Easy
Legislation

Two little things
1.Versioning
2.“advanced” Permalinks

pretty please?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/plasticrevolver/161355000/sizes/l/

with sugar on top?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/alaig/2873747060/sizes/l/

I’ll be your best friend
http://www.flickr.com/photos/photo4jenifer/3246082603/

1. Versioning
• All changes shown
• and time-stamped

“Show me the changes”
• we can make the fancy
interfaces!

how to see changes?
• simple strike thrus
• like in a word doc

http://whitehouse.wikia.com

http://versionista.com/pub/15881/1/7/9:8/

many other models
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Revision_control
• Word processors
• Spreadsheets
• Content management System
• Wikis
• Coding systems : sVN and GIT

• who did what is optional
• I’ll explain later...

Part 2...

What does all Law and
legislation have in Common?

Paragraph notation

www.assnat.qc.ca/archives-36leg1se/eng/Publications
/Projets-loi/publics/00-a160.pdf

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h111-45

http://clerk.ci.homer.ak.us/document/108.htm

http://www.austlii.edu.au/catalog/234.html

“Advanced” permalink
• http://domain.com/folder/
file/datetime#path to paragraph
• or
• http://Domain.com/
uniquedocname/DateTime#Title
Section (subsection) Chapter
(subchapter) paragraph Clause
• (with optional sub pieces)

Microformat
• Simple
• human readable
• (we can always have outside
groups do tiny URLS)

paragraph level
• by being so atomic it is closer
to being an ISSUE
• semantic purposes...

all
• law
• and
• legislation

notice “Perma” as in
permanent

http://www.flickr.com/photos/roadsidepictures/269890607/sizes/o/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/liberato/171610084/sizes/l/

http://www.w3.org/Provider/Style/URI

“advanced” = Datetime

• see why don’t want WHo did what yet?
stay with me...

old Way
• a Summary portion - a
paragraph explaining what used
to be there
• NIcknames
• pieces of legislation and
documentation scattered
everywhere (Federal budget)

New way
• We can pick up pieces!
• you could read thru the law
and legislation
• visualization:
• all new temporary legislation in red.
• Old to be changed in strikethru.
• unchanging in Black.
• could see context!

Real Citations
• Press
• school children
• legislators (staff ;-))
• citizens
• findability
• reduced confusion

RSS feeds
• to both get data
• and find out changes

External documentation

http://www.futureofthebook.org/commentpress/about/#1

http://www.diigo.com

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:228_Incident

5 paragraphs
Sub Sen 4
committee
Sen 1
Sen 3
Sen 2
D1 at 100 D2 at 100 D3 at 125 D5 at 100
Senator 1 has
425K from SBC
related
interests
SBC
http://www.flickr.com/photos/alaig/2873747060/sizes/l/

Any piece
of info •Who entered it (link
to profile)
•date
•Link to original text
or citation
•Reputation rating
•validated BY
•Group association
(Link to Group)
•Action desired
•tags etc...

Intuitive Tools
• like Youtube
• Copy paste
• post link on facebook
• post link on Digg
• Post link to my blog
• etc etc

Communities
• Codeathon.pbwiki.com
• barcamps - ala transitcamp
• Contests - apps for democracy
• Hackathons (attach to tech
conferences)

Trust but verify
http://www.flickr.com/photos/denaldo/3046615774/sizes/o/

Multiple Locations
• Archive.org
• Libraries
• independent Organizations
• cloning servers w hashes makes
it difficult to change!

Hey! what about who did
what!?!
never easy (many sponsors many
pieces)
So they can attach it themselves
• as the who
• and their documentation why
• in a different location!
• which will facilitate discussion
and dialogue w citizens

Remember this one...
• http://domain.com/folder/
file/DATETIME#paragraph

who did what
• can be subjective...
• hard to document
• what to argue the WHY...

politicians can then
becomes statesmen again

How to contact me?
Silona.com
silona@silona.com
(512) 750-9220
Silona_bonewald on Skype