All posts in the topic Gathering input from one million people (Short link)
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- There are 10 posts — by 6 authors — in this topic.
- Latest post made by Steven Clift at Mar 25 02:57 UTC
I started the building consensus online discussion with a couple thousand
people online.
I am trying to imagine what an online input feature on the next WhiteHouse.Gov
or you name the world leader might look like.
Assuming the topic is set and people are reacting to a set of questions with
minimal framing text:
1. How would you gather input from one million people online?
2. How would you report the results?
3. Would you support two-way interactivity among participants? If yes, how?
4. How would you ensure that the highest quality contributions are noticed?
5. How would you apply demographics to your analysis and deal with
representativeness?
6. How would you analyze open ended responses?
Steven Clift
E-Democracy.Org
Steven Clift wrote:
> I started the building consensus online discussion with a couple thousand
people online.
>
> I am trying to imagine what an online input feature on the next
WhiteHouse.Gov or you name the world leader might look like.
>
> Assuming the topic is set and people are reacting to a set of questions with
minimal framing text:
>
> 1. How would you gather input from one million people online?
>
> 2. How would you report the results?
>
>
I keep looking at various rating and reputation systems: review on
Amazon, digg, slashdot, helium.com, etc.
MoveOn has a sort of interesting model for soliciting input on what
issues to pursue next, and what positions to take.
Google pagerank is a way of ranking web pages by how many people link to
them. Then there are the various pingback ratings for blogs.
Wikipedia is not a bad model either
The basic assumptions are:
- nobody can read everything
- it's important that everything is read by a statistically meaningful
subset of everyone
- that as things move toward the top, more people see them.
> 3. Would you support two-way interactivity among participants? If yes, how?
>
Depends on how you do it. Attaching comments to a posting (a la blog
comments, or Amazon ratings) is pretty straightforward. Real-time
conferencing across lots of people is not as straightforward.
> 4. How would you ensure that the highest quality contributions are noticed?
>
Filtering, and bubbling.
> 5. How would you apply demographics to your analysis and deal with
representativeness?
>
Keep track of profile information, which might have to be different for
different issues (e.g., parent/non-parent when discussing school issues).
Allow filtering of responses based on profile information. Perhaps make
sure that postings are routed to a statistically relevant sample for
ratings.
Of course this begs a few questions:
- how to decide what profile information is collected for a particular
discussion item
- how is the information collected and validated?
- how to decide how it's applied
> 6. How would you analyze open ended responses?
>
>
Well... the above model doesn't have any other kind. It's all
open-ended, and ranking of open-ended.
If the goal is to converge on a decision, the decision is the collection
of postings that bubble to the top.
Here is my rough cut at how you might engage one million people over a month or
two - say from WhiteHouse.Gov and other government websites. (Or if it is
inconceivable that government will ever ask for input after the votes are cast,
across a network of media or other high traffic civic/political sites.)
Distributed Online Survey The Widget
I recommend producing a small survey widget that is embedded across the home
page of all major government websites and available for inclusion on any
website or blog. A widget is a small piece of code that allows someone to
include syndicated content/applications from another website within their
website. (It is how one displays a YouTube video on another site.)
Each day for at least one month a new question selected by a panel of online
participants from public submissions would be presented across the network.
Project goals:
1. Promote mass participation
2. Acquire opt-in e-mail addresses for further engagement opportunity publicity
3. Produce quantifiable results while engaging many with a low time commitment
Upon completing the syndicated survey question, people would be taken to a
central website where they can without registration be:
1. Given the opportunity to answer why? with a comment
2. Shown five to ten second tier questions select for that day/week that they
can answer
3. Be given the opportunity to securely share demographic data for use in
either weighing a potential display of the results based on census data or if
not saved with the answers, to at least measure outreach to diverse groups in
society
4. Provided an option to rate other comments and view comments (default view +1
or above - Slashdot style, which was recently adopted by YouTube to allow the
audience bury useless comments below the visibility threshold)
5. Asked to provide their e-mail address and postal code for a project
e-newsletter and other important updates
6. (Random) prizes should be available for those providing their e-mail address
(S. Korea has offered prizes on government-funded voter education websites)
In addition, upon rating X number of comments, participants would be invited to
register and join the online group receiving and rating proposed questions
submitted by the public. Assuming that most questions are too biased for direct
use (E-Democracy.Orgs experience with online candidate debate questions
submissions), these super users would be empowered to amend/re-craft the best
question topics into a neutral format appropriate for question display across
the large syndicated network.
How would you engage one million people online? Please share your outline.
Steven Clift
E-Democracy.Org
At what point in this process would you be willing to consider that a member
of the public has been "engaged?" Getting a million people to answer a
single poll question seems easy -- just make the prize attractive enough --
but the democratic value seems limited.
Steven Clift wrote:
> Here is my rough cut at how you might engage one million people over a month
or two - say from WhiteHouse.Gov and other government websites. (Or if it is
inconceivable that government will ever ask for input after the votes are cast,
across a network of media or other high traffic civic/political sites.)
>
>
Looks like a good start .
A few comments/questions:
1. You might want to start a bit smaller, for testing purposes - say a
mid-sized city. Work the bugs out before taking the thing national.
> 3. Be given the opportunity to securely share demographic data for use in
either weighing a potential display of the results based on census data or if
not saved with the answers, to at least measure outreach to diverse groups in
society
>
>
This piece will be critical. Otherwise it will be easy for advocacy
groups to game the system. Now how to get people to share demographic
data, and how to validate that data, is going to be really tricky.
> 4. Provided an option to rate other comments and view comments (default view
+1 or above - Slashdot style, which was recently adopted by YouTube to allow
the audience bury useless comments below the visibility threshold)
>
>
Probably need some kind of way to rate the raters, and do demographic
profiling/rating of the ratings.
> 5. Asked to provide their e-mail address and postal code for a project
e-newsletter and other important updates
>
> 6. (Random) prizes should be available for those providing their e-mail
address (S. Korea has offered prizes on government-funded voter education
websites)
>
> In addition, upon rating X number of comments, participants would be invited
to register and join the online group receiving and rating proposed questions
submitted by the public. Assuming that most questions are too biased for direct
use (E-Democracy.Orgs experience with online candidate debate questions
submissions), these super users would be empowered to amend/re-craft the best
question topics into a neutral format appropriate for question display across
the large syndicated network.
A few years ago, AmericaSpeaks produced a report called "Millions of Voices"
that describes what a
national discussion would look like that was large enough to impact Congress.
It integrates
face-to-face and online processes. It can be downloaded off of the resources
page at
www.americaspeaks.org.
I thought folks might be interested in this post from the UK about a possible large scale online engagement effort - so assuming something real might happen, what advice does the world's largest collection of e-participation experts have? Steven Clift E-Democracy.Org From: http://www.designingforcivilsociety.org/2008/02/government-plan.html Government plans major discussion about British Statement of Values Thanks to the Our Kingdom for noting that Justice Minister Michael Wills has now confirmed in a recent speech there will be a programme of events and online discussions leading up to a Citizens Summit about a proposed British Statement of Values later this year. This is one of three strands to implement the Green Paper Governance of Britain proposals I wrote about here. The speech is interesting both for the details it give of this process, and asides on the balance of representative and participatory democracy. After speaking about the Constitutional Renewal Bill - which will "surrender or limit a wide range of powers currently exercised by the executive, transferring them to Parliament" and the British Bill of Rights and Duties, Michael Wills said: The final strand of the programme is the formulation of a British Statement of Values. Our national identity matters. Most advanced democracies have developed ways to express formally their view of who they are as a nation. This country has throughout much of its history vigorously discussed what it meant to be British. It was only in the years after the Second World War that we went through a period of introspection, lacking in self-confidence when such discussions were often regarded with embarrassment. We are now far more successful and self-confident as a country and the government believes the time is right to find a way to express who we believe ourselves to be in a way that is inclusive and commands broad support. If we don't do this, others will. National identity matters to people. If there isn't a national process to discuss it, in ways that are inclusive of everyone on these islands, then there is a risk that this territory will be colonised by sectarian and sometimes even poisonous views. For us, here the process of discussion and deliberation is as important as the outcome. That's why we are doing this through an innovative constitutional process. Shortly, we will start a series of discussions up and down the country, accompanied by print material and online forums, on what it means to be British, what's best about it, what best expresses what's best about it. This will all be fed into a citizens summit - a representative sample of perhaps 500 people, selected randomly, for example, from the electoral register, but filtered, in much the same ways as opinion polls filter their samples, to ensure it is demographically representative. And informed by these consultations and by presentations directly to them, they will deliberate - and we hope decide - on four main questions: should there be such a statement of values, if so what it should be, how it should be expressed and finally what it should be used for. Their decision will then go to Parliament for a final decision. Writing at Our Kingdom, Guy Aitchison highlights the Minister's caution about the benefits of edemocracy: Wills discusses the transformational role of the web, but with a mixture of enthusiasm and apprehension. He celebrates the ease with which constituents can now contact their MP, but is uneasy that new forms of technology and communication might challenge the representative principles upon which our democracy is based. The electronic plebiscite, he warns, is just a click or two away and we should be very careful about embarking on a slippery slope towards plebiscitary democracy. He imagines what might happen if an unscrupulous billionaire wanted a policy change and set about a nationwide campaign of mass emails and advertising to convince voters to support it online. Could MPs be trusted in such a situation to meet Burkes ideal of the representative, using their unbiassed opinion, mature judgement and enlightened conscience? Willss misgivings, Id suggest, reflect a much broader anxiety on the part of government towards the power of the web - something memorably brought home to them last year with the huge success of the anti-road charge e-petition. For government, the challenge is to use new technologies for deliberation and engagement between elections, whilst ensuring that, what has been called, the mainframe remains intact. Is this possible given that the mainframe belongs to a previous age? However, Michael Wills does end with a general commitment to great engagement with citizens, saying: In these circumstances of the changing societal base for our democracy and the advent of new technologies which, indeed can be a benign force enhancing democracy, this government is convinced that we need to work more vigorously to re-engage citizens in the representative democracy we all share - and from which we all benefit. Hence the surrendering or limiting of the power of the executive, the development of new mechanisms to make policy development a collaborative venture between government and citizens, instead of a top-down exercise which can only be accepted or rejected at elections with no in-between options, and giving citizens greater opportunity directly to monitor and scrutinise the delivery of policy. See my original post for references to Gordon Brown's ideas on engagement, including citizens juries. The Ministry of Justice has rather a good Governance of Britain web site with news feeds that you can add to your own site, and a what others are saying section fed by del.icio.us bookmarks. If you tag your blog posts "for:governanceofbritain" you may get included on the site. You can read here how that was developed using Wordpress by Simon Dickson, working with the MoJ's own blogger and UKGovwebBarcamp organiser Jeremy Gould. It's comforting to know that when the Ministry does start to roll out online discussion it has some in-house expertise. Declaration: I did done some early work for MoJ with Drew Mackie, running a workshop with staff to help design the programme. We used a game like this to simulate the process, and I think it helped wok through how the mix of online and events might work.
Dear All
I am interested in seeking research funding for E-Perticipation and
Informatics Enterprise project
If anyone has an information on this and funding, kindly email me
Steven Clift wrote:
> ... so assuming something real might happen, what advice does the
> world's largest collection of e-participation experts have?
I'd advise, in reply to Michael Wills, that his concessions might not
be needed. He said:
> ... Hence the surrendering or limiting of the power of the executive
> ... to make policy development a collaborative venture between
> government and citizens, instead of a top-down exercise which can
> only be accepted or rejected at elections with no in-between
> options, and giving citizens greater opportunity directly to monitor
> and scrutinise the delivery of policy.
From the understanding I've gained (last month or so), I doubt the
necessity of a power transfer. Executive power and authority - and
the whole formal structure of government - could remain the same.
Guy Aitchison (Our Kingdom), echoes the concerns that are behind
Wills's concessions:
> Wills's misgivings, I'd suggest, reflect a much broader anxiety on
> the part of government towards the power of the web - something
> memorably brought home to them last year with the huge success of
> the anti-road charge e-petition. For government, the challenge is to
> use new technologies for deliberation and engagement between
> elections, whilst ensuring that, what has been called, the
> "mainframe" remains intact. Is this possible given that the
> mainframe belongs to a previous age?
I believe the answer is 'Yes, the mainframe can remain intact'. To
see why, consider that government makes several kinds of decisions:
i. affecting the interests of the governed community
ii. affecting other parts of society, such as economy and culture
iii. purely administrative, affecting government itself
It may be possible to remove community decision-making (i) from
government, without also removing other decision-making (ii and iii).
The transfer to communities might be entire (all type i decisions),
yet nevertheless involve no transfer of power or authority.
Communities would gain nothing but the ability to *reach* independent
decisions, in matters where their own interests were at stake (and
possibly in other matters, if they chose).
Government would then be free to act on those decisions (where its
action was needed), but only if it chose. And there would be a
dialogue, of course, between government and community. The two would
negotiate. But at no point need the community surrender its right to
make decisions, nor the government surrender its right to wield power.
As regards authority, the authority of government would probably be
enhanced whenever it chose to act on a community consensus. And so
would its effectiveness - the wheels of government being apt to turn
more easily in the direction of a consensus. (At other times, its
authority and effectiveness would remain what they are today, more or
less.)
The structural changes would occur entirely in communities. They
would gain an institution for decision-making - the embodiment of
whatever process is developed for this purpose. It would exist side
by side with other institutions in society, such as legislatures,
courts, universities and business firms. But it would not operate
according to the same rationale as those other institutions - not
according to power, nor jurisprudence, nor science, nor wealth - but
according to the rationale of communities, which is one of free and
open discourse.
(The exception to the rule of 'no structural change outside of
communities' might be the political party. There is reason to believe
that parties would no longer be needed, once communities have their
own decision-making institution. It would be employed for ballot
nominations, and for the expression of interest. Parties would be
weakened by this change.)
If the structural power changes feared by Wills aren't needed, if
fixes to government, in general, aren't needed, then - contrary to
what we suppose - the system was never broken. Rather, it was the
community that was broken.
Here is more on the UK possibilities: Subject: [UKIE-EDem] The Internet and Representative Democracy a UK debate Date: Mon, 24 Mar 2008 23:08:57 +0000 From: Anthony Barnett <<email obscured>> To: <email obscured> Hi everyone, Over at openDemocracy the OurKingdom team has been working with Michael Wills at the Ministry to Justice to consider how the internet can help representative democracy and assist citizen initiatives such as the summit he is planning and about to announce. We have called the discussion 'Networking Democracy'. Some of you - eg Steve - have already participated in the initial exchanges. It started the public phase this evening. You can see the intro to it where we are hosting comments here: http://ourkingdom.opendemocracy.net/2008/03/24/networking-democracy/ And you can read the initial exchanges here: http://www.opendemocracy.net/networking-democracy We hope there will be a free discussion of the issues - eg here - especially those we inexcusably did not get round to inviting like Stephen :-( Anthony Member profile for Anthony Barnett: http://groups.dowire.org/contacts/anthonybarnett
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