When Mother Jones launched its “Fight Different” package about politics and the Internet, it introduced the stories and interviews with a rumination on the term Open Source Politics. The short, irreverent definition was presented as a mock-Wikipedia entry, under the classic Wiki red-flag: “The neutrality of this story is disputed.” And I tell you what, the neutrality of our approach has been disputed, and disputed, and disputed. And in this case, that was exactly the point: the new arbiter of truth in politics is increasingly you, dear reader. If you’re sick of bias and spin, speak up, and change it.
That, at least, is the idea behind Wikipedia, which now accounts one out of every 200 page views on the Internet. No format on the web is better at reaching a consensus on objective truth in the most touchy and politicized of subjects. For a glimpse of Wikipedia’s potential in the political realm, see our interview with Jimmy Wales here.
But don’t stop there. Do you disagree with our definition of Open Source Politics? Are there counterpoints to what Wales has told us that you don’t think are being aired? Well, feel free to offer your thoughts in this blog. Or even better, check out the real entry for Open Source Politics in Wikipedia, and edit it. If I had to guess, I’d say a Google search of the term will soon yield the popular view of the idea over anything a magazine writer has had to say.
