Monday, February 19, 2007

Petitions, politics and prats: a cautionary tale for No 10 | Technology | Guardian Unlimited Technology

Petitions, politics and prats: a cautionary tale for No 10 | Technology | Guardian Unlimited Technology: "If there is a faintly embarrassing feel to many of these sites, reminiscent of the proverbial dad at a disco, it stems partly from the contrast with the way web communities traditionally develop. A grassroots site will start small, attracting more and more interested people through word-of-mouth. When an institution that is already huge and controversial suddenly adopts a new technology, there's less opportunity for those involved to grow into it. It's also an open invitation for all the people who already hate it to log on and start yelling."

Interesting quote in the Guardian about eGovernment. It's all very well opening yourselves up to petitions and the 'voice of the people', but if the people don't have anything of worth to say or if they don't want to say what you want to hear... then you're left in the embarrassing position of having to publically ignore them. Not good for anyone. There's something that smacks of 'don't ask the question if you don't want to hear the answer' about the accessibility of politicians to the electorate in such a visible manner. If anyone anywhere can log on and see the public disquiet of the reigning Government, and anyone anywhere can join in on the attack, there's part of me that says 'yes, that has to be good for democracy', but there's another part that says 'I bet the politicians are desperate for a way to close the floodgates'.

Wonder where the prats and politicians will end up?

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