Opening the books of governments 1
Authors who want feedback on a book or text from online readers have experimented with publication in both wikis and blogs, but both methods seem a little stunted. I did a story for Danish radio recently on the future of the book, where I try to describe a new Wordpress theme by the Instute for the Future of the Book called CommentPress that allows people to write “in the margins” of a book to offer feedback on a specific paragraph or point. (Go ahead, you try to explain that on the radio.)
Ethan Zuckerman featured several different annotation experiments in his blog the other day. Among them, this genius approach from the Free Software Foundation.
Imagine how wonderful it would be if something like this were used in UN Summit context, where delegates pour over sentences and paragraphs for weeks in order to generate “a document” for the meeting. Imagine if it were also live on the internet for the whole world to see at the same time. In a perfect world the delegates would use the tool themselves. In the meantime, who will be the first activist to sit in on the process and do it for them? It’s such a complex bureaucratic process – having a more visual representation of what goes on would be great.
The essence of international relations is secrecy. Knowledge is power, and those who wield it safeguard their prerogatives very well. Having covered the UN for the last three decades, I know that this is as true in multilateral affairs as in bilateral relations. There are so many axes being ground in any set of diplomatic negotiations, that it is virtually impossible to envisage the kind of transparency you hope for. But it should remain an ideal!!