In a few days I will end the collaborative phase of Wikicrazia. Today I was going through the latest comments to come in (there are many, and I am lagging behind in replying a bit), and I was thinking that this blog has come to host a sort of source code for the book that I will finish writing in July. On top of the draft that got the process started, you’ll find here a great wealth of contributions to the discussion offered by more than twenty wikicrats, who have very diverse takes: civil servants, scholars, active citizens, journalists, technology experts, Italians and non-Italians. Congratulations, wikicrats: togeter we gave rise to a conversation of stellar level. If there is a richer, more diverse one anywhere in the world on this topic, I have been unable to find it. I am particularly proud of the fact that there has been no hint of flaming, we have dissented at times but everybody has been superpolite.
Starting from this material, anyone can reconstruct their own Wikicrazia, even using comments to attack the central case I am trying to make! As for me, I will try compile the source code in my own synthesis as best as I can, to be released as the Wikicrazia book in September. It will take on board the many suggestions made by wikicrats, and not a few ideas of my own that the discussion has prompted, so it will be more nuanced than the draft I uploaded a month ago. But the process helped to confirm that wiki-style public policies, discounted for the naivete and the problems as yet unsolved, are a really good idea.
I’ll wait for the very last comments, then post a final report, over and out. Wikicrats, ad maiora!