Wikivote

Description

"RUSSIA may sound an unlikely place for a bold experiment in participatory democracy. But Wikivote, an online forum where citizens collaborate in redrafting laws, seems to be enjoying unlikely early success there. The website displays a draft law and lets users propose rewrites of each paragraph; others can vote on the suggestions. In another section they can debate “thorny questions”. A reputation-rating system gives serious users' votes more weight; invited experts get even more. The site's first full-scale test came earlier this year, when protests erupted over a new fisheries bill that proposed charging Russians for their beloved pastime of fishing in public waterways. At the government's behest, Wikivote posted the draft bill; it went through two redrafts with over 1,000 proposed modifications, according to Vasiliy Burov, one of the project's creators. On the site now is a longer and trickier education bill." (http://www.economist.com/node/21534760)