Join the new world

This is the fifth and last in a series of articles outlining in detail my stances on what I consider to be the important issues of the day. This entry will deal with interparty and intercitizen relations, general civic discourse and how divergent opinions actually makes us stronger.


From my platform:

"5. I desire to make the US Congress more organized and provide citizens access to government via a new wiki-based interface. The current interface (bulletin board based) to government information is daunting, intimidating and difficult to navigate. I seek to centralize and organize in an official manner the policies and departments of the USA government and Congress."


A little bit about me here. In real life outside of eRepublik I work in information technology and hold a Master's in Information Sciences. One of my personal interests is in information planning, information access and historical systems. This background lends itself well to organizing content and streamlining access to data.

One of the immediate things I noticed after joining eRepublik and earning an appointment to the US State Department was that there was little to no historical data available. Research done in the past on foreign countries, their key players, policy history, etc., was either not available or not very easy to find. This led to duplication and wasted effort as this sort of data had to be recreated to gain a complete picture. This problem is compounded by player turnover; when an experienced player leaves or quits playing eRepublik that person takes with them a wealth of knowledge. In many cases this knowledge will have to be recreated for the person(s) who take over the responsibilities of the player who left. It's a Bad Thing™ and seriously impacts our efficiency and effectiveness in government.

Currently the eUS government operates a public bulletin board. Much content is trapped in threads that are not easily searched or cross-referenced. My goal, should I be elected to Congress, is to form a group of players who are interested in constructing an information resource (wiki?) to hold the continuous and copious amounts of knowledge generated by us in eRep. Such a resource could hold, for example, intelligence reports on foreign individuals of importance, intelligence reports on foreign nations, historical debates over key legislation, research and data with regards to economic impact of legislation and policies, military plans, etc. The possibilities are endless and the value of such a resource is immeasurable. It would give us the opportunity to analyze the impact and effects of decisions from a historical perspective.

The eUS needs this resource. I want to make it happen.