Talk:Open government

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Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Jross35, Jinnayang. Peer reviewers: Kojinglick.

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Untitled

This page does need a clean up. It has some duplication of the Freedom of information legislation page and possibly with the transparency page and other things that need doing. It also needs to be disambiguated from Open Government (capital g) the Yes Minister page.61.68.40.194 08:13, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Done with the disambiguation. Battocchia (talk) 16:49, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

merges

A merge with Radical transparency has been proposed. I think a more thorough rearrangement of the articles in this area may be required. "Open Meeting Law", "Open meeting laws" (but not "Open meeting law"), "Open records law", "Government in the Sunshine", "Sunshine Law" and "Sunshine law" all redirect here; "Sunshine laws" used to redirect here but someone recently created a stub there instead; and then there's this separate article on "Open government".

"Sunshine law" seems to be the general term for open records/freedom of information laws and open meetings laws, but everything is currently redirecting to "Freedom of information legislation", which usually refers only to open records, not open meetings. There's a short paragraph on open meetings legistlation in general in that article, but nothing on existing open meetings laws.

Perhaps "sunshine law" should redirect to "open government", which should include short paragraphs defining open records/freedom of information laws and open meetings laws, both of which should have their own articles which explain them in detail and contain information on existing legislation of that kind. Or alternatively "sunshine law" could get an article of its own (linking to "freedom of information legislation" and "open meetings legistlation"), and "open government" could link to "sunshine law".

What do you think?

Joriki (talk) 10:51, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

potential Germany resource

German President Retreats on Openness by MELISSA EDDY published NYT January 5, 2012; excerpt ...

A day after a televised interview in which he promised greater openness and transparency, the president of Germany, Christian Wulff, refused on Thursday to allow the country’s biggest-selling newspaper to publish a transcript of a threatening voice mail message he left for the newspaper’s editor. The exchange between the president and Kai Diekmann, editor of the newspaper Bild, threatens to keep alive a scandal that Mr. Wulff had sought to put behind him in the interview, which was watched by about 11.5 million Germans on Wednesday evening.

99.190.80.182 (talk) 06:54, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Neutrality

I changed the tone of this article a bit, I dont think it reads like its selling you the idea anymore. I think the nature of the topic will lead to general issues in tone anyway. But im gonna remove the tag.TallMountains (talk) 21:33, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

Hello, I am not sure if this is he right way to do this, i do not edit often at all, but this seemed not neutral to me, I like Obama but it is still not neutral: (halfway through the fifth paragraph under content) "His willingness for greater openness in governmental institutions demonstrates what we are thriving to achieve as a community: transparency for the benefit of the citizens and their concerns with the government and society as a whole." I guess you meant striving, not thriving, although the country certainly won't be doing that once donald j trump gets behind the wheel, but anyways this is an encyclopedia article not a DNC ad. maybe you would want to possibly change that. -nathan swanson — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nathanielfirst (talk • contribs) 00:13, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

Non-Western Sources?

I hate to ask for something and have nothing to contribute, but that's what's going to happen for the time being. If I come up with something, I'll be sure to edit the article. Anyway, the history section only points to the western world. I was wondering if there were any non-Western examples of transparency. If there are, here are some free Yahoo Answers points for you: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AnZTPwYW11SJ9GZ3V8vpPbPsy6IX;_ylv=3?qid=20130226203038AAGN2wB (I realize that probably sounds like an ad, but it's the question I posed on the subject at Yahoo! Answers. I just figured showing people where to get points was a good dead...if I get answers I'll make sure I get the info here). 280.status.net/douglasawh (talk) 04:54, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Editing/Contributing to Open Government Article

Hello, I am a new user/contributor to Wikipedia. I just want to inform the editors of Open Government that I will be contributing information to this page. If you have any questions or concerns about my material, you can refer back to my sandbox and talk page. Thank you!

So far, this is my Draft of the Contribution to the Open Government Article: (End of the 5th paragraph of the 'Content' section, or perhaps a new section regarding technology):

The use of technology within the political realm has grown through Open Government Data (OGD), which provides for the data to be accessible in any format. Users of this data have several purposes in regards to government, technology, or other specific focuses. These include government focus, technology innovation focused, reward focused, digitizing government, problem solving, and social/public sector enterprise. These focuses help expand the broad scope of Open Government Data toward furthering technological use within the government and towards more transparency within governmental institutions. Governments that enable public viewing of data can help citizens engage within the governmental sectors and "add value to that data." Easily accessible data pertaining to governmental institutions and their information give way to citizens' engagement within political institutions that ensure just, democratic access for the benefit of the citizenry and the political system.

(End of the 3rd paragraph of the same section)

Other advocates include President Obama, who in 2009, sought out an Open Government Initiative in order to improve the trust within the United States government and " establish a system of transparency, public participation, and collaboration." His strategy for transparency correlates with democratic values in how it allows for greater sight into the functions of the governmental institutions. Openness allows for more insight into the government, which gives the citizenry a greater sense to engage politically and collaborate to improve their own standing and the efficiency of the government's legislative processes. Jross35 (talk) 23:40, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

References

I have to ask, have you looked at whitehouse.gov recently? I have noticed a great deal of info available to public under (oh my, dare I utter it?) the Trump Administration. I would also hope mention is made of the serious dangers to U.S. security and protection of the American ppl if EVERYthing, esp re U.S. military were transparent to the public. It seems all too obvious with recent events, and historical ones, that plenty of ppl in and out of the U.S. are ready and willing to use/sell/do anything that might damage the U.S. in any way. That’s why our military is set up such that even the President is not made privy to the most sensitive info, for his or her protection as well as the protection of the country as a whole. So I just hope that the info HERE includes that side of the thinking that must go into expanding transparency of govt, ESPECIALLY w/regard to using technology to expand it, or expanding the technology used. The entire concept of technological help in U.S. govt transparency is potentially extremely dangerous to the entire population, given that technological access to sensitive info increases the possibility of access to the very ppl who would use the info to do harm. Hackers don’t just all hang together and advertise their skills. They’re not listed in the yellow pages. They live and work among us all, and those with deep pockets can find them and pay them any amount to find out anything and everything there is to know to decimate us—quickly or slowly, any way they can. So plz find & incl sources for that kind of content as well. Dbreyna (talk) 00:10, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

"Content" changes and New Section titled "Organizations Championing for Open Government"

This paragraph from "Content:" "For good governance, it is beneficial to make governments, their institutions, and markets transparent. Information is a necessity for a democracy to function and for citizens to have a basis of insight into what their government legislates. Information is to how a democratic government and system functions, in which it is necessary for citizens to voice their opinions on matters regarding policies/bills and their political lawmakers and representatives. It enables for a sense of open government and transparency to which a government that functions for the people should be based on. Democracy being correlated with transparency presents a good governance system that employs itself for the nation and its people. Democratic governments enable a sense of openness through transparency, what the people want, in order to attain greater knowledge of the inner mechanisms of a governing system and its legislative processes on specific matters that pertain to the people of the nation. With this transparent system, the citizens, especially the voters, will have a greater insight into what occurs, so they can voice their opinions more actively and effectively to gain a greater sense of value in the political realm."

should be changed to:

"Government transparency is beneficial for efficient democracy, as information is necessary for citizens to form meaningful conclusions about upcoming legislation and vote for them in the next election https://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/TransparencyandOpenGovernment. Attainable information enables a sense of open government and transparency to which a government that functions for the people should be based on. With government transparency, citizens can voice their opinions more actively and effectively in the political realm, thus fulfilling their civic duty in society as well. According to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, greater citizen participation in government is linked to government transparency http://carnegieendowment.org/2014/10/20/accountability-transparency-participation-and-inclusion-new-development-consensus-pub-56968."

Add a Section titled "Organizations Championing for Open Government":

Organizations Championing for Open Government: Open Government Partnership - OGP was an organization launched in 2011 to allow domestic reformers to make their own governments across the world more open, accountable, and responsive to citizens. Since 2011, OGP has grown to 75 participating countries today whose government and civil societies work together to develop and implement open government reforms http://www.opengovpartnership.org/.

Code for All - Code for All is a non-partisan, non-profit international network of organizations who believe technology leads to new opportunities for citizens to lead a more prominent role in the political sphere and have a positive impact on their communities. The organizations relies on technology to improve government transparency and engage citizens https://codeforall.org/.

Sunlight Foundation - The Sunlight Foundation is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization founded in 2006 that uses civic tech, open data, and policy analysis to make information from government and politics more transparent to everyone. Their ultimate vision is to increase democratic participation and achieve changes on political money flow and who can influence government. While their work began with an intent to focus only on the US Congress, their work now influences the local, state, federal, and international levels http://sunlightfoundation.com/.

Jinnayang (talk) 00:56, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

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Extensive Edits Completed

Hello!
I have changed several/many organizational and content things on the page. Including:
- Adding a components section to discuss the definition of Open Government in more depth and to clarify the distinction between open data and open government
- Added information to the history section about the origins of government accountability before the enlightenment
- Removed information from the history section which was already covered in the Freedom of information laws by country wikipedia article
- Added a section about current open government policies around the world in order to offer a more global perspective
- Within this section I've added sub-sections about each continent and a few countries (please add more information!)
- From the previous 'content' section I removed information that was clearly promotional and did not impart any new information and added counter-arguments against open government policy
- There previously was a whole portion specifically about the use of Open Data in relation to Open government. I shortened this and created a new section 'Technology and Open government" and discussed the ways in which new technologies have affected open government.
Please give me your feedback or let me know if there is something else that I should add or edit!
Thank you,
Claradm (talk) 09:50, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

Transparency as a puzzle

I am thinking about adding the following paragraph to the article, but i need some help - can anybody help or make suggestions?

Some people think that certain government organisations operate according to the principle of "transparency as a puzzle", that is to say, if you are willing to put in the thought, time and effort and go about solving this problem in an intelligent way, you can work out what is really going on. This seems to be an acceptable compromise, as long as there are safeguard mechanisms in place to prevent abuse and internal corruption. (citation needed - can anybody help with this?)

see "plausible deniability" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 110.174.9.90 (talk) 05:05, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

"Goverment Transparency" listed at Redirects for discussion

A discussion is taking place to address the redirect Goverment Transparency. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2020 June 11#Goverment Transparency until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. 1234qwer1234qwer4 (talk) 21:53, 11 June 2020 (UTC)