Hi, Check out my recently launched site http://www.lazygov.org/ It is based on the lazyweb, but obviously aimed at government and politics. It is very basic at the moment, i aim to add country distictions to it (ie uk.lazygov.org etc) as well as being able to view it generally. If you have any comments then do let me know, it is a simple idea that I just quickly put together and of course is not the site you are discussing but I feel it is a start and by building small quick and easy sites we can probably achieve more than huge projects. thanks mark. mark simpkins mark@lazygov.org http://www.lazygov.org/ a NodalReseach project

During the antic times, a forum was a place where all free citizens decided about the life of the state. A polis of thousands of free citizens formed its political activity publicly, with direct participation of all those who had a right and obligation to do so. In this way the idea of direct democracy was accomplished in antic times - everybody participated in the governing, of course, with specific exceptions. Women, children and barbars, or slaves did not belong to the category of free citizens and therefore had no right to vote. Today, the Internet inspires new ideas which leads to direct democracy where all citizens are able to participate, a form of democracy that has been dead for a long time. Creating an interactive site would give an opportunity to each citizen to participate in various problems the goverment faces. The site would be transparent and would enable each participant to express their own opinion and their standing without being influenced by the media, propaganda or political ideas. Bringing closer as many participants as possible on the site would provide fast and quality exchange of ideas and opinions, and the number of participants on the forum would create significant political influence. This would give substance to abstract political issues, since every person or local group would be able to express their problems publicly, without being affected by the media, various lobbies and interests groups or influential individuals. Finally, it is an opportunity for all citizens to understand and accept the state, together with its offices, as something positive and useful, without any preconceived ideas. The feeling of being able to infulence some decisions restores the lost faith of democracy of every individual. Voting every four years or protesting from cause to cause does not bring strong feeling of paticipation in deciding about our everyday life and our future. Our voices would not disappear in everyday private discussions, but rather they would blend together with others to form a significant social power that would influence decision-making. In this way the Forum opens a pathway to common good or pragmatic wellbeing of the majority. All visionary ideas that get support on the forum will have political credibility and a chance to be accepted by the goverment. With partial interests cancelling each other, ideas that promote general well-being will remain high ranked. It is important to understand that the principal area of Forum's activity is advisory in nature. Some governing structures earn trust by their transparent activities. If an idea is formed clearly with high percentage support from most participants, it can be a sign that tells the goverment what people wish for and think, although the goverment makes the decision on its own. Today's technology, with electronic communication, gives us an incredible opportunity to interact fast and cheap in political life and to vote for important decisions. Active involvment of many participants would give an opportunity to the citizens to control decision-making as well as realization of certain ideas. It would also expand the spectrum of ideas and horizons, bring new ideas an comments, that would eventually help the political elite and improve the quality of their work.

Thanks for the comments. Yes at the moment the 'brief' is fairly open and that may be a detriment to the site. It was just the product of thinking about a small conference on weblogs and politics at the Houses of Parliament. Lazyweb, if you check out www.lazyweb.org it is a site for people to post up ideas for web tools, rss, etc and they can be browsed and if someone finds something they can do or want to do then they can. It is based on weblog technology, which in itself can be a limitation to participation, but it does allow for very distributed conversations. I agree that there is a problem with creating too many sites, when the existing sites are not visited enough. Though I do forsee problems with creating too big sites that also do not get visits and then you have put huge resouces into something that won't be used. Still my site is really just an experiment, time will tell if anything can grow from that, i want to see if people will start discussions around what they want politics to be. Anyway, let me know if I can be of any help in your project, and keep us informed. mark. mark simpkins NodalResearch.

Re: Project forum.hr

Project forum.hr is a good place for our voices to be heard. As we’ve so often said before, the ultimate solutions for our problem must lie in finding new ways to live, and there’s little any government agency can do to help that. But government can stay out of the way, and do less harm. There are a couple of issues we’re facing right now that could use our support, and the internet could hardly make them easier: just a little click and we'll have helped keep the government from despoiling our home. Political awareness must be disseminated among us through this project.

I'm wishing success for your project from cooking games society.