Inform/Overview
Overview
ISPM (name to be reviewed) is a collaboratively-authored resource for helping people explain the Internet and associated technological, cultural, political and social issues to others, specifically policymakers. It will have carefully crafted explanatory strategies, well-chosen metaphors and appropriate supporting presentational material to allow someone with limited time to clue their representative in on Internet matters, and guide them into making and promoting policies which "preserve choice and innovation on the Internet".
Details
Some sample content which demonstrates and expounds these organizational and content principles is available relating to the USA's Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA). Each page has explanatory notes (which are somewhat visually intrusive; sadly that is a limitation of this wiki.)
Use Cases Addressed
Educating those who talk to policymakers
This is the primary use case of the material. The goal is not to educate policymakers directly, as each will have their own particular priorities, interests and understanding, and will need an approach tailored to them. Also, "please read this website" is a request unlikely to get much traction. Policymakers with limited time rely on having things explained to them by other people. So instead, we focus on those who talk to policymakers - e.g. their office staff, private citizens, and activist group members - to give them appropriate facts, metaphors, similes and explanations which will resonate and carry weight.
Affecting existing policymaking
By doing the above, we can project our voice into existing policymaking processes.
Stopping bad legislation
And by doing that, we can have an effect on, and hopefully stop, bad legislation. We can help by having explanatory resources ready, and designing the system so that each proposed law has a page pointing to the most relevant resources for the people who are engaging with policymakers on that law.
Non-profit leadership
This resource does not exist at the moment, and is badly needed. By creating it, and by making it a trusted source for ways to explain technology, we can demonstrate leadership in the non-profit space.
Use Cases Not Addressed
Internet into the curriculum
While it may well be possible to use parts of what we create in childhood educational material, and we are choosing an open content licence (CC-BY-SA, which matches Wikipedia) to make that as smooth as possible, we will not take any specific steps to make our content particularly suitable for this use. This is a different audience.