There are three things you need to be a good writer: you need to read a lot, you need to write a lot, and you need a lot of feedback.

When you got a cell phone you stopped making plans. 'I'll call you when I get there.'

Civic participants don't aim to make life better merely for members of the group. They want to improve even the lives of people who never participate.

The waterfall method amounts to a pledge by all parties not to learn anything while doing the actual work.

Wikipedia [...] is the product not of collectivism but of unending argumentation.

If it’s a revolution it can’t be predictable. And if it’s predictable it can’t be a revolution.

What you need for a participatory system to work: "a plausible promise, an effective tool, and an acceptable bargain."