# Building an open infrastructure for civic participation URL : https://opensource.com/article/21/4/open-source-cities > What the deployment of Decide Madrid can teach us on creating a [[participatory culture]] to effectively engage with citizens. > The challenge for Decide Madrid has been less about getting participation and more about getting the right kind of participation Good article on some of the challenges of [[citizen participation platform]]s. (Based on experiences from Decide Madrid / [[Consul]]). - [[A participatory culture requires a participatory infrastructure]]. The article suggests looking to open source software for examples of building [[participatory infrastructure]]. I get where that's coming from, but given OSS participation is often rife with problems, it might not be the best example. Or maybe it is, for exactly that reason? I feel it is slightly a classic tech view of the world - that we can look to open source to figure out how to govern the real world. Related: [[free software governance]], [[What could governance online look like?]]. Funny how it mentions things like 'conversions' - e.g. getting a citizen visiting the platform to vote on a proposal. [[infrastructure]].