Over the past several weeks project, design, and testing work have been keeping us busier–and more energized–than ever at EnCiv.
As readers of this blog will already know, EnCiv is an attempt to build an integrated online civic platform, supported by a network of civic groups. Its founding members were Interactivity Foundation (which promotes exploratory discussion), Ballotpedia (which provides election coverage through its website to millions throughout the US), and ProCon (which provides information on both sides of a wide range of issues).
EnCiv’s project work continues to build on past efforts. Currently EnCiv is at work on a repeat of its major election project earlier this year in Chicago, a collaboration between IF and Ballotpedia. EnCiv is also collaborating with Ballotpedia on additional ways to expand its informational offerings.
While these projects mature EnCiv has been focusing increasing attention on platform development and testing.
Development work has centered on thinking through use cases and designing reproducible sequences that can be made to work online. Progress on this front has been significant recently, largely due the addition to the EnCiv team of David Fridley, a software engineer intimately familiar with the challenges and possibilities of online discussion.
Testing, the second key component of development, requires systematic and repeated experimentation to see which sequences work best. Advances here have come more slowly, mostly due to the familiar problem of recruiting citizen participants. Still, we have identified numerous groups who might help, and of these several have already expressed interest in working with us. In exchange, EnCiv will assist them in their own projects. Our hope and expectation is that actual experimentation and the design refinement it will enable will begin with some or all of them soon.
For a fuller picture of EnCiv activities and other developments in the field of dialogue and discussion, have a look at any of the many other posts listed under “Recent Articles”.
