In a phone conversation Gale and me agreed that I should create a
systematization of the discusion about the definition of TOP to see which
parts are essentially important to us.
Since we agreed on two things (if I understood right) about the way how should
the definition be achieved: (1) Strategic planning (Where we are now?, Where
we want to be? How we plan to get there?) and (2) Autopoietic (OpenSource)
approach through editing and adding content to the definition we have on the
wiki (http://top.xwiki.com/xwiki/bin/view/Main/TOP).
Also we agreed (correct me if I am wrong) on the answers to the first two
questions of strategic planning (Where we are now and Where we want to be)
where the answers were that we are in a position where we don’t have a good
definition of TOP and we want a definition behind which we will stand 100%.
This answers are only part I know, but let me elaborate further. Now, lets
see how we can achieve the stated in the first two questions (e.g. get the
answer to the third question).
First let me try to state which essential parts came into play during
disscussion.
i. The opinion that internet and politics will integrate with one another in
some ways
ii. Gaining some political importance and attract attention
iii. Change the way information in political processes is shared
iv. Change the way people can enter in politics
v. How politics should be held on the internet, or using the internet
vi. Set of rules person/organsation had to carry out if it wants to act in TOP
manner
vii. Transparent action includes publishing, explaining and documenting
appropriate documents of its vision, mission and goal statements of action
including plans and strategies on how to accomplish them. This documents also
include discussion templates, results, conclusions etc.
viii. The main goal of transparent action is a elaborated, total and integral
decision making process transparent and available to the public.
ix. A person, organization or option should have a public forum where the
public can comment the persons, organizations or options action. This forum
must have a fully non censored public part which is continuously and in a
line on-line available. Information on this forum should be public and
allways available for later references e.g. it should be replicable.
x. Open action is such action on which the public has influence i.e. action
which can be changed by the public under the condition that the result of
such a change is open again.
xi. Open action gives every person, option or organization the opportunity of
process involvement.
xii. If some person, option or organization wants to act open, it has to
insure continuous contact and discussion with the public. This is in
accordance with the concept of a forum where the public has the opportunity
to discus and where every single individual is involved through a clearly
distinguishable criteria.
xiii. Every document created through transparent and public action is thus
openstanding.
xiv. Every person, option or organization should take every meaningful
critique, suggestion, comment and idea of the public, discus it and, if they
find it usefull, include it an the appropriate document.
xv. Public action is such action which is available to the public, allways and
at will and which is oriented towards the public.
xvi. If a person, option or organization wants to act public it has to insure
continuous public availability of information about their action.
xvii. Public available information is information which is publicly available
in a clearly articulated form. This information should be available to
everyone interested in it over the Internet. This information can be
available through other mediae but the Internet is obligatory.
xviii. Any official action should be documented in the appropriate document.
xix. A person, option or organization is TOP and can thus become a certificate
if its action is transparent, open and public according to the definition of
TOP and has an elaborated integral decision making process.
xx. TOP is the acronym for Transparent, Open and Public in reference to the
governance of the country or in the conduct of public business.
xxi. What is open and public in governance will make it transparent as well.
xxii. TOP clearly does not apply to private exchanges on private matters among
the public officials or on public matters among private individuals.
xxiii. Apart from the discussion process, the discussion minutes and other
documents and records should be available online to anyone who wants access
to them, especially those who are participating or interested in the
discussions.
xxv. Transparent means that every decision and/or project fullfiled by a
political organization, individual or initiative should be fully documented
so every interested individual can follow the reasons any decision was
made.Transparent means to me that every decision and/or project fullfiled by
a political organization, individual or initiative should be fully documented
so every interested individual can follow the reasons any decision was made.
xxvi. Open means open in the sense of OpenSource. Every project and/or
decision fullfiled by a political organization, individual and/or initiative
should be open for participation for every interested individual. This means
that every person who wants to can and should participate.
xxvii. Public means that every decision and/or project fullfiled by a
political organization, individual and/or initiative should be public
available and oriented towards the public.
xxviii. TOP are principles that define how politics should evolve in the
coming times. They apply on the processes themselves, the electronic
processes. It’s a basis of democracy on the net.
xxix. There is one test which would validate the application of transparency
=> replicability. Anybody should be able to copy in real time a political
process that applies the transparency principles. Replicability is a test
proving this state of fact.
xxx. Open participation is to allow anybody to enter in the process. No
barrier to entry.
xxxi. There are exceptions to TOP:
* a personal password or PGP private key can be kept private
* participating in an electoral process does not imply to be counted (or
that would allow easy cheating on a large scale using electronic
persona)
* the relationship between a physical identity and a persona can be kept
secret
* national security, “raison d’état”
That last point is highly dubious, machiavel did say that everything in the
state was a matter of “raison d’état”. Thus it should be very strictly
circumvented.
xxxii. There is one test that could be useful: everything recorded has to be
made public.
xxxiii. All important decisions must be fully transparent. The whole process
should be open and public with sufficient media coverage including the
internet. At this point of time, public participation should be welcome and
encouraged wherever practical, especially online 24 hours a day, 7 days a
week, and with elected or appointed discussion leaders.
xxxiv. There shall be no prohibition of public employees from having private
discussion on any public matter.
xxxv. All government recorded information should be made public.
xxxvi. All democratic processes should be made so transparent that they can be
replicated in real time
xxxvii. Transparent, open and public principles supplement each other in
defining the fundamental standards of a genuinely democratic organization.
xxxviii. A transparent organization must ensure full, accurate, and timely
disclosure of actions and information. Its actions and their justifications
must remain intelligible and clear.
Users are able to fully audit any decision, information, process or other
feature of the organization. It therefore implies keeping a record of
discussions, decisions, documents and any other supporting material in an
accessible format. An elaborated, total and integral decision making process
must be defined in accordance with TOP principles. Practically, one who
doesn’t know anything about the organization should be able to gain full
knowledge of it, to the point that the organization and its information could
be duplicated should one wish to do so.
xxxix. An open organization, process, action or otherwise can be changed by
any person or entity under the condition that the result of such a change
remains open. Open action gives every person or entity the opportunity to get
involved in the process and propose alterations.
This implies that any open system must be opensource. Furthermore,
discussions, processes, deliberations, documents and any other feature must
remain openstanding.
xl. A public organization, its processes, information and actions must be
accessible without censorship or restrictions to any member of the public.
Accessibility must be ensured at all times over the internet. Information
must be organized so as to allow quick and effective access. Public
information should be available in a clearly articulated form so as to be
accessible to non-specialists.
An uncensored public forum must be made available for comments on the
organization itself. This forum must be maintained so that it remains
transparent, open and public according to the definitions in this document.
xli. An entity is TOP and can thus become a certificate if it demonstrates it
functions in accordance with transparent, open and public principles
according to this document and has an elaborated integral decision making
process.
II. Document structure:
i. Different aspects of TOP (political, sociological, psychological,
organizational, philosophical etc.)
ii. Three essential parts of TOP transparency, openness and publicity.
III. Important issues to consider:
i. The definition needs to be clear and catchy in order to penetrate easily
ii. A good definition of TOP is an important start. Decisionmaking should be
the next step.
iii. The definition should guide our future actions
iv. All of us should stand behind the definition 100%
v. The categories of transparent, open and public action are interconnected,
they supplement each other since none of them embraces the whole field needed
by this idea
vi. There is an obvious need, especially in the early stages, for non-public
discussions or consultations among colleagues working on a public issue,
matter or project. Perhaps, once when the official papers are finalized and
presented to the appropriate authority for consideration and eventual
approval, the whole process should be open and public with sufficient media
coverage including the internet.
vii. Are there any exceptions to the TOP Principles? Perhaps:
1 The Secrecy of the Vote;
2 National security and state secrets; and
3 Any other matter where the body or authority responsible consider it a
necessity in the national interests not to be open and public.
For Points 2 and 3, there has to be an elected or appointed independent body
to review the decisions or recommendations not to be open and public, and the
decision of this independent body should be make public and published in the
media and the internet.
In the context of true democracy, the exceptions will be subject to the
final say of the citizens through the use of the Citizens’ Initiative or
Referendum (I&R), if any citizen disagrees with the decision of the
independent body.
viii. Informal consultations could be very harmful to the later stages since
what’s concluded and decided in such closed halls could put a totally wrong
agenda when it comes to public opinion and participation. Shortly spoken: The
privilege of problem formulae should not be kept by the inner circles.
ix. We should set up standards that can easily distinct initiatives that
enable public participation from those that do not.
x. articulation of individuals who set some policies. More info we have, more
people can support such policies with no fear of loosing of public support.
If there are some “mystery” issues that individuals do not find appropriate
due to any reason to public, the way to realize them is putting their word,
their reputation on probation. So, it is up to the public should they
legitimate those mystery ones, or those fully transparent.
xi. Silence majority concept leads to schizophrenia of power, making the whole
process being declarative, not real one. If we want to create system be fully
legitimated, it needs to mediate the power as clear as possible in order to
preserve its status. If it is not being done, power disharmony tends to
destroy legitimacy of such a system.
xii. TOP as a framework for political action. TOP should be the reason that
will allow good people to behave good and reward them for being good (by
saying good I mean it in the broadest sense of the word).
xiii. Decision making for setting policies has to be TOP. What about running
operational processes, here comes the question. I suppose it is up to the
body. If the body is some public object, we might not care about what is
being done inside it if it does not want to be runned publicly. If it wants,
I suppose we should support it also.
xiv. TOP must disable opportunistic behavior in order to succeed.
xv. An important issue about information control is that it is decentralized,
dissabling creation of the centers that are obviously superior to those who
are not informed.
xvi. The idea of an infrastructure which would allow “closing inside
openness”. To “close” organizations/individuals/initiatives (oii’s) there
should be something like a licence which would allow the use of TOP
information only by TOP certified oii’s. Thus the infrastructure consists of
a licence, a standard and a certificate as elaborated some time ago on this
group. In this way TOP oii’s would be in some way protected against nonTOP
oii’s. How to articulate such a standard and such a licence is another issue.
If I remember well once as I was analyzing GPL licences I saw that people of
the FSF are often willing to support the development of new licenses, so
maybe we should contact them and ask for support?
xvii. A criteria to determine if an organization is strongly transparent => if
it publishes enough data so as to be able to setup a duplicate organization
of itself. This is particularly useful in democratic settings, where a
duplicability criteria would help in order to audit any process and its data.
xviii. One average person should be able to verify is some organization is TOP
or not
xix. Public, why should anybody on this planet have any right on a TOP
organization just because he is part of the “public”? Why not limit it to
“its public”? (or participants)
As you can see I tried to shorten down the whole communication about the
definition of TOP concentrating on Elements, Structure and Issues to be
considered (if I missed any important thing please bring it to my attention).
The definition we have (the one on the wiki) is still not satisfactory (even
Serge did a great job in editing it) since some issues weren’t considered and
are still not included in the definition. Maybe a good way to approach the
definition would be to imagine todays politicians and political organizations
(in a broad sense) and try to see if this definition excludes non-democratic
and non-TOP entities. IMHO it doesn’t. Another issue which hasn’t been
included are concrete steps which an organization or individual must make in
order to be TOP.
Since only a little has been proposed about structure I think this should be
our first focus, e.g. how should the definition look like and what should it
cover?
If we create structure we can easily fill the elements of the definition in.
One proposal is to create structure according to different aspects of TOP
e.g. political, sociological, psychological, organizational, philosophical
etc.), maybe this is a start. Or we can focus on the structure we have now
(Introduction, Transparent, Open, Public, Conclusion, References). Any other
proposals?
Best regards
—
Markus Schatten, dipl. inf.
e-mail: markus.schatten@foi.hr
http://www.tiaktiv.hr
