[Open-Legislation] Open Legislation communication tools

Tue Dec 3 10:07:56 UTC 2013

Hi,

I have copied the targets of the Legislation Working Group into this
e-mail. I do not know when this was defined. There are currently 136
subscribers.

The Working Group exists to:

   1.

   *Define the area of Open Legislation – what it means and what it
   involves.* In our view there are at least three facets: availabilty of
   legal documents, information on law-making processes and the collaborative
   work on legal documents.
   2.

   *Act as a central point of reference and support for people who are
   interested in open legislation*
   3.

   *Identify practices of early adopters, collecting data and developing
   guides.*
   4. *Act as a hub for the development of low cost, community driven
   projects related to open legislation*

Since the Geneva meeting I am administrator of the mailing list, together
with Katelyn. This is also why I have asked if this mailing list requires a
different format.

Best, Clemens

2013/12/3 Andrew Mandelbaum <amandelbaum at ndi.org>

> Hi All,
>
> First, a minor correction: I think Francis meant to say that the Legal
> Informatics group is closed, which it is. The PMO Network<https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/pmo-network>group, which was established to focus on issues related to parliamentary
> monitoring and parliaments more broadly, is entirely open. The focus of the
> latter group very much overlaps with respect to some of the legislative
> issues that are being discussed here, as James has indicated.
>
> Many moons ago, in the early days of the PMO Network, we tossed around the
> idea of forming another discussion group to specifically focus on the more
> technical issues related to technology and its application to legislation
> and parliamentary data. It never panned out, in part because there was no
> clear leader willing to take on the task.
>
> If OKF is willing, then it's certainly worth discussing whether or not a
> new group fulfills a need. We're more than happy to explore that with you.
>
> Best,
> Andrew
>
>
>
>
> On Tue, Dec 3, 2013 at 9:01 AM, Oleg Lavrovsky <oleg at opendata.ch> wrote:
>
>> Thanks for the excellent comments James & Francis. Indeed it would not be
>> in the interests of the group at all to keep things closed off. On the
>> contrary! The moderators endeavour to approve real people as quickly as
>> they can (they are however all busy volunteers, so please be patient with
>> us), foster discussion and encourage as much open idea exchange as
>> possible.
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Oleg
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Dec 2, 2013 at 5:57 PM, James McKinney <james at opennorth.ca>wrote:
>>
>>> The working group was ostensibly relaunched in October:
>>> http://blog.okfn.org/2013/10/15/open-legislation-working-group-relaunched-at-okcon/
>>>
>>> If you apply to the second group, I would be surprised if you were not
>>> admitted. I don't think they hold very strongly to keeping it a closed
>>> group, more for defending against spam than anything else.
>>>
>>> James
>>>
>>> On 2013-12-02, at 11:40 AM, Francis Davey wrote:
>>>
>>> Thanks James, that is very useful. Note that the second group is not an
>>> open group.
>>>
>>> Is there a "working group" in the usual sense, or is it this mailing
>>> list?
>>>
>>> Francis
>>>
>>>
>>> 2013/12/2 James McKinney <james at opennorth.ca>
>>>
>>>> It's not a question of content. This list is simply not the popular one
>>>> for the topics of legal informatics and open legislation. Here are some
>>>> that fill that role for me:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!forum/legal-informatics-research-network
>>>> https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/pmo-network
>>>>
>>>> I would focus on "what does the OKF Open Legislation Working Group want
>>>> to do?" and center conversations around that. Maybe a more critical
>>>> question is, does the Working Group have anyone to lead/do the work that
>>>> the group chooses to focus on?
>>>>
>>>> James
>>>>
>>>> On 2013-12-02, at 11:08 AM, Francis Davey wrote:
>>>>
>>>> 2013/12/2 Clemens Wass <clemens at wass.at>
>>>>>
>>>>> Is it a question of content or is the mailing list an outdated tool
>>>>> for discussions (sorry, no offence towards all those who have started this
>>>>> group; I know that many open source groups still rely on the good old
>>>>> mailing list, but just wanted to ask). Would you prefer a blog/wiki or
>>>>> rather a discussion group like in LinkedIn?
>>>>>
>>>>> Please let me know! Any proposals are highly welcome!
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Two thoughts: (i) you could provide a steer on what sort of things are
>>>> going to be discussed/you want discussed; (ii) and also some idea what sort
>>>> of people might be on list.
>>>>
>>>> Mailing lists are like all such media a compromise. Too little traffic
>>>> and they aren't much use, too much and we have to unsubscribe or face
>>>> overfull inbobxes.
>>>>
>>>> At the moment it seems a bit write only, but that is something that
>>>> could change.
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Francis Davey
>>>>
>>>>  _______________________________________________
>>>> open-legislation mailing list
>>>> open-legislation at lists.okfn.org
>>>> http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/open-legislation
>>>> Unsubscribe: http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/options/open-legislation
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Francis Davey
>>>
>>>  _______________________________________________
>>> open-legislation mailing list
>>> open-legislation at lists.okfn.org
>>> http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/open-legislation
>>> Unsubscribe: http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/options/open-legislation
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> open-legislation mailing list
>>> open-legislation at lists.okfn.org
>>> http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/open-legislation
>>> Unsubscribe: http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/options/open-legislation
>>>
>>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> open-legislation mailing list
>> open-legislation at lists.okfn.org
>> http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/open-legislation
>> Unsubscribe: http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/options/open-legislation
>>
>>
>
>
> --
> *Andrew G. Mandelbaum*
>
> Senior Program Officer, Governance
> National Democratic Institute
> www.ndi.org
> OpeningParliament.org <http://openingparliament.org/>
>
> Twitter: agm3dc
> Phone: +212 6 62 68 10 56
> Skype: agm3jordan
> Email: amandelbaum at ndi.org
>
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> open-legislation mailing list
> open-legislation at lists.okfn.org
> http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/open-legislation
> Unsubscribe: http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/options/open-legislation
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.okfn.org/pipermail/open-legislation/attachments/20131203/7918d229/attachment-0002.html>