Stats on articles and posts for #Groggate

Some people know that I've been tracking the posts and articles published online discussing the outing of the author of the Grog's Gamut blog by The Australian.

EDIT - due to updates to the spreadsheet below the figures presented in this section of the post are only valid at the original time of publication. Please refer to the spreadsheet for the latest figures.

So far I have listed 112 posts and articles on the topic (including this one) - although a few only touch on it peripherally.

I have also been mapping these articles into a Google spreadsheet to look at some of the interesting statistics behind the debate.

For instance, News Limited is responsible for 12.5% of the articles on the topic, Crikey for 8.9%, the ABC for 5.4% and Fairfax for 3.6% (excluding any duplication across publications). In fact a total of 32.1% of the articles have been written by commercial news sources.

It also appears that very few authors were anonymous, despite certain claims in mainstream media articles about a prevailing culture of anonymous blogging online.

57.1% of authors were named outright in their articles and posts. Another 29.5% used partial names or pseudonyms, but provided various pieces of personal information. In most cases their names could be uncovered without much research or effort.

The remaining 13.4% were indeed anonymous - totally unnamed in their articles and posts.

However of this group 4 articles, or 3.6%, were in mainstream and online commercial media publications (such as The Australian and Crikey) where no author name was provided. These are sometimes termed 'editorials', but are anonymous all the same.

Here's a few examples:

• The Australian - A storm on the internet: Why should web writers escape scrutiny and responsibility? (and yes I see the irony) 
•  Crikey - The Oz’s Bolt loose … science of pop-news …

Only the remaining 11 articles or 9.8%, were totally anonymous. This includes two articles from Mumbrella, which I only excluded from being a commercial publication as it is industry specific and doesn't charge subscribers as Crikey does (sorry Tim!)

On that basis,

• Of the 36 commercial articles and posts, 4 were anonymous - 11% of the total
• Of the 76 professional and personal articles and posts 11 were anonymous - 14.5% of the total.

That's a very small statistical difference in the scheme of things.

I recommend having a play with the data - any interesting insights please share via comments below.

The link to the public spreadsheet is here: https://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=0Ap1exl80wB8OdE96TkhYT2U2UDNCUV9KaXVRS1FoNnc&output=html

Use the tabs at top to navigate to the statistics and legend (explaining the terms I've used)

Or simply look at the figures below:

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GovHack returns - as part of Amped

Last year Australia's Gov 2.0 Taskforce initiated the GovHack event, produced by Web Directions, to showcase what could be done with open government data.

This year I'm glad to see that GovHack is returning - as part of Amped, a free 10 hour hack day, in Sydney's PowerHouse Museum on Sat 16th of October.

Whether you're a web designer or developer, interaction designer, graphic designer, project manager, writer, or just someone who has has an interesting idea, Amped is an opportunity to strut your stuff and create something of value.

Amped is fully catered, will have expert mentors on hand. The grand prize for the best hack is a trip for the winning team to Tokyo's Web Directions East.

RSVP at the Amped website.

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Heading to Paris - Top 10 Who Are Changing the World of Internet and Politics

As some might already know, I was selected as one of 'Top 10 Who Are Changing the World of Internet and Politics', in PoliticsOnline and the World eDemocracy Forum's 11th annual awards.

Senator Kate Lundy was also selected, and you can find her press release here.

It is rare to have two Australians receive such a prestigious international award - even more so as this award is barely known in Australia, but is globally held in high regard.

I was nominated and selected on the basis of this blog, eGovAU, not my work activities, however to my knowledge this is the first time an Australian public servant has received this award - and, for that matter, the first time an elected Australian representative has received it.

As a result I've decided to take next week off and attend the World eGov Forum in Paris as a guest.

It looks to be a fantastic event.

I'll try to liveblog, or at least tweet the event and share what I learn with as broad a base of Australian public servants as possible.

I'll also try to maintain my listing of Groggate articles.

So au revoir in advance!

(and to the burglars out there, yes I have a housesitter)

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In the noise of #Groggate, don't forget those silenced

I've been tracking the discussion on the outing of Greg Jericho as author of the Grog's Gamut blog by The Australian journalist James Massola.

In the last seven days there have been over 100 posts, articles and interviews and nearly 2,000 tweets on the topic - discussing freedom of speech, anonymity, media power and public interest.

Few have mentioned one of the first claims made by The Australian;

"The prolific blogger shows a strong preference for the ALP, despite the Public Service code of conduct stating that "the APS is apolitical, performing its functions in an impartial and professional manner"."

Grog disputed this in Spartacus no more, his final post last Monday before falling silent.

Whether Grog's voice remains silent is up to him and his employer - his Department and behind that the Australian Public Service. It is not up to the media or bloggers.

Across the world many talented public servants operate blogs. There are firm roots in other western democracies such as Britain, Canada, the US and even New Zealand.


Groggate is a challenge not only to broad freedom of speech in Australia - potentially silencing anyone who believes their employers may have concerns over their words - but also challenges the public service to reconsider what Australian public servants may and may not do.

There are hundreds of thousands of intelligent and educated professionals who choose to work for Commonwealth, State and local governments across Australia. They serve the governments of the day diligently, as mature adults most are fully capable of separating their work performance from their personal views (and they all vote).

How many of these intelligent and potentially influential voices will now choose to remain silent rather than face the scrutiny - both public and internal - that Grog is facing?

If Grog continues writing, it will be at the permission of his employer, potentially under greater internal and external scrutiny.

If he stops writing - due to personal reasons or the level of controversy - a thousand other public servants may not develop the courage to start.


How much public sector experience and diversity has been lost to our public debates due to Grog's outing?

We'll never know.

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How to avoid turning Gov 2.0 initiatives into 'creepy treehouses'

I thought I'd share a post brought to my attention by Geoff Mason via the Online Communicators Forum group in LinkedIn


Written by Jared Stein at Flexknowlogy, Defining "Creepy Treehouse" explores the pitfalls when an organisation creates an online social environment.

The article defines the term "Creepy Treehouse" in several ways, including as the following:

n. Any institutionally-created, operated, or controlled environment in which participants are lured in either by mimicking pre-existing open or naturally formed environments, or by force, through a system of punishments or rewards

Such institutional environments are often seen as more artificial in their construction and usage, and typically compete with pre-existing systems, environments, or applications. creepy treehouses also have an aspect of closed-ness, where activity within is hidden from the outside world, and may not be easily transferred from the environment by the participants.

In other words,  an artificial community may not be real enough to attract and maintain a community - it may have too many or arbitrary rules, expect and reward unrealistic behaviours or simply be designed to advertise (shout) at people rather than foster community engagement.

How can these types of issues be avoided - particularly given the governance required by the public sector?

One solution is to partner with robust existing online communities. This approach allows a government agency to participate without having to take on responsibilities such as developing the systems and the community, attracting and empowering participants or moderating and guiding behaviours. Certainly an agency needs to be careful about which existing communities it partners with, however there are many long-standing well managed communities that could be viable options.

A second approach is to partner on the creation of a community, funding an external organisation to develop a community that the agency can participate in. This also outsources much of the governance and control issues, reducing the agency's overheads in these areas. It is important to be very careful about the selection of the organisation that will create and manage the community as while many will claim they can achieve this, there are in reality very few organisations with the skills, experience, networks and capabilities to do so.

If, however, the agency has no choice but to create the community, it is important to be as transparency about governance and as even-handed, consistent and as hands-off as possible in its operation. While an agency can seed a community with content it needs to ensure that there are tools and incentives that encourage the community to generate the bulk of the content and interactions themselves. President Obama's MyBarackObama website is an excellent example of this, as the site allowed participants to form communities, create, share and distribute information and largely run their virtual lives within the community without seeing virtual police on every corner.

Perhaps that is the best analogy for an agency-run community - it needs to run like a western democracy without the elections. People are free to go about their business as they please, within the laws of their community. There are no bureaucrats and officials scrutinising their every move.

Surely a government agency can justify managing an online community in the same way our government manages our nation - treating the members as citizens, not serfs.

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