As far as we know, this is the first time that an elected official
has initiated a political wiki; a sea change in the relationship
between representatives and voters is clearly underway. -- PDF
Utah State Representative Steve Urquhart, Chairman of the Rules Committee that decides what legislation goes to the floor, launched Politicopia -- a Socialtext wiki for open government. It is off to a great start:
One week into the experiment, Politicopia is working. Citizens are
participating and citizens are being heard. Legislators are talking to
me about things they’ve read on Politicopia. Because of input I
received, I have changed a position I've held for years. Already,
citizens are using Politicopia to shape the debate. As a matter of
fact, a reporter emailed me, to ask why Politicopia wasn't linking to
her article. That has never happened in the two-plus years I’ve been
blogging.
He introduced the wiki last week on the Personal Democracy Forum with The Revolution Will Be Wikified:
Politicopia joins the
revolution to improve people's ability to understand and control their
government. Politicopia starts with three simple notions.
1. People need more control over government.
2. Insiders have too much control over government.
3. The Internet will disintermediate government.
In politics, intermediaries tightly control information. Those
intermediaries are (1) special interest groups, (2) the media, and (3)
bureaucrats. There's nothing wrong with the fact that those three
entities exist; they can be quite helpful in proper dosage. The problem
is the overwhelming degree to which those intermediaries filter content
and control political dialogue.
Citizens can elect representatives, lobby if their interests are special enough (institutional pluralism) or go public with campaigns that appeal to change (individual pluralism) with great effort and cost. But citizens have had no role in sausage making, let alone transparency into the process of legislation. When citizens collectively disintermediate politics, emergent democracy happens.
Urquhart further explains Politicopia:
The people must wrest control from the intermediaries. How? By (1)
improving access to information and (2) improving the ability to
organize.
Politicopia will improve people's access to information in my state,
Utah, by presenting a wiki-based forum for the compilation and
presentation of information on actual bills pending before the
Legislature. If a citizen wants to learn about an issue and shape the
dialogue, Politicopia will provide a quick and solid handle on the
process -- without the intermediaries filter. And if a legislator wants
to hear unfiltered suggestions from interested citizens -- instead of
mainly hearing from organized special interests -- Politicopia will
give him or her a new source of input.
Using a Socialtext wiki, Politicopia will list the bills, present a
brief summary of the issue and the bills status, invite pro and con
arguments and comments, and provide links to relevant sources. Users
will provide and control the content. Adding a forum where commentary
and links can be added to the great information already provided on the
Legislative website,
Politicopia should become a very useful source for quick, accurate
information on issues that the peoples representatives are deciding in
Utah. Please check it out and help supply content or start a site for
your state, city or mosquito abatement district.
Citizens link to the bill, build pro and con arguments, track status, link in external references and deliberate. The issues may matter to you, even if you don't live in Utah, such as:
For more on Politicopia, see Phil Windley, Doc Searls, Brit Blaser, David Weinberger and Micah Sifry. I'm encouraged to see social software employed in politics for more than campaigns and become a new valve for the heart of the legislative process.
It's good to be first to market, first to feature. But the wiki market is heating up with new entrants. so we have to stay at the forefront of innovation. 
Perhaps something is happening now. With the rise to traffic and time prominence of MySpace, entrepreneurs and hackers worked their way into the system, because, well, there is no thing as a closed system. Widgets started to appear. Most notably, the YouTube widget made its way enough to build a $1B business, depending on how you measure, before MySpace caught on to the video opportunity they were giving away. But the next YouTube wont be video, and stuff comes from all angles when users are empowered to paste Javascript. Smaller players will make this even easier, with wizards to add widgets. And the blogosphere from which all this independently froths will keep driving the widget economy. 
The last chapter of Don Tapscott's new book, 
Dan Bricklin hit his big milestone, with the 
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