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hamstar / legislat0r

An open source system for crowdsourcing creation and analysis of legislature
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Plain language version? #64

Open fierce-bad-squirrel opened 12 years ago

fierce-bad-squirrel commented 12 years ago

Reading hamstar's comment in #51 referencing craybatesedu's comments on /r/fia, I remembered a suggestion in associated threads, that laymen might be better off writing down what they want a bill to accomplish in plain language, then getting it "translated" into appropriate legalese.

Should we set up the bill-crafting process so it begins with a plain language explanation of the bill's intent? Discussion and fine tuning could finalize the plain language version, which would then proceed to the "legalesing" process. This could lower the barrier of entry, since users could initiate bills in language that is comfortable for them.

OLawD commented 12 years ago

I think it'd be nice to have all manner of involvement so a section where the less ambitious can just ask for help with the language. This kind of plays on the other issue I just read and my idea is that help should be the currency of the site. Obviously if you help people others will be more willing to help you out. On May 2, 2012 2:40 PM, "fierce-bad-squirrel" < reply@reply.github.com> wrote:

Reading hamstar's comment in #51 referencing craybatesedu's comments on /r/fia, I remembered a suggestion in associated threads, that laymen might be better off writing down what they want a bill to accomplish in plain language, then getting it "translated" into appropriate legalese.

Should we set up the bill-crafting process so it begins with a plain language explanation of the bill's intent? Discussion and fine tuning could finalize the plain language version, which would then proceed to the "legalesing" process. This could lower the barrier of entry, since users could initiate bills in language that is comfortable for them.

Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub: https://github.com/hamstar/legislat0r/issues/64

fierce-bad-squirrel commented 12 years ago

Exactly. Community is going to be key to making the site work, and to get and keep users involved.

hamstar commented 12 years ago

Should we set up the bill-crafting process so it begins with a plain language explanation of the bill's intent? Discussion and fine tuning could finalize the plain language version, which would then proceed to the "legalesing" process. This could lower the barrier of entry, since users could initiate bills in language that is comfortable for them.

Sounds good. Do you reckon it would be better as the beginning seed of a new bill or as tool alongside the creation of a new bill to know what kind of stuff needs to go in the bill (I'm thinking along the lines of wikipedia articles vs wikipedia talk pages)?

OLawD commented 12 years ago

I think we could probably come up with something like 10 questions every person who wants to start a bill should answer and it fork down a decision tree that gives them something other than a blank page to start out with and then tooltips additionally.

hamstar wrote:

Should we set up the bill-crafting process so it begins with a plain language explanation of the bill's intent? Discussion and fine tuning could finalize the plain language version, which would then proceed to the "legalesing" process. This could lower the barrier of entry, since users could initiate bills in language that is comfortable for them.

Sounds good. Do you reckon it would be better as the beginning seed of a new bill or as tool alongside the creation of a new bill to know what kind of stuff needs to go in the bill (I'm thinking along the lines of wikipedia articles vs wikipedia talk pages)?

Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub: https://github.com/hamstar/legislat0r/issues/64#issuecomment-5476210

fierce-bad-squirrel commented 12 years ago

I like OLawD's idea of the pre-bill questionnaire, but I think we'd need integration such as what hamstar's suggesting so that the plain text could be updated as the bill develops.