I've always wanted this. It's such an obvious idea when you're a software engineer.

p-e-w 36 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

We don’t need version control for legislative bills. We need journalists that track down who tried to insert what, summarize it, and present it to the public with context. That would satisfy the oversight purpose without getting lost in technicalities.

Our problem is that the press isn’t doing their job, not that legislation doesn’t have a commit graph. The latter, even if it existed, would not fix the former.

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callmeal 3 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

>Our problem is that the press isn’t doing their job ...

Well, it's practically impossible to get a person to do something when their paycheck depends on their not doing it.

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aspect0545 28 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Why not both. I'm sure that more visibility would result in more requests for press inquiries.

	▲	msdz 18 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Exactly, it’d make the press’ work easier, and maybe enable more people or entities to look into this topic over all, too.

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teiferer 5 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

A revision control system is a tool the journalists could use to achieve this. Commits to the 'enacted' branch could have commit messges documenting the context (when, how, why, who). Unmerged branches could represent proposed but ultimately rejected (or still in progress) changes with the same amount of meta data.

Of course a tool itself doesn't solve the problem. You need somebody to use the tool. But the tool makes it easier to solve the problem.

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sixdimensional an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Same. What I would like to see is Git for non-technical users, built as a public platform that is open source, hosting this.

I do think there are some Markdown-based open source projects that might fit the bill.

	▲	p-e-w 33 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		There are a million frontends designed to simplify Git for non-programmers. In fact, lots of office software now has version management built-in. Very few people use it. This isn’t a technology problem.

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lily121 an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

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