As always, thanks to everyone for their updates from the field. Please also consider sending along a 2,000 word "think piece" for the "Features" section of the d-d.net website.

The Consortium would also like to welcome its two most recent Affiliates, InfoCommons and The King Baudouin Foundation.

~editor

1 | Deliberative Democracy in Wikipedia
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Wikipedia, the world's largest user defined encyclopedia now contains an entry for "deliberative democracy." Among other details, the entry associates deliberative democracy with left-wing, grassroots politics (such as Greenparty politics). The entry does, however, offer a good general definition of deliberative democracy, nor does it shed light on the existing state of practiceby providing concrete example. The entry does, however, provide a less well-known reference to Nino, C. S. (1996)The Constitution of Deliberative Democracy. New Haven: Yale University Press. [ISBN 03-000-7727-0].

To view and edit the deliberative democracy entry at Wikipedia, visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deliberative_democracy.

2 | Deliberative Polling at CMU
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The Tartan at Carnegie Mellon reports that CMU, "is leading the development of an Internet-based initiative, known as the Public Informed Citizens Online Assembly (PICOLA) Project, which facilitates a worldwide process known as deliberative polling."

To read more from the Tartan article, visit http://www.thetartan.org/98/10/news/4223.asp

To visit the PICOLA project, visit http://communityconnections.heinz.cmu.edu/picola/index.html

3 | Center for Deliberative Polling Launches New Website
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The Center for Deliberative Democracy, Directed by founder Dr James Fishkin, has launched its new, Stanford-based home on the 'net at http://cdd.stanford.edu/. This crisp website contains basic background information about the deliberative poll, a Spartan library, and background information about the Center's principal staff.

4 | Deliberative-Democracy: Making its Way in Blogs
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The last few months has seen a flurry of activity in several of the best blogs on the web. If this is any indicator of its growing debate, then it is surely good news for deliberative democrats. Among the top contenders are:

Matthew Yglesias' syndicated musings: http://www.matthewyglesias.com/archives/001599.html

Crooked Timber: http://www.crookedtimber.org/archives/000350.html

Joi Ito's Wiki (Emergent and Liquid Democracy): http://joi.ito.com/joiwiki/EmergentLiquidDemocracyWithBlogsAndWikis

5 | d-d.net blog: Can blogs Counter Rhetoric with Reason? Is Random Sampling Necessary?
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Online this month, d-d.net's lead bloggers Mike Weiksner (e-thepeople.org) and Peter Levine (CIRCLE/UMD) present questions for the community.

Do you have an opinion on the democratic potential of blogging? When anyone can "publish," does everyone benefit?

In deliberative practice, is random sampling the best way to motivate and mobilize social change? Are the goals of an organizer and the goals of a dialogue practitioner irreconcilable?

The d-d.net blog is a space for firsthand accounts from our shared fields of practice, and collaborative commentary on the issues and challenges facing the deliberative democracy community. Add your comments to the current entries, and email a href="mailto:jedm@weblab.org">jedm@weblab.org to find out how to submit your own!

Visit the d-d.net blog at: http://www.deliberative-democracy.net/blog

6 | Online Dialogue Report Available
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Online Dialogue in a Political Context, an evaluation of a large-scale online dialogue, is now available. The two-week dialogue, produced by Information Renaissance in June 2002, brought together about 1000 people - the public, state legislators and planners - to focus on California state education policy. The evaluation covers factors such as breadth of participation, satisfaction of participants and the quality of the dialogue as a public space for interaction.

Among the reports recommendations are to: increase the use of online dialogue, institutionalize its role in government, adopt standards for data exchange, and develop ethical standards and best practices. Download the report at http://www.network-democracy.org/camp/report.shtml.

7 | On-line, Synchronous Deliberations Piloted at Carnegie Mellon
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Carnegie Mellon University and the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh will serve on January 24, 2004 as regional hosts for a national issues forum on "America's Role in the World" coordinated by By The People, an initiative of MacNeil/Lerher Productions and the Center for Deliberative Democracy at Stanford. Pittsburgh will be one of ten participating sites nationwide, and the exclusive site for testing computer-mediated discussion as a vehicle for deliberative polling.

The application to be used for this dialogue is being developed at the Institute for the Study of Information Technology and Society (InSITeS - -http://insites.heinz.cmu.edu:8080/insites/) and the Center for the Advancement of Applied Ethics (CAAE - http://caae.phil.cmu.edu/caae/) at Carnegie Mellon, with funds from the National Science Foundation.

The application allows for synchronous, on-line group discussions using video, audio and text for communication. For more information in PICOLA, please visit: http://communityconnections.heinz.cmu.edu/picola/index.html.

8 | Democracy Lab: A New Resource for Online Deliberation
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The Center for Civic Life at Lock Haven University of Pennsylvania presents Democracy Lab, a new resource that seeks to promote civic engagement, develop student civic leadership and transform campus climate. Here's how it works: in Democracy Lab forums, small deliberation groups bring together 15-20 students from across the country, providing a greater diversity of voices than in any classroom. Moderator announcements guide students through a dialogue agenda making personal introductions, deliberating the pros and cons of different approaches, posing questions for research, sharing and discussing the results of inquiry, identifying common ground for action and considering action possibilities. Dialogue occurs on discussions boards available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

For more information, visit http://www.teachingdemocracy.org/DL/cbf/description.asp