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[top-politics] Re: Definition of TOP - Systematization
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Dear Markus and members of the group,
Most points seem valid, but I hope you won’t take offense if I point out it’s not a very engaging read. I do believe that the medium is (half) the message, and that for TOP to have any kind of traction with the public, its message must be absolutely as concise and clear as possible.
As you point out, and rightly so, my definition of TOP has elements missing. Surely some elements would need to be added, and others removed . However, expanding the level of detail beyond what consitutes the core of TOP for this introductory statement would be a mistake for two main reasons:- While exceptions and numerous other things do need to be addressed, bundling everything in the same document will only make it unpalatable to anyone new to the discussion.
- While we can all agree on the fundamental meaning and goals of TOP politics, we need to be cautious about trying to include details from the start, as these details will probably be the points on which we disagree rather than the essentials – and uselessly delay agreement on these essential points.
Some posts raised the question of whether open and public are the same thing. I’ll add that transparency is similar too. In my understanding, the three TOP principles are openness of contents (transparency), openness of structure (open), and openness of access (public). It is interesting to notice that controlling either information, system infrastructure, or access to a political system are widely used methods of hijacking of supposedly democratic gevernment systems. So how about creating a dedicated reference document for each of the three founding TOP principles? Or should we just see this as open politics, and not try to label rigidly the domains to which openness applies?
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At 11:33 PM 9/18/2006, Serge wrote: >Some posts raised the question of whether open and public are the same >thing. I’ll add that transparency is similar too.
Indeed. “Transparency” is equivalent to “open,” in some meanings. Each term, however, does approach the matter from a different perspective. “Transparent” is about access to information. “Open” is about freedom of expression, it seems, though it also refers to transparency. And “Public” implies that there are not relevant access restrictions. That is, if access is restricted, it does not restrict access to those who have a legitimate need to know and a legitimate right to participate.
In my understanding, the three TOP principles are openness of contents (transparency), openness of structure (open), and openness of access (public). It is interesting to notice that controlling either information, system infrastructure, or access to a political system are widely used methods of hijacking of supposedly democratic gevernment systems. So how about creating a dedicated reference document for each of the three founding TOP principles? Or should we just see this as open politics, and not try to label rigidly the domains to which openness applies?
I do agree that a simple document explaining what TOP is about is necessary, and that simple document should have an introduction, perhaps a splash page, which is extremely simple. And, hopefully, engaging.
I’ll just add one comment: an organization may be TOP, as it seems we more or less agree on, but still be effectively closed if necessary information is buried in the noise, and if access to the decision-making structures, i.e., providing input, is likewise suffering from conflicting noise. Indeed, a mindless TOP, i.e., totally open, no restrictions, is not going to work on a large scale. It can work fine on a small scale, and indeed, it often works quite well. Take that complete openness and increase the scale, the TOP principles lose their effect. You can’t find the information you need because it is buried in thousands of irrelevant posts. You can’t get heard because you post amid those thousands, and nobody with the necessary knowledge and inclination to respond notices it.
Frankly, I think DP is necessary before true large-scale TOP organizations will be practical. FA/DP provides all the TOP principles (though it does depend somewhat on the details of an organization, but, as we have discussed, power structures may be a different story. Still, DP can apply there, and a parallel FA/DP organization to whatever power structure can effectively make the combination TOP. That is the theory, and that is the BeyondPolitics vision.
The corporate power structure, which has proxy democracy at its base, is not open to the public, though aspects of it may be public record. However, an FA/DP organization of shareholders, if it allows public participation—and there is no reason not to, any private information can be shared in closed meetings, which any caucus has the right to hold—would make the combination TOP. And if you were the owner of a corporation, wouldn’t you want to know how the public perceives the corporation, and wouldn’t you want it to be open to suggestions from customers, and to potential lawful cooperation with competitors?
FAs advise, they do not control.
+1
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Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote:
At 11:33 PM 9/18/2006, Serge wrote: >Some posts raised the question of whether open and public are the same >thing. I’ll add that transparency is similar too.
Indeed. “Transparency” is equivalent to “open,” in some meanings. Each term, however, does approach the matter from a different perspective. “Transparent” is about access to information.
Indeed.
“Open” is about freedom of expression, it seems, though it also refers to transparency.
I could add, this act is calling for participation. In this imperfect world and hazed, this is actually the only way for gaining legitimation of any transparent political process.
What I want to say? We still live in age of myth. So, if you enter politics as TOP politican, you have to admit your weakest chain actually. This actually means you are much more vulnerable than those who are closed. What is more important, if I see your non-perfection i could think that one I do not know might be at least 10 times better than you referencing to myths that are shared in political life. But, if I enable TOP communication, by comparison you can get much better sense of reality and acknowledge somebody on the level of reality, not myth.
That is the reason I believe T in political life has no chance without OP. So, the whole new paradigm, or nothing.
And “Public” implies that there are not relevant access restrictions. That is, if access is restricted, it does not restrict access to those who have a legitimate need to know and a legitimate right to participate.
Yes. Transparent to public, open to public. Clear realtionship that makes misinterpretations much harder to be done.
In my understanding, the three TOP principles are openness of contents (transparency), openness of structure (open), and openness of access (public). It is interesting to notice that controlling either information, system infrastructure, or access to a political system are widely used methods of hijacking of supposedly democratic gevernment systems.
Great notice Serge.
So how about >creating a dedicated reference document for each of the three founding >TOP principles? Or should we just see this as open politics, and not >try to label rigidly the domains to which openness applies?
I am not pro openness as long as it is widelly interpreted at many very regularly contradicting manners. Another thins is that transparency and participation that is probably functional essence of openness are not the same thing at all. You can be open, yet you can be highly non transparent. And vice versa also. I suppose I do not have to give examples, eventhough, to me, it is most easily noticed in human charactes and words we like to attach to it.
I do agree that a simple document explaining what TOP is about is necessary, and that simple document should have an introduction, perhaps a splash page, which is extremely simple. And, hopefully, engaging.
I’ll just add one comment: an organization may be TOP, as it seems we more or less agree on, but still be effectively closed if necessary information is buried in the noise, and if access to the decision-making structures, i.e., providing input, is likewise suffering from conflicting noise.
This is what I find be as second stage. First stage could be only things such as public forums of political bodies that are known /regulations in what would that mean I find be needed: some party can not be validated as top if it has forum for which nobodies know/, second stage could be exact process such as DP algorithm used for delegating public person in some structure. Or you can go for exact info, exact post that has to be considered by officials.
Indeed, a mindless TOP, i.e., totally open, no restrictions, is not going to work on a large scale. It can work fine on a small scale, and indeed, it often works quite well. Take that complete openness and increase the scale, the TOP principles lose their effect. You can’t find the information you need because it is buried in thousands of irrelevant posts.
This is about filters and their legitimation, which is hard bottom up process. Yet, we can say it is trruly democratic process.
Frankly, I think DP is necessary before true large-scale TOP organizations will be practical. FA/DP provides all the TOP principles (though it does depend somewhat on the details of an organization, but, as we have discussed, power structures may be a different story. Still, DP can apply there, and a parallel FA/DP organization to whatever power structure can effectively make the combination TOP. That is the theory, and that is the BeyondPolitics vision.
I have to notice one problem up there. If you want to matter, you have to make essential difference and base your political ideology on such. When you make difference, you can get people involved in that, if they recognise themselves in such ideology.
If you do not make difference, but call everybody, due to lack of clear difference, you can not set good ideology on it. You can not get people involved in that. And you have to offer to them something if you want to rock.
So, FAs do exist. Formal DPs do not exist and there is no current need for them, which is sad. More precisely, there are several groups I attain to and I can be called as passive DP among them. If I want to be active DP, I have to have people who would be interested in such thing. And there is no people who are actually interested in it. Regular behind the curtain, non transparent, non open,. non public networking is the process that still rules in this very moment in political life. So I can not offer them this service withouht more clear vision. That is the reason I got oriented to TOP much more than to networking, which DP actually is (OK, plus delegation statement that does not mean much in this very moment), if I undertand it correctly.
ATB,
GaleThe corporate power structure, which has proxy democracy at its base, is not open to the public, though aspects of it may be public record. However, an FA/DP organization of shareholders, if it allows public participation—and there is no reason not to, any private information can be shared in closed meetings, which any caucus has the right to hold—would make the combination TOP. And if you were the owner of a corporation, wouldn’t you want to know how the public perceives the corporation, and wouldn’t you want it to be open to suggestions from customers, and to potential lawful cooperation with competitors?
FAs advise, they do not control.
+1
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Hey,
First of all I agree with Gale that defining a system as TOP although slightly redundant, leaves a lot less room for misinterpretation that “open system” would, and remains concise enough to be acceptable.
Secondly, is it right to say that we agree that the aim of this group is for a TOP system allowing for such things as proxy voting, signal amplification over noise (filters), etc to be implemented freely and easily by any TOP organization wanting to?
If yes, why don’t we start try and get more developpers involved to build on leparlement, defining the specifics of the software, and testing it all the while through using leparlement as a platform for discussion/decision/vote??
Regards,
Serge
+3
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+1
Though, what can we do precisely about that?
ATB,
Gale
+1
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Hey Gale,
when you ask what we can do about that, I take “that” to mean “If yes, why don’t we start try and get more developpers involved to build on leparlement….”. The answer I would have is pretty straightforward.
For starters we need an accessible and compelling statement of intention (TOP definition). We also would need to have a proposal at hand for what the system should be able of doing (Emmanuel do you have such a definition document?). Then again it’s not like it needs to be all slick and pretty since these documents are openstanding, it is more to provide a reasonable amount of information and direction for people to catch up on the idea and decide if they are interested and want to participate. Once the starting elements are there, it’s all about publicity. Talk on message boards forum, talk with political bloggers, email your address book about it, whatever you can think of to spread the word….
IMO it’s not exactly easy to do, but it’s really not that hard either, all it takes is to actually get the ball rolling.
Regards,
Serge
+1
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29/09/06 01:44
The state of parlement
On Tue, Sep 26, 2006 at 03:23:35AM -0000, Serge wrote:
We also would need to have a proposal at hand for what the system should be able of doing (Emmanuel do you have such a definition document?). Then again it’s not like it needs to be all slick and pretty since these documents are openstanding, it is more to provide a reasonable amount of information and direction for people to catch up on the idea and decide if they are interested and want to participate. Once the starting elements are there, it’s all about publicity. Talk on message boards forum, talk with political bloggers, email your address book about it, whatever you can think of to spread the word….
I don’t have much documents besides our discussions and parlement itself. Somehow, there is also rubyforge.
Basically, here are the already implemented features:- threaded forum
- RSS feed for latest posts and most popular posts
- login (optional password/email)
- each post is also a forum
- each post is also a mailing list
- server replication (in real time by mail)
- spam filtering (basic)
- votes: -1, 0 or +1
- avatars
- personal display filter
- posts can be positioned
In the future:- long posts shortened for display (tomorrow)
- easy installation
- electoral lists
- PGP signatures
- delegations
- range votes
- irc interaction
- individual votes life span
- web page updated in real time (chat)
- voucher for anonymous pseudonym obtention
There are no roles, ranks, agendas, private settings, or obscured data. Everything is transparent, but for passwords (which are recorded as salted hashes and not replicated).
Poll results will be calculated according to a given electoral list. Which would thus act as a caucus of sorts. Anybody will be able to setup any number of electoral lists.
Anyone who has already posted to top-politics already has a parlement’s pseudo. It is the same as your mail’s name. Me for example, it’s “echarp”. Don’t hesitate to try it. You can, among other things, set up your avatar ;)
Come and have a talk on irc (you need to have java on your machine).
echarp – http://leparlement.org/irc
+2
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+1
This reminds me about compilating our recent intentions in order of getting back to them when the time comes.
ATB,
Gale
+1
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+1
+1
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+1
I am copying your implemented features and planned additions on the wiki so we may try to find a synthetic vision of the features a system would need.
Cool, definitely very cool!
Chiefly I’d like to add that this needs to be as easy as possible to install and implement so as to raise the chance of organizations adopting it.
There are currently two dependencies: ruby on rails and PostgreSQL. The only one bothering me is the DB. Anybody knows of a good ruby DB to remove that dependency? (this would do the same trick as derby in a J2EE project)
best regards,
Thanks, take care
echarp
+1
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Serge wrote:
Hey Gale,
when you ask what we can do about that, I take “that” to mean “If yes, why don’t we start try and get more developpers involved to build on leparlement….”. The answer I would have is pretty straightforward.
For starters we need an accessible and compelling statement of intention (TOP definition).
OK. That is the job we are doing right now.
We also would need to have a proposal at hand for what the system should be able of doing (Emmanuel do you have such a definition document?).
Indeed. People will need definition (is that right word?) of future system in order of making people interested.
Then again it’s not like it needs to be all slick and pretty since these documents are openstanding, it is more to provide a reasonable amount of information and direction for people to catch up on the idea and decide if they are interested and want to participate. Once the starting elements are there, it’s all about publicity.
So, you think we do not get too loud before first two things are realised in satisfying manner? I do agree with this idea, as long as my previous attempts of getting people interested withouth any “catch” is actually far from satisfying experience. I believe we do indeed need to have some “product” first.
Talk on message boards forum, talk with political bloggers, email your address book about it, whatever you can think of to spread the word….
IMO it’s not exactly easy to do, but it’s really not that hard either, all it takes is to actually get the ball rolling.
OK.
ATB,
GaleRegards,
Serge
+1
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29/09/06 01:44
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Hey,
Your reply seems to show that a definition of transparency _ open _ public as separate parts would remain necessary, however close their principle are could be useful. Using only the word open seems to have triggered the misunderstanding that it would be a “mindless” opening, while the transparency definition does state at this point that: “A transparent organization must ensure full, accurate, and timely disclosure of actions and information. Its actions and their justifications must remain intelligible and clear.”
Also I agree with your statement that delegable proxy can and should be used to reduce noise etc, as has been discussed and agreed in previous posts.
regards,
Serge
+2
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+1 :-)
+1
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Dear Serge
On Tuesday 19 September 2006 05:33, Serge wrote:
Dear Markus and members of the group,
Most points seem valid, but I hope you won’t take offense if I point out it’s not a very engaging read.
No offense at all ;-) It wasn’t very engaging to write also, but it has to be done.
I do believe that the medium is (half) the message, and that for TOP to have any kind of traction with the public, its message must be absolutely as concise and clear as possible.
I agree!
+1
As you point out, and rightly so, my definition of TOP has elements missing. Surely some elements would need to be added, and others removed . However, expanding the level of detail beyond what consitutes the core of TOP for this introductory statement would be a mistake for two main reasons: – While exceptions and numerous other things do need to be addressed, bundling everything in the same document will only make it unpalatable to anyone new to the discussion. – While we can all agree on the fundamental meaning and goals of TOP politics, we need to be cautious about trying to include details from the start, as these details will probably be the points on which we disagree rather than the essentials – and uselessly delay agreement on these essential points.
I agree, this was an error of me to define everything in detail in only one document. But still, details have to be defined in special documents which should be referenced in the main one (so it should be understand that they are an integral part of it). Maybe we should take a law-writing approach e.g. use statements like “this issue is defined in a special document”, or “if in doubt consult special elaboration” etc.
Some posts raised the question of whether open and public are the same thing. I’ll add that transparency is similar too. In my understanding, the three TOP principles are openness of contents (transparency), openness of structure (open), and openness of access (public). It is interesting to notice that controlling either information, system infrastructure, or access to a political system are widely used methods of hijacking of supposedly democratic gevernment systems. So how about creating a dedicated reference document for each of the three founding TOP principles? Or should we just see this as open politics, and not try to label rigidly the domains to which openness applies?
This was allready been discused so I won’t engage a new discussion here, but let me just tell that I like the pretty definition of TOP you stated ;-)
Best regards
— Markus Schatten, dipl. inf.
e-mail: markus.schatten@foi.hr
http://www.tiaktiv.hr
+1
