520-370-1259 Email: robert.jacobson at atelier-tomorrow.com Skype: bob.jacobson (with a dot) Twitter: @Robert_Jacobson > On Mar 21, 2017, at 10:31 AM, Doug Schuler wrote: > > > There's a new pattern language in the land.... > > The Wise Democracy Project, http://www.wd-pl.com/ > > Interesting to see how these various projects are similar and different. > > Ideally (to my mind) the existence of lots of them would surface interest in pattern languages in general — and in using them! > > Thanks! > > > Douglas Schuler > douglas at publicsphereproject.org > Twitter: @doug_schuler > > A Mobilization Story: Patterns for the Impending Emergency > > > > Public Sphere Project > > Collective Intelligence for the Common Good Mailing list > > Creating the World Citizen Parliament > > Liberating Voices! A Pattern Language for Communication Revolution (Project / Book ) > > Three patterns: > Back to the Roots > Demystification and Reenchantment Translation > > > _______________________________________________ > Pattern-language mailing list > Pattern-language at scn9.scn.org > http://scn9.scn.org/mailman/listinfo/pattern-language -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: