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April 05, 2007

Readable Laws: The Wiki

Matthew Burton has developed a site — ReadableLaws.org — as a thesis (under the estimable Prof. Jay Rosen) where we can translate legislation into understandable English and discuss its implications. The first bills posted include one to broaden Fair Use, one that criminalizes hiding information about video games to skirt the ratings, and an expansion of Internet monitoring to prevent child pornography.

I can see the implications pages getting bogged down because the site has no built-in way of handling disagreements, but the translation-into-understandability pages look like a great idea. (And maybe the implications pages will work out, too.)

This is all part of Jay's NewAssignment.Net project. [Tags: laws wikis media legislation matthew_burton jay_rosen everything_is_miscellaneous]

Posted by D. Weinberger at April 5, 2007 08:14 PM


Comments

There's an easier way to simplify. Make it so that in order a pass a new law, two existing ones must be repealed. Eventually, we'll get down to the ones they absolutely can't repeal, that will be the core set we actually need, and we can be done with the whole lot.

Posted by: Adam Fields | April 6, 2007 03:39 PM


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