noteworthy wrote:
Aaron Swartz:

I've spent the past year and change working on a site that publishes government information online. In doing that, I've learned a lot. But I've also become increasingly skeptical of the transparency project in general.

The way a typical US transparency project works is pretty simple. You find a government database, work hard to get or parse a copy, and then put it online with some nice visualizations.

The problem is that reality doesn't live in the databases. Instead, the databases that are made available, even if grudgingly, form a kind of official cover story, a veil of lies over the real workings of government.

So government transparency sites end up having three possible effects. The vast majority of them simply promote these official cover stories, misleading the public about what's really going on. The unusually cutting ones simply make plain the mindnumbing universality of waste and corruption, and thus promote apathy. And on very rare occasions you have a "success": an extreme case is located through your work, brought to justice, and then everyone goes home thinking the problem has been solved, as the real corruption continues on as before.

In short, the generous impulses behind transparency sites end up doing more harm than good.

Recently:

The Sunlight Foundation Labs has announced the winners for their transparency coding contest.

i work @ sunlightlabs and i really think that aaron's lens of failure has tinted his outlook on the subject. did he want to magically setup a site and then have a major WaterGate story break because of his site? well that would require effort now wouldn't it? (and not just bitching)

transparency is hard. washington hates change. yadda-yadda-yadda. the real bitch-session everyone should be having is that w/ local newspapers failing @ an ever accelerating rate who are the editors that get to decide what news is "news-worthy". The forth estate isn't just made up of hard-scrabble reporters but of byline-less editors and section chiefs that make sure news is news.

new media douchebags don't know anything, really.

--timball

Neoteric wrote:

noteworthy wrote:
Aaron Swartz:

I've spent the past year and change working on a site that publishes government information online. In doing that, I've learned a lot. But I've also become increasingly skeptical of the transparency project in general.

The way a typical US transparency project works is pretty simple. You find a government database, work hard to get or parse a copy, and then put it online with some nice visualizations.

The problem is that reality doesn't live in the databases. Instead, the databases that are made available, even if grudgingly, form a kind of official cover story, a veil of lies over the real workings of government.

So government transparency sites end up having three possible effects. The vast majority of them simply promote these official cover stories, misleading the public about what's really going on. The unusually cutting ones simply make plain the mindnumbing universality of waste and corruption, and thus promote apathy. And on very rare occasions you have a "success": an extreme case is located through your work, brought to justice, and then everyone goes home thinking the problem has been solved, as the real corruption continues on as before.

In short, the generous impulses behind transparency sites end up doing more harm than good.

Recently:

The Sunlight Foundation Labs has announced the winners for their transparency coding contest.

i work @ sunlightlabs and i really think that aaron's lens of failure has tinted his outlook on the subject. did he want to magically setup a site and then have a major WaterGate story break because of his site? well that would require effort now wouldn't it? (and not just bitching)

transparency is hard. washington hates change. yadda-yadda-yadda. the real bitch-session everyone should be having is that w/ local newspapers failing @ an ever accelerating rate who are the editors that get to decide what news is "news-worthy". The forth estate isn't just made up of hard-scrabble reporters but of byline-less editors and section chiefs that make sure news is news.

new media douchebags don't know anything, really.

--timball

I agree but this isn't really transparency any more than Pravda is news. The sources of data can't come just from government. They need to be discreet events all along the supply chain. With the cost of data approaching zero, then it shouldn't be too hard a leap to post data along the chain. THAT'S transparency. When I can stick my hand deep into the machine and pull something out.