Clinamen

Colarado State Senator Chris Romer has started a wiki tap voters for ideas regarding congestion on Interstate 70. Romer's Google groups wiki has drawn a wide range of responses from "I Hate All of These Ideas, Want to Hit Senator Romer Over the Head with a Ski Pole" to a page about carpooling.

This kind of wiki is an interesting idea, but I wonder who exactly is contributing to this discussion. Considering the whitewashing that happens on Wikipedia, Romer will have to be careful regarding the assumptions he makes about contributors. It would be easy for an astroturf movement (one backed by corporate interests that would benefit from certain I-70 solutions) to begin to dominate this discussion. Wikis are great, but they're not inherently democratic. The anonymity of a wiki opens up the discussion (and, to me, this is a good thing), but it also means we have to view the text and authorship differently.

Link via Denver Business Journal