Like TheMadHatter, I don't think there's an easy answer. Unlike him (her?), I don't think the answer lays in the political arena. There are too many interest groups and individuals with a clear agenda who would seize the opportunity to hijack the agenda no matter how many safeguards are put in place. The vocal minority of the politically-charged citizenry would always skew the results, I'm afraid.

My proposal was specifically aimed at preventing that, which is not in my own self interest, because I'm one of the vocal minority.

I think the area with the most potential is in policy development. You're not necessarily going to get a representative sampling of the population but you will attract engaged and informed citizens (and I would think fewer of the agenda-driven types, though I stand to be corrected on that. I just don't think policy is as sexy as politics to many).

Informed citizens are agenda driven.

Start where there's an established practice you can build on.

There's an opportunity to build on the practice of public consultations by moving things to an open, online forum. The Globe's policy wiki experiment was a good first step but for it to really be meaningful I think it needs to be connected to policy makers.

That would be a step backward. We've been there, done that, with no effect. It's time to move to the next level, and directly hit on the politicians (which I don't expect to be popular with them, but hey, they are our employees).

Good question, though. I hope you get some more input from the folks working on the inside.

It's not the folks on the inside who matter. Citizen 2.0 is about the people on the outside, who need more leverage to get their elected representatives to represent.