Radical transparency is a management method where nearly all decision making is carried out publicly. It has been suggested that Management system be merged into this article or section. ...

All draft documents, all arguments for and against a proposal, the decisions about the decision making process itself, and all final decisions, are made publicly and remain publicly archived.

The only exceptions to full transparency include data related to personal security or passwords or keys necessary for physical access required to carry out publicly negotiated decisions. Any technical actions which are perceived to be controversial or political are considered to lack legitimacy until a clear, radically transparent decision has been made concerning them. In the physical sciences, specifically in optics, a transparent physical object is one that can be seen through. ...

Empirical tests

This method has been implemented in many free and open source software projects, Wikipedia^{[citation needed]}, the Indymedia network [1], and many similar Internet related projects. It could arguably be claimed to exist outside of the Internet in small cohesive social groups where information is rapidly exchanged and difficult to conceal, although the cumulative transmission error of oral communication of information in these communities leads to less transparency than digital communication. Clockwise from top: The logo of the GNU Project (the GNU head), the Linux kernel mascot Tux the Penguin, and the FreeBSD daemon Free software is a term coined by Richard Stallman and the Free Software Foundation[1] to refer to software that can be used, studied, and modified without... ... Wikipedia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia /**/ @import /skins-1. ... The Independent Media Center, also called Indymedia or the IMC, is a loose network of amateur or alternative media organizations and journalists who organize into decentralized collectives, normally around geographic locations. ...

A partial form of radical transparency has existed in many national parliaments since the beginning of the modern parliamentary system; e.g. in parliaments of the Westminster system, full records of discussions in parliament are recorded and published and referred to as Hansard, and the texts of proposed laws and final laws are all, in principle, public documents. A parliament is a legislature, especially in those countries whose system of government is based on the Westminster system modelled after that of the United Kingdom. ... The Houses of Parliament, also known as the Palace of Westminster, in London. ...

Since the late 1990's, many national parliaments decided to publish all parliamentary debates and laws on the Internet. However, the initial texts of proposed laws and the discussions and negotiations regarding them generally occur in parliamentary commissions, which are rarely transparent, and among political parties, which are very rarely transparent. Moreover, given the logical and linguistic complexity of typical national laws, public participation is difficult despite the radical transparency at the formal parliamentary level. In other words, radical transparency is necessary, but not sufficient, for public participation in political decisions. Year 1990 (MCMXC) was a common year starting on Monday (link displays the 1990 Gregorian calendar). ... Political parties Part of the Politics series Politics Portal This box:      A political party is a political organization that seeks to attain political power within a government, usually by participating in electoral campaigns. ... Participation in political science is an umbrella term including different means for the public to directly participate in political, economical or management decisions. ...

Radical transparency versus accountability

Radical transparency is much more transparent than accountability. It requires decision making to be transparent right from the beginning of the decision making process, while accountability is a process of verifying the quality of decisions or actions after they have been taken. This difference implies that while accountability generally implements some sort of punishment mechanism against individuals or institutions judged to have taken poor quality decisions or actions, after those decisions have been taken or actions carried out, radical transparency encourages corrections and improvements to decisions to be made long before poor quality decisions have the chance to be enacted. Hence, radical transparency potentially helps avoid the need for punishment mechanisms. In the physical sciences, specifically in optics, a transparent physical object is one that can be seen through. ... Accountability is a concept in ethics with several meanings. ... Look up Punishment in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... An institution is a group, tenet, maxim, or organization created by a group of humans. ...

The potential of radical transparency to allow corrections and improvements to decision making is likely to be higher when the decision making method is either a consensus decision making method or a democratic decision making method. However, even when the decision making method is authoritarian (unilateral), radical transparency may still encourage the decision maker to make better decisions. Consensus decision-making is a decision process that not only seeks the agreement of most participants, but also to resolve or mitigate the objections of the minority to achieve the most agreeable decision. ... Democracy describes a number of related forms of government. ... The term authoritarian is used to describe an organization or a state which enforces strong and sometimes oppressive measures against the population, generally without attempts at gaining the consent of the population. ...

Internet Transparency

"But here's the interesting paradox: The reputation economy creates an incentive to be more open, not less. Since Internet commentary is inescapable, the only way to influence it is to be part of it. Being transparent, opening up, posting interesting material frequently and often is the only way to amass positive links to yourself and thus to directly influence your Googleable reputation. Putting out more evasion or PR puffery won't work, because people will either ignore it and not link to it - or worse, pick the spin apart and enshrine those criticisms high on your Google list of life."^{From http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/15.04/wired40_ceo.html}

Trivia

In Thomas More's Utopia, the penalty for private discussion of politics by government officials was death. There are also several institutions named Thomas More College. ... De Optimo Reipublicae Statu deque Nova Insula Utopia (translated On the Best State of a Republic and on the New Island of Utopia) or more simply Utopia is a 1516 book by Sir (Saint) Thomas More. ... Capital punishment, or the death penalty, is the execution of a convicted criminal by the state as punishment for crimes known as capital crimes or capital offences. ...

See also

• Corporate transparency
• Open source governance
• Open Source Committee
• Open Business
• E-democracy

Radical transparency: The construct removing all barriers to - and facilitating of - free and easy public acces to corporate, political and personal information and the laws, rules, social convivance and processes that facilitate and protect those individuals & corporations who freely join, develop and embellish the process. ... Open source governance advocates the application of the philosophies of the open source movement to democratic principles, to enable any interested citizen to add to the creation of new policy—rather like a wiki document. ... The following guidelines are examples of how principles of Open Source Government have been applied on a small scale to the business of committee meetings. ... This article needs additional references or sources for verification. ... E-democracy (a neologism and contraction of electronic democracy) is the utilization of electronic communications technologies, such as the Internet, in enhancing democratic processes within a democratic republic or representative democracy. ...

References

Wired - See-Through CEO - http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/15.04/wired40_ceo.html