Posted by
Michael Lenczner on
URL: http://civicaccess.416.s1.nabble.com/maybe-OT-values-of-CivicAccess-tp1420.html
Hey all,
Since we started CA, the question of common goals / values has been a
question. I'm don't think it needs to be 100% clear but I'm glad we
haven't assumed consensus on issues that haven't been explored, and
I'm glad that we don't assume that we all have the same values or
strategies for social change. I think everyone is pretty cool with
the idea that there's people from different places on the political
spectrum, and that we are well off coming together to work on this
specific goal of access to civic info and data.
I wanted to share my concern about another issue. I've been picking up
on a perceived idea that we're all equally excited about data-driven
decision making. I wonder how true that is. Personally I get
concerned by a lot of imagined practices I see around access to data.
There's a whole positivist / empiricist side to it that kinda freaks
me out.
I can imagine us often making better decisions with access to more
data, but I can also imagine us making worse decisions by relying too
much on that practice. The reason I'm here is that access to
information is a justice issue. I don't think it is just that we
don't have access to our own civic information, and I think that we
would have a more just society if access to these resources were
opened up. Redressing that injustice is a goal in itself for me and
secondarily I'm excited about issues of transparency in terms of the
relation between citizen and government. Data-driven decision making
(ie: better decision) is farther down as a priority for me. Down
further still is the goal of increased efficiency.
I don't necessarily respect the evaluation + management tools that are
currently being pushed on the non-profit sector and I would not be
comfortable with promoting more single-minded use of those tools by
our public bodies. There's too many difficulties around the
production of knowledge (data) and useful framing of it for me not to
be ambivalent about encouraging their use.
That being said, I respect that there are others that have a different
set of priorities for being here and I'm not trying to convince
anybody. I'm glad that we are here to work together on the question
of access and possibilities for disseminating and using that
info/data.
I've been thinking about this for a while, but Hugh posted a video by
the journalist behind the Wire that prompted my email. It points to
some difficulties of making decisions from a distanced, solely
quantitative knowledge of an issue.
via Hugh's blog
http://townsendcenter.berkeley.edu/webcast_Simon.shtmlHope that made sense.
Since I'm on the topic, I'm glad that we've developed a respectful
culture here. No flaming and there's a good dialogue between new
people, technical experts and policy experts. Congrats for us. :-)