Colarado State Senator Chris Romer has started a wiki tap voters for ideas regarding congestion on Interstate 70. Romer's Google groups wiki [1] 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" [2] to a page about carpooling [3].

This kind of wiki is an interesting idea, but I wonder who exactly is contributing to this discussion. Considering the whitewashing [4] that happens on Wikipedia, Romer will have to be careful regarding the assumptions he makes about contributors. It would be easy for an astroturf [5] 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 [6]