U.S. Department of State hosts online discussion of its proposed Open Government Plan initiatives

[Andre G]

Greetings to this group

The State Department is currently conducting an online discussion between federal employees and the public on the initiatives proposed for inclusion in the State Department’s 2016 Open Government Plan. The goal of this dialogue is to engage with the public on the topics transparency, participation, collaboration and how these objectives are represented in the Department’s upcoming Open Government Plan.

 

Using the online GovUp platform hosted by TechChange, participants in the online discussion are able to review the State Department’s proposed Open Government initiatives, make comments, and share ideas prior to the publication of the State Department’s 2016 Open Government Plan in mid-September.

 

Those interested may register to participate in this online discussion by going to the following link: https://govup.course.tc/account/register/2016-DoS-OGP

We look forward to the discussion.

Andre

M. Andre Goodfriend

Senior Advisor

Office of eDiplomacy

U.S. Department of State

 

[Alexander Howard]

What options are there for the public to review the plan and provide feedback that don't require registering with GovUp?

[Andre G]

The short answer is that, right now, over the next couple weeks, the only way to engage globally in a virtual discussion of our Open Government initiatives is through the GovUp platform.  We're looking at GovUp as one of a range of collaboration/participation platforms, and the upcoming publication of the 2016 Open Government Plan gives us an opportunity to try it out and get a sense of who we can engage with effectively and how best to engage.  

For those within DC, however, we have discussed our initiatives at the regular meetings representatives of Civil Society hosted by NARA.  I've also met a number of you at the various discussions throughout DC on Open Government.  But, we're willing to expand public engagement, and would be interested in suggestions for other fora or mechanisms that facilitate public participation.

That being said, the Open Government Plan is a compilation of many ongoing initiatives.  Many of the elements that have gone into the Open Government Plan also live on their own and receive public feedback specific to their particular focus.  For public participation initiatives, such as the Virtual Student Foreign Service (vsfs.state.gov) or the War Crimes Rewards Program (http://www.state.gov/j/gcj/wcrp/index.htm); or collaboration initiatives like Global Enterprise Registration (http://ger.co/) or the Overseas Security Advisory Council (https://www.osac.gov/); or the numerous transparency initiatives, like our HumanRights.gov (http://www.humanrights.gov/) or Foreign Relations of the United States (https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments) or ForeignAssitance.gov (http://beta.foreignassistance.gov/) or Visa Statistics (https://travel.state.gov/content/visas/en/law-and-policy/statistics.html)

The Open Government Plan gives us the opportunity, however, to bring them all together and discuss them specifically in the context of open government.  While we do draw on the Public Participation Playbook (https://participation.usa.gov/), I'd be interested to hear from this group about what are seen as effective and accountable ways to engage the public in a discussion of a work in progress.

Regards,

M. Andre Goodfriend
Senior Advisor
Office of eDiplomacy

[Alexander Howard]

Mr. Goodfriend,

Thank you for the reply. Respectfully, this is not up to the standard Sunlight expects of federal agencies in 2016.

Given the considerable opportunities provided by technology to engage tens of millions of Americans around the world in the co-creation of public policy and information disclosure initiatives, should never be limited to in-person discussions in DC hosted by NARA.

Beyond requiring a username and password, the State Department is currently requiring people to provide an employer and "interest in open government" to comment.

It's also requiring people to agree to lengthy Terms of Service (https://www.techchange.org/about/terms-of-use) and Privacy Policy (https://www.techchange.org/about/privacy-policy) that may surprise people if they actually read them. Here's what happens to our comments if we submit them: "You hereby grant us a worldwide, non-exclusive, transferable, sublicenseable, royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable right and license, without compensation to you: to use, reproduce, distribute, adapt (including without limitation edit, modify, translate, and reformat), create derivative works of, transmit, publicly display and publicly perform any information and/or content you submit through the Site or account information or metadata generated through your use of the Service."

Both of these conditions are unacceptable barriers to public participation.

While most online platforms require registration to use, from social media to the MADISON software used to collect feedback on the Public Participation Playbook, citizens should not have to provide a federal agency with additional personal information to provide feedback on an open government initiative, nor be required to give away rights to them.

At minimum, I strongly recommend posting the draft of the State Department's 2016 open government plan online as a Web page -- in HTML, not a PDF -- and taking public comment on it through print, phone, email and social media channels without licensing or privacy or copyright constraints. State could consider also publishing a draft on MADISON and Genius to offer more opportunities for annotation.

I hope the State Department will immediately move to rectify these issues.

Best,

Alex Howard

Sunlight Foundation

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to a topic in the Google Groups "US Open Government" group.
To unsubscribe from this topic, visit https://groups.google.com/d/topic/us-open-government/B8AZaX6OXu0/unsubscribe.
To unsubscribe from this group and all its topics, send an email to us-open-government+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to us-open-government@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/us-open-government.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

--

Alexander B. Howard 

Phone: 410.849.9808 | @digiphile
Social Media: http://j.mp/ContactABH 

[Zarek, Corinna J. EOP/OSTP]

Andre, great to hear that State is exploring ways to gather input on the draft plan -- posting a draft for feedback is fantastic and I applaud State for taking that step.

Alex raises some thoughtful points about the platform itself, and State may wish to take that back. We know that all platforms have advantages and drawbacks -- and the challenge of getting terms of service for any software approved is also a major piece of this.

I'd be interested to hear from others‎ who may have feedback about GovUp -- are other agencies using it? Have other civil society groups created accounts for GovUp and do you have feedback to share?

Again, posting a draft plan is a huge step forward and that's great work. I think we all share a goal of ensuring that a draft is posted in a place and in a way that anyone can easily access it so perhaps there are additional ways to reach that goal without raising flags with users.

Thanks,
Cori

From: Alexander Howard
Sent: Wednesday, August 17, 2016 11:16 AM
To: Andre G
Cc: US Open Government
Subject: [Non-DoD Source] Re: U.S. Department of State hosts online discussion of its proposed Open Government Plan initiatives


Mr. Goodfriend,

Thank you for the reply. Respectfully, this is not up to the standard Sunlight expects of federal agencies in 2016.

Given the considerable opportunities provided by technology to engage tens of millions of Americans around the world in the co-creation of public policy and information disclosure initiatives, should never be limited to in-person discussions in DC hosted by NARA.

Beyond requiring a username and password, the State Department is currently requiring people to provide an employer and "interest in open government" to comment.

It's also requiring people to agree to lengthy Terms of Service (https://www.techchange.org/about/terms-of-use) and Privacy Policy (https://www.techchange.org/about/privacy-policy) that may surprise people if they actually read them. Here's what happens to our comments if we submit them: "You hereby grant us a worldwide, non-exclusive, transferable, sublicenseable, royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable right and license, without compensation to you: to use, reproduce, distribute, adapt (including without limitation edit, modify, translate, and reformat), create derivative works of, transmit, publicly display and publicly perform any information and/or content you submit through the Site or account information or metadata generated through your use of the Service."

Both of these conditions are unacceptable barriers to public participation.

While most online platforms require registration to use, from social media to the MADISON software used to collect feedback on the Public Participation Playbook, citizens should not have to provide a federal agency with additional personal information to provide feedback on an open government initiative, nor be required to give away rights to them.

At minimum, I strongly recommend posting the draft of the State Department's 2016 open government plan online as a Web page -- in HTML, not a PDF -- and taking public comment on it through print, phone, email and social media channels without licensing or privacy or copyright constraints. State could consider also publishing a draft on MADISON and Genius to offer more opportunities for annotation.

I hope the State Department will immediately move to rectify these issues.

Best,
Alex Howard
Sunlight Foundation

On Wed, Aug 17, 2016 at 9:48 AM, Andre G <goodf...@gmail.com<mailto:goodf...@gmail.com>> wrote:
The short answer is that, right now, over the next couple weeks, the only way to engage globally in a virtual discussion of our Open Government initiatives is through the GovUp platform. We're looking at GovUp as one of a range of collaboration/participation platforms, and the upcoming publication of the 2016 Open Government Plan gives us an opportunity to try it out and get a sense of who we can engage with effectively and how best to engage.

For those within DC, however, we have discussed our initiatives at the regular meetings representatives of Civil Society hosted by NARA. I've also met a number of you at the various discussions throughout DC on Open Government. But, we're willing to expand public engagement, and would be interested in suggestions for other fora or mechanisms that facilitate public participation.

That being said, the Open Government Plan is a compilation of many ongoing initiatives. Many of the elements that have gone into the Open Government Plan also live on their own and receive public feedback specific to their particular focus. For public participation initiatives, such as the Virtual Student Foreign Service (vsfs.state.gov<http://vsfs.state.gov/>) or the War Crimes Rewards Program (http://www.state.gov/j/gcj/wcrp/index.htm); or collaboration initiatives like Global Enterprise Registration (http://ger.co/) or the Overseas Security Advisory Council (https://www.osac.gov/); or the numerous transparency initiatives, like our HumanRights.gov (http://www.humanrights.gov/) or Foreign Relations of the United States (https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments) or ForeignAssitance.gov (http://beta.foreignassistance.gov/) or Visa Statistics (https://travel.state.gov/content/visas/en/law-and-policy/statistics.html)

The Open Government Plan gives us the opportunity, however, to bring them all together and discuss them specifically in the context of open government. While we do draw on the Public Participation Playbook (https://participation.usa.gov/), I'd be interested to hear from this group about what are seen as effective and accountable ways to engage the public in a discussion of a work in progress.

Regards,

M. Andre Goodfriend
Senior Advisor
Office of eDiplomacy


On Wednesday, 17 August 2016 07:47:17 UTC-4, Alexander Howard wrote:
What options are there for the public to review the plan and provide feedback that don't require registering with GovUp?

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to a topic in the Google Groups "US Open Government" group.
To unsubscribe from this topic, visit https://groups.google.com/d/topic/us-open-government/B8AZaX6OXu0/unsubscribe.

To unsubscribe from this group and all its topics, send an email to us-open-governm...@googlegroups.com<mailto:us-open-governm...@googlegroups.com>.
To post to this group, send email to us-open-g...@googlegroups.com<mailto:us-open-g...@googlegroups.com>.

Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/us-open-government.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.



--
Alexander B. Howard

Phone: 410.849.9808<tel:410.849.9808> | @digiphile<http://twitter.com/digiphile>
Social Media: http://j.mp/ContactABH

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "US Open Government" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to us-open-governm...@googlegroups.com<mailto:us-open-governm...@googlegroups.com>.
To post to this group, send email to us-open-g...@googlegroups.com<mailto:us-open-g...@googlegroups.com>.

[Andre G]

Thank you for these insights with regard to the platform being used.  As noted, this is an opportunity also to get feedback with regard to the platform.  I'll see how we can modify the registration procedure and terms of service to encourage participation.

To unsubscribe from this group and all its topics, send an email to us-open-government+unsub...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to us-open-g...@googlegroups.com.

Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/us-open-government.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

[Tim Bonnemann]

Hi,

It's generally a good idea to offer at least one alternative channel in addition to the main online consultation platform(s), e.g., via a simple web form or an email address. That way, participants who choose not to register can still provide input. Of course, that requires that any draft documents be shared publicly.

Terms of service are an important aspect in all this, fully agreed, but to be fair: Genius appears to be using the exact same boilerplate language as TechChange, while Madison's terms seem to be too short to be true.  ;-)

Finally, from a purely practical standpoint, I'm not sure how feasible it is for an agency to spread out its consultation process over too many platforms and tools. At first glance, the TechChange environment seems OK for the purposes of gathering input on the draft plan in a forum context. At this point, I'd rather worry about outreach to make sure people actually find out about it.

Tim

-- 

Tim Bonnemann

President & CEO

Intellitics, Inc.

http://intellitics.com

On Aug 17, 2016, at 9:05 AM, Andre G <goodf...@gmail.com> wrote:

Thank you for these insights with regard to the platform being used.  As noted, this is an opportunity also to get feedback with regard to the platform.  I'll see how we can modify the registration procedure and terms of service to encourage participation.

Regards,

M. Andre Goodfriend
Senior Advisor
Office of eDiplomacy

On Wednesday, 17 August 2016 11:16:20 UTC-4, Alexander Howard wrote:

Mr. Goodfriend,

Thank you for the reply. Respectfully, this is not up to the standard Sunlight expects of federal agencies in 2016. 

Given the considerable opportunities provided by technology to engage tens of millions of Americans around the world in the co-creation of public policy and information disclosure initiatives, should never be limited to in-person discussions in DC hosted by NARA.

Beyond requiring a username and password, the State Department is currently requiring people to provide an employer and "interest in open government" to comment. 

It's also requiring people to agree to lengthy Terms of Service (https://www.techchange.org/about/terms-of-use) and Privacy Policy (https://www.techchange.org/about/privacy-policy) that may surprise people if they actually read them. Here's what happens to our comments if we submit them: "You hereby grant us a worldwide, non-exclusive, transferable, sublicenseable, royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable right and license, without compensation to you: to use, reproduce, distribute, adapt (including without limitation edit, modify, translate, and reformat), create derivative works of, transmit, publicly display and publicly perform any information and/or content you submit through the Site or account information or metadata generated through your use of the Service."

Both of these conditions are unacceptable barriers to public participation.

While most online platforms require registration to use, from social media to the MADISON software used to collect feedback on the Public Participation Playbook, citizens should not have to provide a federal agency with additional personal information to provide feedback on an open government initiative, nor be required to give away rights to them.

At minimum, I strongly recommend posting the draft of the State Department's 2016 open government plan online as a Web page -- in HTML, not a PDF -- and taking public comment on it through print, phone, email and social media channels without licensing or privacy or copyright constraints. State could consider also publishing a draft on MADISON and Genius to offer more opportunities for annotation.

I hope the State Department will immediately move to rectify these issues.

Best,

Alex Howard

Sunlight Foundation

On Wed, Aug 17, 2016 at 9:48 AM, Andre G <goodf...@gmail.com> wrote:

The short answer is that, right now, over the next couple weeks, the only way to engage globally in a virtual discussion of our Open Government initiatives is through the GovUp platform.  We're looking at GovUp as one of a range of collaboration/participation platforms, and the upcoming publication of the 2016 Open Government Plan gives us an opportunity to try it out and get a sense of who we can engage with effectively and how best to engage.  

For those within DC, however, we have discussed our initiatives at the regular meetings representatives of Civil Society hosted by NARA.  I've also met a number of you at the various discussions throughout DC on Open Government.  But, we're willing to expand public engagement, and would be interested in suggestions for other fora or mechanisms that facilitate public participation.

That being said, the Open Government Plan is a compilation of many ongoing initiatives.  Many of the elements that have gone into the Open Government Plan also live on their own and receive public feedback specific to their particular focus.  For public participation initiatives, such as the Virtual Student Foreign Service (vsfs.state.gov) or the War Crimes Rewards Program (http://www.state.gov/j/gcj/wcrp/index.htm); or collaboration initiatives like Global Enterprise Registration (http://ger.co/) or the Overseas Security Advisory Council (https://www.osac.gov/); or the numerous transparency initiatives, like our HumanRights.gov(http://www.humanrights.gov/) or Foreign Relations of the United States (https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments) or ForeignAssitance.gov (http://beta.foreignassistance.gov/) or Visa Statistics (https://travel.state.gov/content/visas/en/law-and-policy/statistics.html)

The Open Government Plan gives us the opportunity, however, to bring them all together and discuss them specifically in the context of open government.  While we do draw on the Public Participation Playbook (https://participation.usa.gov/), I'd be interested to hear from this group about what are seen as effective and accountable ways to engage the public in a discussion of a work in progress.

Regards,

M. Andre Goodfriend
Senior Advisor
Office of eDiplomacy

On Wednesday, 17 August 2016 07:47:17 UTC-4, Alexander Howard wrote:

What options are there for the public to review the plan and provide feedback that don't require registering with GovUp?

-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to a topic in the Google Groups "US Open Government" group.
To unsubscribe from this topic, visit https://groups.google.com/d/topic/us-open-government/B8AZaX6OXu0/unsubscribe.
To unsubscribe from this group and all its topics, send an email to us-open-government+unsub...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to us-open-g...@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/us-open-government.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

-- 

Alexander B. Howard 

Phone: 410.849.9808 | @digiphile
Social Media: http://j.mp/ContactABH 

-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "US Open Government" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to us-open-governm...@googlegroups.com.

[Alexander Howard]

The Sunlight Foundation has made the State Department's draft open government plan available to the public without a registration wall. http://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2016/08/18/state-department-requests-feedback-on-draft-2016-open-government-plan/

To unsubscribe from this group and all its topics, send an email to us-open-government+unsubscri...@googlegroups.com.

To post to this group, send email to us-open-g...@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/us-open-government.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

-- 

Alexander B. Howard 

Phone: 410.849.9808 | @digiphile
Social Media: http://j.mp/ContactABH 

-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "US Open Government" group.

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to us-open-government+unsub...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to us-open-government@googlegroups.com.

Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/us-open-government.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

--

You received this message because you are subscribed to a topic in the Google Groups "US Open Government" group.
To unsubscribe from this topic, visit https://groups.google.com/d/topic/us-open-government/B8AZaX6OXu0/unsubscribe.
To unsubscribe from this group and all its topics, send an email to us-open-government+unsub...@googlegroups.com.

To post to this group, send email to us-open-government@googlegroups.com.

Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/us-open-government.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

[Tim Bonnemann]

Hi Alex,

While I respect Sunlight Foundation's opinion on how to run an online consultation on open government in 2016, I'm not convinced the approach you're taking here is 100% helpful.

The State Department's Open Government Plan 2016 draft is already publicly available on Google, yet it appears you have created a duplicate. What happens if, for one reason or another, there are edits or comments? Your visitors in all likelihood won't get to see those.

You point your visitors to a generic web contact form on state.gov as well as a generic postal address. Did you confirm with the team at State that they are OK with this? Will the feedback received via these channels end up in the right place at the right time?

Finally, while you may not approve of the setup that State chose for this project, they may have had their reasons. It would be only fair to provide a very prominent link back to their main consultation site, thus giving your visitors the option to check it out for themselves. I'm not seeing such a link. Right now, you're diverting what might otherwise become happily engaged participants.

Cheers,

Tim

-- 

Tim Bonnemann

President & CEO

Intellitics, Inc.

http://intellitics.com

[Alexander Howard]

Tim,

1) I'd noticed that the draft embedded inside of GovUp appeared to be a Google Doc but couldn't find a public URL for it. Thank you for sharing it! Its existence addresses one of the key aspects of the critique: public availability of the plan without registration.

I wish that State had highlighted (realized?) that a public URL existed for the document, but the resolution is easy enough: link to that URL and deprecate the version we published. I've added an update on our post:
http://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2016/08/18/state-department-requests-feedback-on-draft-2016-open-government-plan/

2) I pointed the public to the form designated by State Department Office of Public Engagement online form and the State Department's Bureau of Information Resource Management, 2201 C Street NW, Washington, D.C. Neither is "generic," as you asserted. If the State Department is serious about wanting public feedback on this plan, however, it would be useful for them to provide an email address -- I didn't post Andre's Gmail, although given its use to receive feedback about the plan here, I considered it.

3) I've included a link to GovUp.

I hope that you will consider applying your energies to the substance of the State Department's plans, particularly public engagement, given that that's your bailiwick. Perhaps you could also tweet at @StateDept and comment on Facebook, as you did with me, urging the agency to share the link to GovUp so that the public will go register at the private platform you're endorsing and "become happily engaged participants."

Best,

Alex

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to us-open-government+unsubscri...@googlegroups.com.

To post to this group, send email to us-open-government@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/us-open-government.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to a topic in the Google Groups "US Open Government" group.
To unsubscribe from this topic, visit https://groups.google.com/d/topic/us-open-government/B8AZaX6OXu0/unsubscribe.

To unsubscribe from this group and all its topics, send an email to us-open-government+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.

To post to this group, send email to us-open-government@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/us-open-government.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

--

Alexander B. Howard 

Phone: 410.849.9808 | @digiphile
Social Media: http://j.mp/ContactABH 

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to a topic in the Google Groups "US Open Government" group.
To unsubscribe from this topic, visit https://groups.google.com/d/topic/us-open-government/B8AZaX6OXu0/unsubscribe.
To unsubscribe from this group and all its topics, send an email to us-open-government+unsub...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to us-open-government@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/us-open-government.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

[Andre G]

I very much appreciate the lively discussion here with regard to the best way to engage in a constructive online discussion.  I've been advocating for greater public/private engagement for a long time.  Back in 1999, I was part of a small group that managed to put together one of the State Department's first online discussions, to test the waters with regard to online discussions with those engaged in making policy.  Making these discussions routine, via a range of media, is a goal.  In the UK, Syria and most recently in Hungary, where I've served as a Foreign Service Officer, I've sought to encourage our routine use of online media to engage with publics and make our activities more transparent.  It helped us build a communal bond with the very large U.S. citizen population in the UK when I was there, and was a crucial element in serving the U.S. citizen community in Syria in the year prior to the embassy's closure.  In Hungary too, I tried engaging the public via a blog and via Twitter.  

We're seeking to have a discussion of how we can best promote open government not because we have to, but because we understand its value.  We think it is an important element of our democracy; and if our having posted a discussion paper helps us learn about how to go about having a constructive discussion with the public... what the best technological platforms are.... what the public expectations are... how to best frames the issues to be discussed, etc.  that itself justifies the effort.

With regard to the specific issues mentioned.  We'll be asking less information of people wishing to join the discussion.   Regarding the terms of service... as Tim noted, these terms of service appear to be fairly standard.  Not only are they similar to those used by Genius.com, but also to those used by Google groups.  This boilerplate nature of the terms of service for forums like this may come from the fact that these are private companies, rather than government entities.  The TOS is what it allows the company to post comments by users and display them for others to view.  Depending upon the nature of the forum, the company may need to process comments to add @mentions, change formatting, and customize the comments, particularly if the forum is meant to be instructive.  I'm not an attorney, and while, as noted, I've been using online fora for decades, I appreciate the expertise of those participating here in helping us understand the benefits and pitfalls of each platform.

I look forward to continuing to learn from this discussion about the best platform for public participation, as well as from the discussion of the initiatives described in the discussion paper itself.

Regards,

Andre

M. Andre Goodfriend

Senior Advisor

Office of eDiplomacy

U.S. Department of State

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to us-open-government+unsub...@googlegroups.com.

To post to this group, send email to us-open-g...@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/us-open-government.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

--

You received this message because you are subscribed to a topic in the Google Groups "US Open Government" group.
To unsubscribe from this topic, visit https://groups.google.com/d/topic/us-open-government/B8AZaX6OXu0/unsubscribe.
To unsubscribe from this group and all its topics, send an email to us-open-government+unsub...@googlegroups.com.

To post to this group, send email to us-open-g...@googlegroups.com.

Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/us-open-government.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

--

Alexander B. Howard 

Phone: 410.849.9808 | @digiphile
Social Media: http://j.mp/ContactABH 

--

You received this message because you are subscribed to a topic in the Google Groups "US Open Government" group.
To unsubscribe from this topic, visit https://groups.google.com/d/topic/us-open-government/B8AZaX6OXu0/unsubscribe.
To unsubscribe from this group and all its topics, send an email to us-open-government+unsub...@googlegroups.com.

To post to this group, send email to us-open-g...@googlegroups.com.

Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/us-open-government.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

--

Alexander B. Howard 

Phone: 410.849.9808 | @digiphile
Social Media: http://j.mp/ContactABH 

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to us-open-government+unsub...@googlegroups.com.

To post to this group, send email to us-open-g...@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/us-open-government.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

--

You received this message because you are subscribed to a topic in the Google Groups "US Open Government" group.
To unsubscribe from this topic, visit https://groups.google.com/d/topic/us-open-government/B8AZaX6OXu0/unsubscribe.
To unsubscribe from this group and all its topics, send an email to us-open-government+unsub...@googlegroups.com.

To post to this group, send email to us-open-g...@googlegroups.com.

Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/us-open-government.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

--

Alexander B. Howard 

Phone: 410.849.9808 | @digiphile
Social Media: http://j.mp/ContactABH 

--

You received this message because you are subscribed to a topic in the Google Groups "US Open Government" group.
To unsubscribe from this topic, visit https://groups.google.com/d/topic/us-open-government/B8AZaX6OXu0/unsubscribe.
To unsubscribe from this group and all its topics, send an email to us-open-government+unsub...@googlegroups.com.

To post to this group, send email to us-open-g...@googlegroups.com.

Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/us-open-government.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

--

Alexander B. Howard 

Phone: 410.849.9808 | @digiphile
Social Media: http://j.mp/ContactABH 

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to us-open-government+unsub...@googlegroups.com.

To post to this group, send email to us-open-g...@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/us-open-government.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

--

You received this message because you are subscribed to a topic in the Google Groups "US Open Government" group.
To unsubscribe from this topic, visit https://groups.google.com/d/topic/us-open-government/B8AZaX6OXu0/unsubscribe.
To unsubscribe from this group and all its topics, send an email to us-open-government+unsub...@googlegroups.com.

To post to this group, send email to us-open-g...@googlegroups.com.

Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/us-open-government.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

--

Alexander B. Howard 

Phone: 410.849.9808 | @digiphile
Social Media: http://j.mp/ContactABH 

--

You received this message because you are subscribed to a topic in the Google Groups "US Open Government" group.
To unsubscribe from this topic, visit https://groups.google.com/d/topic/us-open-government/B8AZaX6OXu0/unsubscribe.
To unsubscribe from this group and all its topics, send an email to us-open-government+unsub...@googlegroups.com.

To post to this group, send email to us-open-g...@googlegroups.com.

Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/us-open-government.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

[Tim Bonnemann]

Thanks, Alex.

The contact form you're referencing (https://register.state.gov/contactus/contactusform) is generic in the sense that it doesn't appear to be specifically tied to the team running the online consultation. My point is that input received via this channel might easily get lost, misrouted or delayed. That's why I would strongly recommend against pointing people in that direction unless the convener is fully on board with it and the channel has been integrated into the overall process.

Also, I'm not endorsing the TechChange platform. I just think that based on what I'm seeing so far it seems to be as good as any comparable tool in this space, providing basic functions such as document sharing/embedding, online forum, chat as well as user profiles.

In the end, the quality of consultations like this one tends to depend on factors beyond the particular technology setup, namely:

*  Outreach (getting enough of the right people/voices to the table)

*  Community management (moderation/facilitation, responsiveness etc.)

*  Timely follow-up (what changes were made based on the input received and why?)

Tim

-- 

Tim Bonnemann

President & CEO

Intellitics, Inc.

http://intellitics.com

On Aug 19, 2016, at 10:32 AM, Andre G <goodf...@gmail.com> wrote:

I very much appreciate the lively discussion here with regard to the best way to engage in a constructive online discussion.  I've been advocating for greater public/private engagement for a long time.  Back in 1999, I was part of a small group that managed to put together one of the State Department's first online discussions, to test the waters with regard to online discussions with those engaged in making policy.  Making these discussions routine, via a range of media, is a goal.  In the UK, Syria and most recently in Hungary, where I've served as a Foreign Service Officer, I've sought to encourage our routine use of online media to engage with publics and make our activities more transparent.  It helped us build a communal bond with the very large U.S. citizen population in the UK when I was there, and was a crucial element in serving the U.S. citizen community in Syria in the year prior to the embassy's closure.  In Hungary too, I tried engaging the public via a blog and via Twitter.  

We're seeking to have a discussion of how we can best promote open government not because we have to, but because we understand its value.  We think it is an important element of our democracy; and if our having posted a discussion paper helps us learn about how to go about having a constructive discussion with the public... what the best technological platforms are.... what the public expectations are... how to best frames the issues to be discussed, etc.  that itself justifies the effort.

With regard to the specific issues mentioned.  We'll be asking less information of people wishing to join the discussion.   Regarding the terms of service... as Tim noted, these terms of service appear to be fairly standard.  Not only are they similar to those used by Genius.com, but also to those used by Google groups.  This boilerplate nature of the terms of service for forums like this may come from the fact that these are private companies, rather than government entities.  The TOS is what it allows the company to post comments by users and display them for others to view.  Depending upon the nature of the forum, the company may need to process comments to add @mentions, change formatting, and customize the comments, particularly if the forum is meant to be instructive.  I'm not an attorney, and while, as noted, I've been using online fora for decades, I appreciate the expertise of those participating here in helping us understand the benefits and pitfalls of each platform.

I look forward to continuing to learn from this discussion about the best platform for public participation, as well as from the discussion of the initiatives described in the discussion paper itself.

Regards,

Andre

M. Andre Goodfriend

Senior Advisor

Office of eDiplomacy

U.S. Department of State

 

On Friday, 19 August 2016 08:31:02 UTC-4, Alexander Howard wrote:

Tim,

1) I'd noticed that the draft embedded inside of GovUp appeared to be a Google Doc but couldn't find a public URL for it. Thank you for sharing it! Its existence addresses one of the key aspects of the critique: public availability of the plan without registration. 

I wish that State had highlighted (realized?) that a public URL existed for the document, but the resolution is easy enough: link to that URL and deprecate the version we published. I've added an update on our post:
http://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2016/08/18/state-department-requests-feedback-on-draft-2016-open-government-plan/

2) I pointed the public to the form designated by State Department Office of Public Engagement online formand the State Department's Bureau of Information Resource Management, 2201 C Street NW, Washington, D.C. Neither is "generic," as you asserted. If the State Department is serious about wanting public feedback on this plan, however, it would be useful for them to provide an email address -- I didn't post Andre's Gmail, although given its use to receive feedback about the plan here, I considered it.

2) I pointed the public to the form designated by State Department Office of Public Engagement online formand the State Department's Bureau of Information Resource Management, 2201 C Street NW, Washington, D.C. Neither is "generic," as you asserted. If the State Department is serious about wanting public feedback on this plan, however, it would be useful for them to provide an email address -- I didn't post Andre's Gmail, although given its use to receive feedback about the plan here, I considered it.

2) I pointed the public to the form designated by State Department Office of Public Engagement online formand the State Department's Bureau of Information Resource Management, 2201 C Street NW, Washington, D.C. Neither is "generic," as you asserted. If the State Department is serious about wanting public feedback on this plan, however, it would be useful for them to provide an email address -- I didn't post Andre's Gmail, although given its use to receive feedback about the plan here, I considered it.