Comments on: Government workers debate online citizen engagement

At Friday's Gov 2.0 Camp, an "unconference" described as a "Woodstock for the 21st century," government workers discuss what it means to engage citizens in meaningful online discussions.

[James Anderson Merritt]

Whether a conversation is meaningful "has to be definied from the citizens' perspective," Bourne explained. Yet if they lead the discussion to a seemingly insignificant topic, is the discussion still a success?

"We all want to hear from the public, but we want to hear meaningful stuff," said Joy Fulton of the U.S. General Services Administration. "How do you filter what's going to help us, and filter out what's just noise?"

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So the government asks the public to give them a clue as to what is significant, and when they get an answer they don't like they doubt its significance?

Obama didn't have to dismiss the topic in the mocking way that he did. The fact is that there are serious issues surrounding the Drug War, and he could have spoken sincerely about them and what his Administration will be doing about them. Instead, he tossed off an answer that satisfies nobody but those who are still drinking the Drug War Kool Aid, or who believe Obama can say and do no wrong.

[finleyd]

The problem here is that online conversations can be hijacked by "noisy minorities", such as the "legalize marijiuana" crowd. The "noise" fron that "noisy minority" crowded out discussions by the majority who may think differently and have diiferent issues/priorities.

[ghostofitpast]

I suppose it would be fair to say that those directly involved with all levels of government operation still have a lot to learn about support technology. The "signal-to-noise-ratio" problem is just as great in filtering out "evangelical noise" as it is in dealing with "citizen input!" However, I would modestly suggest that what the government folks still need to learn is dwarfed by the "negative magnitude" of how little technology advocates seem to know about basic principles of government, how those principles worked their way into our Constitution, and how the operations of our government have evolved since it was first constituted. For too many of those advocates, the world of social software "is all/Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know;" and I find that myopia far more dangerous than perplexities within the Government Services Administration! Further thoughts about basic principles of government at:

http://therehearsalstudio.blogspot.com/2009/03/democratic-press-conference.html

[cedarhillbilly]

maybe part of the answer is found in NYT article on wikipedia
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/29/weekinreview/29cohen.html?ref=technology
it's the community, stupid?

[EvilBankers]

"We all want to hear from the public, but we want to hear meaningful stuff," said Joy Fulton.

"...if they lead the discussion to a seemingly insignificant topic, is the discussion still a success? said Sarah Bourne,

I've got some news for you, Ms. Fulton and Ms. Bourne - if you hear it from the pubic, it IS meaningful. If you are hearing ANYthing from the public, it is a success. You should be thankful the public even talks to you after how badly the government has run this country into the ground.

YOU ARE A PUBLIC SERVANT. We pay your salary. Now quit trying to second guess everybody and read between lines that don't exist. You come off as crazy. Get off that elitist, high horse of yours.

In typical government fashion, you can't figure out what to do with the information you are collecting... So you blame the citizens for not telling you what you want to hear. Why even ask anyone's opinion if you are just going to tell them its irrelevant or in the "wrong" category?

[AI7R]

I work for a municipality and we have been struggling with this for years.

Here's an example. I put together a project where the public could comment on the General Plan for the City. I had warned the staff asking for it that it was a mistake to post the comments publicly. Sure enough, for the next year, two staff members spent more than half their time responding to comments....from three people who each posted whatever was on their mind every single day!! Other than those, maybe 20 other people had comments over that same period.

I've found the key is to let people know up front if they should expect a direct reply, and NEVER ever re-post the comments. If they know they have a soap box they will use it. And that's not helpful at all.

My PR staff was clamoring to have a 'Facebook' page and use Twitter. I've told them over and over that these are for individuals to communicate with individuals. And that people who are 'followers' or 'friends' expect answers to comments. Where does this help government? Of course, they opened a Facebook account and received such a backlash of hateful comments in the first hour that they shut it down. Facebook isn't for organizations and shouldn't be. Anyhow, what if North Korea wanted to be our 'friend'?

It's not easy to take input from people as a government. Unless you are faced with the problem it's hard to comprehend the issues involved. Can we legally repost some comments and not all because that would be censoring - not a good thing for our type of government. Do people want to read the comments if they have nothing to do with the topic?

Those that think anything the public says should be listened to, they are right. But, if the traffic staff gets a bunch of comments about illegal immigrants or complaints about a public pool, how does that help them work on bus schedules?

We focus on what we read to topics we want. Input needs to be very specific in order to be of help to those humans that have to deal with it. Venting seems to be the theme of the day and everyone seems to think they have the 'right' to say anything, anywhere on the net.

I know exactly what these folks were trying to solve in this conference. I have to deal with it every day and we still haven't found a good solution, other than never re-publishing the comments to keep the venting down and feedback quality high.