From the Rev. Canon Michael Barlowe, Executive Officer of the General Convention:
I’m pleased that all the reports (except for the supplemental volume of proposed texts from the SCLM) have now been posted at [the General Convention website]. I’m working on the Preface, the supplemental volume is at the translators, and I’m experimenting with a design for the cover.
One of the advantages of the chapter by chapter (or as I call it, the “Charles Dickens Approach”) to publishing the Blue Book is that we can “crowd source” a final editing. If you find typos, errors, or anything amiss, let me know!
Discussions of various resolutions and reports ongoing at Episcopal Café, on the Bishops and Deputies list serve and at the Facebook group 78th General Convention.
posted by Ann Fontaine
All Content © 2017 Episcopal Café
auto correct! does not like crowdsource.
Cute, but a far cry from the Open Source approach this sort of thing deserves.
Adam, I’d be interested to understand how you feel an “open source” process would be helpful.
Tobias, that would certainly make sense, and would have value. I am also willing to think about another sense of “open source,” in that a continuing body might invite sharing about what the various local ministries might be that would seem to fall under a particular category. That would be worth hearing, and might well affect the thinking of Bishops and Deputies. It would also simply be a very different report, and would reflect a somewhat different purpose. If after June we still have continuing bodies, it would be worth trying. I do think it might make more sense, say, mid-triennium to inform a report to General Convention than shortly before to become the report; but that’s a reflection of my need to take time to sort information.
Chiming in here; but it seems to me GC is caught between the modern age and a basically 18th-19th century model for discernment. It’s great to be able to have the reports of the BB — previously available only to a limited audience — on the Web; but the final work is still going to take place in a series of small meeting rooms hearing folks testify at microphones; and on the floor of Convention, itself, which we all know is too big for any really substantive debated except in rare circumstances.
Finding a forum in which the resolutions could be discussed in a virtual discussion form — electronic legislative committee sessions open to the public not just to observe but to comment and “testify” — seems like a logical step for the next round. This is the sort of “open source” that the software industry has provided for some time; and you might say that the legislation of GC is its “software.”
I wondered about “crowd source.” I entered it into Google and was asked,
Did you mean: crowdsource
Thanks for posting this, Ann. To expedite any corrections, they should be emailed to episcopaleditor@gmail.com.