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Interview: UN Democracy
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From:
"Daniel D'Esposito" <danieldesposito@huridocs.org>
Subject:
Interview: UN Democracy
Date:
2008-03-06 10:48
(Cross-posted from Human Rights Tools - sorry if you received this twice)
Dear readers,
This is the first of two newsletters on the same topic: how information
technology can be used to increase the accountability of leaders and
representatives.
Have you ever wondered what your nation is saying at the United Nations? How
its voting on particular issues? Find out what by visiting UN Democracy,
which gives easy access to the transcripts of the General Assembly and
Security Council:
http://www.undemocracy.com/
As an example, it makes it easy to read what President Ahmadinejad or
President Bush have been saying during recent speeches:
http://www.undemocracy.com/Iran/ahmadinejad
http://www.undemocracy.com/United_States/bush
It also makes it much easier to find document like resolutions and
statements, for example below the Security Council documents are sorted by
year and by topic:
Year: http://www.undemocracy.com/securitycouncil/documents
Topic: http://www.undemocracy.com/securitycouncil
We caught up with the team who put this amazing resource together, Julian
Todd and Francis Irving. We found out that behind this website is a group of
dedicated volunteers, who put this together on a shoestring budget, with
nothing else than ingenuity, hard work, and superb activist motivation!
But Julian and Francis are looking for volunteers to give a hand. The skills
they need:
1) Someone who likes reading, researching, editing. They would do lots of
the links from Wikipedia material, and give feedback on the rest of the site
and interface by actually using it.
2) People with Python, HTML and CSS skills. To improve the website. Anything
from minor tweaks to make it look better (spacing, layout), to larger
changes to improve the site.
More here:
http://www.freesteel.co.uk/wpblog/2007/09/undemocracy-needs-your-help/
So if you're interested, write to them at team@undemocracy.com
OK, and now for the interview:
Editors: How is this website meant to be used? What kind of information does
it provide?
Francis: All the UN's documents are squirreled away on their hard to use
websites, and make it actually impossible to send anyone links to a
document, or find it with a search engine.
UNDemocracy.com brings all that out into the open - putting the documents
into Google, and letting you refer easily to a document.
Julian: By making them accessible to the general internet they can be
referenced by research tools such as wikipedia. When you dig out facts
buried in obscure reports, or come across the sorry official excuse given
for a US vote against an overwhelmingly popular cause, it's important to be
able to bring it to the attention of others who would be interested through
the power of Web 2.0.
Editors: How is it done, technically? How do you keep it up to date? Are all
the documents added by hand?
Francis: It's done automatically, by fancy software we wrote which parses
the United Nations documents website, and loads the data into our website.
Julian: The PDF documents are pulled off their server with difficulty
whenever they are found. For searchability, the General Assembly and
Security Council meetings are converted into structured HTML using a program
that starts with the pixel coordinates of every word on the page.
Corrections have to be made by hand when names of countries are mistyped or
titles are left out.
Editors: Who is behind this? Tell us a bit about the people who developed
this website. What kind of financing did you have?
Francis: Nothing, it was built by one person, Julian Todd, with bits of help
from others. He had the original idea, and does it in his spare time as a
volunteer.
Julian: I paid for the server and bandwidth rental, which accounts for the
only up-front cost of the whole project. You don't need money to do good
things on the internet. All you need is a bit of imagination and the ability
to ignore your family when they tell you that it is immoral to work for no
pay.
Editors: What is your next project? If you had a million dollars to spend on
a nonprofit idea, what would that be?
Francis: I don't have a new idea (bet Julian does) - but I'd still use the
money usefully.
To start off we'd make the UNDemocracy site even better - make it easier to
use, and make it cover more documents.
I'd next improve our other website Public Whip, making it easier for people
to maintain voting analyses of MPs. (http://www.publicwhip.org.uk)
I'd put the rest into a foundation to make sure both sites can be kept
running reliably and be improved over time, as they deserve.
Julian: I am not someone who can convert money into productivity by other
people. It would be better to give the money to someone who is provably able
get people to work, for money if necessary, and send the keen ones in my
direction for collaboration. There are people who can motivate, but can't
program. And there are people who can program, but can't motivate.
Editors: What are your favorite blogs, websites?
Francis:
Dave Pollard on life and how it could be lived:
http://blogs.salon.com/0002007/
BLDG BLOG on how the man made physical world could be different:
http://bldgblog.blogspot.com/
Strange maps:
http://strangemaps.wordpress.com/
Julian:
This is Hell - The best ever interviews on this radio show
http://thisishell.net/
Desmoblog - Reminds you what's at stake with PR industry lies
http://desmogblog.com/
HSM Works - Not my favorite, but it's where my paid work comes from.
http://www.hsmworks.com/
Ok, thanks a lot for the interview, Francis and Julian, but thanks also for
all the work you've been doing to produce this great resource. Both useful
and inspiring!
For our readers, as usual, please forward this to your friends and
colleagues who share your interest in human rights, or post it to your blog
and mailing lists.
If you have received this from a friend and would like to subscribe, you can
do so here:
http://www.humanrightstools.org/newsletter.htm
To send us feedback, just use editors@humanrightstools.org
Best regards, and good luck in your efforts to defend or raise awareness
about human rights.
Daniel D'Esposito, Editor
Human Rights Tools
editors@humanrightstools.org
http://www.humanrightstools.org
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