User:David Mason/P2PU week 1 assignment: Difference between revisions

In this case, after freedom of information requests, the government released part of the budget, in fax form. The fax became available online, and I posted a message to the [http://canbudget.zooid.org/frame/?l=http%3A//groups.google.com/group/visiblegovernment-discuss/browse_thread/thread/54a5551a854e13e5 Visible Government mailing list] and [http://www.facebook.com/nostriluu?v=wall&story_fbid=156947327666270 Facebook], asking for people interested in transcribing this data into reusable spreadsheet data, and suggesting the creation of a semantic, structured wiki to make the data reusable and examinable through addition of details. This includes discourse features, which allows assigning a position to additions. For example, an initial cost item can have another item added with a Debatable position. That item can then have items added with Supports or Refutes positions.

The result is highly re-usable, organized information. Because the software is based on the Free Software [http://www.mediawiki.org Mediawiki], the same software used by Wikipedia, it is free to use, can store many entries, and a culture of access is included.  All site editing is done via the Web, so anyone can view any page's contents (via the edit or view source tab), [[Special:RecentChanges|site editing history]], page edit history (via the history tab), and [[Special:Version|components of the site]], as well as progressively learn how to use and contribute to the site (knowledge which will transfer to similar sites, and which I'd assert is digital literacy past filling in forms). Because the site uses [http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ cc-by-sa] terms of use, anyone can take the content and use it for their own purposes, as long as they attribute the site and make modified works available under the same terms. All the [[:Category:Site components|site components]] can be exported and re-used easily on any site using [[Special:Export]].