Interesting quote from a white house document.

Check it out. What are your opinions on this?

Generally, government officials draft a policy and then solicit public engagement. We were able to use freely available, Web-based tools to turn that conventional process on its head and work with the public from the get-go. More significantly, these tools enabled the public to take charge and “self-moderate” the conversation, using simple mechanisms for flagging public submissions—such as those on UFOs and birth certificates as “off-topic”—to help keep the discussion on-topic and easy to follow.

www.whitehouse.gov...

Basically it means that anything that Obama and his administration don't see as important, relevant, true, and/or vital to what information they want discussed, it gets removed as off-topic, etc.

I don't like it, but it makes sense considering this administration's definition of transparency to date.

Let's face it, Obama wants a "conversation" to evolve regarding illegal immigrant policy [just as an example]. Do you really think he wants the entire discussion riddled with comments like:

"You should know a lot about illegal immigrants since you are one!"

I'm sure that the intent is to remove nonsense like that.

This is really a non-issue.

As a side note:
I find it funny that "UFOs" and "Birth Certificates" are what comes to their mind first as off-topic. Interesting that those two are together....

It will be interesting to learn just how a suggestion or idea which I sbmit to this program will benefit myself or others who may hold an interest in it.
On the face it may seem like a good thing but, the proof will come from just how quickly any submission will become deamed as "public knowledge", taken over by the government and developed by some "favored contractor".

Once this is done anyone who has submitted an idea, or even a fully developed proto-type, can kiss it good by.

Oh! I almost forgot, this program is designed to benefit all of our people.

This online public consultation was only part of the listening exercise—but an important part that enabled us to hear from people throughout the United States. As one public commenter noted, “This was a great first experiment! Keep ’em coming! Only through activity can we refine practice.” The output—including the suggestion that every agency write and post online its own open government plan—directly translated into ideas for the Open Government Directive.

Subsequently, we ran Open Policy Forums on declassification policy, Web cookies policy, health IT policy, the smart grid, scientific integrity, and, most recently, public-access publishing.

In that last forum, launched December 10, 2009, the public was to participate in thinking through what the Federal government’s policy should be with regard to public access to published federally-funded research results. To that end, OSTP conducted an interactive, online discussion, focusing on three main areas of interest:

Implementation: Which Federal Agencies are good candidates to adopt public access policies?
Features and Technology: In what format should articles and data be submitted in order to make them easy to search and retrieve, and to make them easy for others to link to it?
Management: What are the best mechanisms to ensure compliance? What would be the best metrics of success?
Public comment was so successful that the discussion was extended by several weeks. OSTP scientists and advisors are currently studying public comments and plan to submit recommendations to senior officials soon.

I think the goal here is guage Government dessent.

Awesome find. S&F

Honestly I like it because debate is the best way to learn. They can try to make the mob black list certain topics. But the other mob, us, is much larger. And in turn, much better at not blacklisting, and in fact, holding a free discussion.

Eh, at least they're open to discussion. The leadership is slowly changing back to free speech now that they realize that they have to become more open. They'll resist it. But freedom is like water. Open up the smallest of cracks to it, even limited like this, and over time is will erode away all restraints.

Originally posted by lpowell0627
As a side note:
I find it funny that "UFOs" and "Birth Certificates" are what comes to their mind first as off-topic. Interesting that those two are together....

Maybe in this case UFO isn't used in regards to extraterrestrials or flying saucers at all, but rather stands for "Unseen Fictitious Object." in relation to said birth certificate?

reply to post by lpowell0627


No, that's just a clear illustration of why it is an issue. If we're expected to tiptoe around stuff like that, we could also be required to tiptoe around the fact that properly speaking the "conversation" about illegal immigration has already reached a clear conclusion.

We don't want them, they should be forced to leave.

Any other conclusion is just making an excuse for, perhaps, doing what they were going to do anyway. But they should be forced to do it in the open with no cover.

Originally posted by hdutton
It will be interesting to learn just how a suggestion or idea which I sbmit to this program will benefit myself or others who may hold an interest in it.
...
Oh! I almost forgot, this program is designed to benefit all of our people.

A good point, since we know that government contracting is discriminatory, with lots of rules, setasides, quotas, etc. Unless you want a favored group working on your idea, I'd keep it back.