From eg

The following was the issue statement for uk.openingpolitics.org, circa late 2007. It was eventually abandoned when its administrators abandoned support in favour of the Vilfredo system.

This is early days for openingpolitics.org. The plan is to have a wiki for every national government. So, this wiki is just for people from the United Kingdom. Or, is it with people with a stake in the United Kingdom. Please try to use the IPA structure below to puzzle this out.

[edit] Issue: Wikis - a force for evil

position: Meetings in town halls are better than wikis as a forum for political debate

argument for: Town halls have biscuits

argument for: Wikis have trolls

counter-argument: Good town halls have trolls too, see Crocker's Rules

argument against: There's no good reason not to work out the issues in advance of a town hall meeting, using a wiki, which saves a lot of time and will ensure that at least in theory people who can't be there can contribute

argument against: People are often afraid to say what they really think in a town hall with all their community around them. However in a troll-friendly wiki you can be almost certain to really hear everyone's real life opinion, and also their real life opinion of your opinion, and of your mother

argument against: People have to schedule meetings in town halls, they therefore have to set aside a specific time that some people consistently can't make.

counter-argument: Good town halls shift the meeting day and time around so that everyone CAN make it on some day.

argument against: It takes fuel and roads to get to town hall meetings, it has a substantial cost on the ecosystems around it and on accident risk.

counter-argument: The shared cost and risk creates community to offset this and even tragedy on the road to and from the meeting builds that community.

argument for: People may never encounter each other emotionally at all if they don't physically meet. Without pheromones, maybe you aren't communicating.

[edit] Issue: Who edits this wiki and what are the implications of this

Full neutral issue statement: Experienced wiki users usually claim that focusing on "who edited" a page rather than on "how verified" it is, inevitably degrades the wiki to uselessness. That said, politics requires rootedness, and knowing the bodily location and vital bodily interests of the persons advocating biased position statements is one of the most common and important ways we acquire a sense of how seriously to take a view. There must at least be a statistical answer to "who edits this wiki" and there must be clear understanding of the operations entailed by making any particular decision to limit any group or type of user.

position: Anyone should be able to edit this wiki

argument for: People all around the world are affected by decisions of the UK Government. They should all get to contribute. They can enter their positions and arguments in structures like this one.

argument for: Note that this doesn't say "anyone should be able to edit this wiki without saying where they're from, what citizenships they hold, or why they're concerned about the UK policy on this issue" - one could require disclosure or credentials without restricting editing.

argument for: Adult scholars and witnesses from the US, Canada, Russia, Australia, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Korea, Cuba... there's no set of rules that wouldn't exclude some of these or discourage them by requiring them to present credentials.

argument for: No way to verify credentials without extra expense and bother.

argument for: It's a mistake to focus on "who edited" a page rather than on "how verified" it is, it will lead directly to wiki witchhunts and outing and so is best completely avoided; You could limit who can take positions or rank positions, vote, elect officers and lock pages, all without limiting "who can edit" at all

argument against: There are ways to make it easy for people to contribute without necessarily directly editing issue pages; For instance they could be restricted to talk pages. There are ways to be broadly inclusive while staying short of "anyone".

argument against: The wildly popular public wikis almost never have any restrictions based on any attribute of the user, including race, creed, nationality, location, and many would consider this inherently racist

position: Only UK residents should be able to edit this wiki

argument for: The UK should be an autonomous region, with the right to govern itself.

counter-argument: Editing is not governing: Even the most stable and consensed wiki page does not automatically become law! The right to state one's case isn't the same as who votes or who runs or who decides. If this argument is valid, then, there should never be any witness who is not a permanent UK resident ever called to testify in a trial. Editors are just witnesses, they are not judges nor solicitors necessarily.

'counter-argument: UK court decisions seem to often include summaries of the relevant Canadian, Australian, Indian, New Zealand and US case law and constitutional arguments, since these come from the same English common law root and are relatively easy to relate to the UK context; The same is true of policies of all kinds, which are increasingly best practices from elsewhere

argument for: UK residents may prefer a venue where they know they are dealing only with other UK residents

counter-argument: Even if true, that's simply a prejudice that doesn't reflect reality. The London bus bombings were carried out by UK residents, so even people who reject values held by the vast majority of Britons would still qualify to edit under this rule (and it would be better to have them edit than blow themselves up). Meanwhile, UK residents via their taxes and relatives in the armed forces are certainly "dealing with" Afghan and Iraqi residents, so avoiding the opinions of such people is just ostrichism.

argument against: So UK teenagers or even children can participate but not adult scholars from the US, Canada, Russia, Australia, Afghanistan? That won't lead to very good content.

argument against: No way to verify UK residents without extra expense and bother, and keeping this as a paper rule could backfire resulting in wiki witchhunt

argument against: A rather large number of Britons are expatriates in other countries, and probably with more knowledge of what those countries do well.

position: Only people with a UK passport should be able to edit the wiki

argument for: These are the people who can vote, therefore they should be able to edit.

counter-argument: Editing is not voting: Even the most stable and consensed wiki page does not automatically become a position of a political party. The right to take a position isn't the same as who votes or who runs or who decides. If this argument is valid, then, no UK political party should ever listen to any expert from anywhere else. Editors are just witnesses, they are not candidates nor officers necessarily.

argument against: Migrant workers often are living in the UK illegally, so will not have passports. But they are still very much affected by the policy of the UK government, so they should have a right to be represented in the political process.

argument against: Many people in the Commonwealth are still somewhat directly affected (at least on some issues) by UK decisions even though they don't formally hold a UK passport any more; For instance Antigua and other Eastern Carribean islands still have the Law Lords as their court of last resort, and this has affected the policy they take on the death penalty (abolished in the UK but still in use in the Carribbean). It would be absurd not to let an Antiguan participate at least on that issue.

argument against: So UK teenagers or even children can participate but not adult scholars from the US, Canada, Russia, Australia, Afghanistan? That won't lead to very good content.

argument against: No way to verify UK citizens without extra expense and bother, and keeping this as a paper rule could backfire resulting in wiki witchhunt

position: Anyone can edit but non-UK IP addresses may be treated differently in certain well-defined wiki grief cases where fixed rules apply to how to limit conflict. Rights to take positions, rank positions, elect officers of Opening Politics UK:itself, vote or lock pages or hide pages will be preferentially allocated to UK citizens and UK residents. A credential system will eventually created to verify self-claims users make about themselves, and user pages are encouraged for disclosure.

argument for: Editing limits are imposed only to deal with actual problems, and those (such as block IP) are usually temporary; There's no assumption about who someone is based on where their IP is reported to be, increasingly important given proxy servers which many people use for political privacy

argument for: The actual power (to vote or rank or lock or hide) over editorial functions will always reside in a group that has clearly a majority of UK citizens/residents even if those deem it useful or necessary to grant an Afghan, Iraqi, American, African or Iranian or Cuban some powers from time to time, usually to moderate or report debates that would otherwise never be reported in English.

argument for: The problem of how reliably to verify is put off until such time as some self-funding mechanisms are in place, when more robust audit criteria such as open politics in force could be considered (which may cost something to satisfy due to requirements like simplified ontology, translation, credentialing, and an ArbCom).

argument for: Encouraging user pages creates a social network among the UK residents and allows them to form factions more easily (say with pub meetings) than non-residents (who have no such opportunity); It's unlikely that users who know each other personally via such venues could be overwhelmed or divided by even a vast army of Chinese military trolls.

argument for: Avoiding simple stupid rules that can't be enforced sends a strong signal to all users that this wiki is about practical political solutions, and a stupid xenophobic reactionary Pointy-Haired Boss approach is not and will never be welcome.

counter-argument: Ah, but simple stupid rules that can't be enforced are what politicians always write, and which bureaucrats selectively enforce (or ignore), and that's why Whitehall rules! See Yes Minister and Yes Prime Minister. So if we want UK politics as usual it should start with just such stupid impractical "rules"!

[edit] Layout, structure, content of this wiki

All of this is editable, and I hope you will edit it. Take control of this wiki, it belongs to you. Make it how you want it, make it work! If you disagree with something, change it, don't leave! If you disagree with something in a fundamental way, change the wiki fundamentally! Don't give up until you've tried it (even if you have tried, try again :-).