Transparency
How can Creative Commons do a better job at being more transparent and open to the community for ideas, feedback and participation?
I asked a few CC Affiliate public leads 5 questions in June 2007:
Jon Phillips, CC
Jon Phillips wrote: > Heya, I want to start a discussion about transparency for Creative > Commons. My tendency is to just email the entire CCi list about this, > but I know that probably the wiser to ask you guys to list out 5 ways > that CC can be more transparent to project jurisdictions and in general, > first before making a larger discussion. > > To be honest, what I'd really like to do is just blog this on the main > cc site and start this discussion in general for Creative Commons as an > org, but that would probably be my last day at CC. I'm low on the power > list ;) > > Anyway, if you guys could list out 5 ways to improve transparency for > CC, quite generally, I'm going to start working up a plan and format for > getting some changes through as an ongoing project of mine... > > Seriously, if you can fill out 5 ways, I will keep working on here: > > http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Transparency > > Please list! > > 1. > > 2. > > 3. > > 4. > > 5. > > > Jon >
And here are the responses in chronological order:
Paul Keller, CC Netherlands
On Jun 24, 2007, at 3:06 AM, Jon Phillips wrote: > Please list! hey jon, thanks for taking this further. here are my 5 (4) points... cheers, paul > 1. cc/cci should inform affiliates earlier about upcoming projects (things like ccLearn/fundraising campaigns/etc) > 2. it would be good if there was a regular internal newsletter (does not need to be more than a regular mail (2 monthly?) on the cci mailing list) that gives an overview of events that have taken place (like launces, salons, intresting conferences), will take place and updates from working groups (like the CS working group). this would need some coordination (cci?) but would mainly based on input by all (cci/cc/ jurisdiction projects/sc) > 3. maybe have a half yearly road-map or something like that published by cc that gives a general idea where cc is heading in the next 6 months. > 4. have a seminar on how to work with tech companies at the next summit (cc-hq seems to be good at that, the jurisdiction projects dont) > 5. invite all of us to the 5 year cc bash in SF :)
Tyng-Ruey Chuang, CC Taiwan
Sorry for my late reply. Here is some thought on CC HQ and the jurisdiction projects. A major issue to me is that CC HQ seems not to have a clear idea of what to do with the jurisdiction projects once the licenses are launched (and, once launched, what to do in addition to license maintenance). This showed up, for example, in last minute fund-raising to support project leads to the Summit this year. I want to be clear that this is not a criticism about CCi, whom I think is overloaded with license porting and upgrading work. As for iCommons, as is often said, it is a "platform" and for iSummit organization. Relationship with jurisdiction projects seems not be in her mission. So unless CC HQ has a clear idea of its relationship with jurisdiction projects, I don't see how the situation can be improved. I think this is a difficult question. The jurisdiction projects are quite diverse and each has her own objectives on what to go after the licenses are ported. In Taiwan's case, as the project has been sponsored by a government-funded research institute, we cannot easily go into 'free culture' movement or 'open business' experimentation. So we have concentrated on working with gov. agencies on opening up their holdings. I will guess that in NGO-hosted jurisdiction projects, they may want to be more progressive in their actions. I guess many jurisdiction project will tend to work on their own pace and on areas of their emphases, and not to pay attention to their relationship to CC HQ. I am not sure if transparency in CC HQ will help much if the jurisdiction projects don't expect much from CC HQ. (Of course, getting funded to go to the Summit is another story.) Nevertheless, here are my 2 cents: 1. CC HQ recognizes the problem (that she does not know what to do with the jurisdiction projects in addition license porting and maintenance) and formulate a clear position on her relationship with post-launch jurisdiction projects. 2. CC HQ funds people already working in the jurisdiction projects to study this problem and to come up with recommendations. best, Tyng-Ruey
Alek Tarkowski, CC Poland
Hey Jon, I had some server trouble, not sure whether you got this email already, here's my response to your questions: Paul basically mentioned all the important things. I agree that no. 1 + no. 3 are crucial - there should be a flow of information in regard to where CC is going. I would include here some form of minutes from board meetings, if possible (Wikimedia Foundation is able to do it!). Newsletter is also a good idea - looking at Tessi's experience with soliciting responses to the short survey, a good newsletter would need someone to regularly directly nudge people about what they're doing - general mails to the list don't really work. To this I would add (but this is probably a goal that requires a much longer time frame than the work on improving communication), clarifying at some point the relationship between cc hq and country projects - in the past there was all this talk of webpage policies, schwag policies, etc. - but nothing really came out of it. So either it would be good to declare that no such binding agreements will be signed with jurisdiction projects - or that, on the contrary, the relationship will be formalized - but then this relationship should be better defined, and it cannot just be a structure of obligations placed on the jurisdiction projects. This relationship is unclear and it makes a lot of other things unclear as well, I think. For instance, if the jurisdiction projects are defined as important partners for CC HQ, then shouldn't they have a representative on CC board? (I know little about how boards are created / structured, so forgive me if this is a dumb idea). And it all boils down to understanding what and how much we can all expect from each other. Regarding point 4. - in case of big companies like Google, maybe once their headquarters are convinced of CC licensing, they could somehow delegate their particular offices (there is for instance one in Poland) to support the spread of CC in other jurisdictions? As a side note, what happened to the idea of having a separate CC US jurisdiction project, as it was mentioned in Rio? thanks for taking this initiative, >alek.
