Jimbo's Wikipolitics

Jimmy Wales, (co)-founder of Wikipedia has launched Campaigns Wikia, part of his new Wikia site, the commercial arm of Wikipedia. As the mission statement explains:

For more than 50 years now, we have been living in the era of television politics. In the 1950s television first began to have a major impact on politics, and the results were overwhelming.

Broadcast media brought us broadcast politics. And let's be simple and bluntly honest about it, left or right, conservative or liberal, broadcast politics are dumb, dumb, dumb.

NPOV, anyone?

This website, Campaigns Wikia, has the goal of bringing together people from diverse political perspectives who may not share much else, but who share the idea that they would rather see democratic politics be about engaging with the serious ideas of intelligent opponents, about activating and motivating ordinary people to get involved and really care about politics beyond the television soundbites.

Together, we will start to work on educating and engaging the political campaigns about how to stop being broadcast politicians, and how to start being community and participatory politicians.

With refreshing candour Wales writes:

So, I will frankly admit right up front: I don't know how to make politics healthier. But, I believe that you do. I believe that together we can work, this very election season, to force campaigns to use wikis and blogs to organize, discuss, manage, lead and be led by their volunteers.

Which is fair enough.

Pity that, like The Commons Rising discussed below, his vision has a distinctly parochial feel about it - "this very election season", he writes: not here, mate.

Think big, Jimmy, think global. (Via Boing Boing.)