This site is committed to Open-Source Governance.

All content here is open to the public.

Why is this important?

There have been suggestions to use facebook for these conversations, because many people already use it, and it's familiar.

Several arguments against facebook:

• It requires an account and approval in a private group, which makes it inherently exclusionary. If the goal is transparency, then the information and conversation should be widely accessible.
• Your personal information on facebook is used to create an advertising profile, and much worse.
• Facebook is difficult to search and not designed for faciliting productive conversations. It's designed to absorb your attention so that you'll look at ads.
• Public conversation about important local issues should not be mediated by distant corporations. The conversation platform should be completely non-profit.

There are certainly other systems that could be used for a site like this: a plain email list, a dedicated discussion forum, a blog. Bear in mind that not everyone even uses computers. As we endeavour to increase transparency and democratic participation, we should find ways to publicize the conversation off-line.

Technical Details

This site is a fossil repository. That means all posts/pages are stored as "artifacts", preserving the history of changes.

If you're technically inclined, you can download fossil and "clone" this entire site to your computer:

fossil clone https://barrecitizens.org/talk/

Contributing

If you'd like to contribute files/code to this site, file a ticket with type "Developer_Request".