[top-politics] Re: Version 0.10

AbdLomax — 2006-12-25 06:35:17+0100

At 07:32 AM 12/23/2006, Gordan Ponjavic wrote:

>Is it democratic that whole people by consensus delegate one person who >will run the show about some exact issue?

It is democratic at that moment. It will not necessarily remain so. The people may democratically create a situation is no longer democratic.

If the person retains that position as the servant of the people, with the continued consent of the people, it is definitely democratic. However, if the person has a fixed term of office, for example, what may be democratic at the time of election may turn into something else.

Read more… / Lire plus…

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[top-politics] Re: Version 0.10

Gordan Ponjavic — 2006-12-23 13:32:22+0100

> At 08:21 AM 12/22/2006, echarp wrote: > > >Personally, I agree that a [delegable proxy] is one way to scale DD. > >But there is > >another: moderation. Not the classical one, where one moderator controls > >the show, a democratic one, where it is votes that define what is shown > >or not.

Is it democratic that whole people by consensus delegate one person who will run the show about some exact issue?

[top-politics] Re: Version 0.10

AbdLomax — 2006-12-23 05:27:34+0100

At 08:21 AM 12/22/2006, echarp wrote:

>Personally, I agree that a [delegable proxy] is one way to scale DD. >But there is >another: moderation. Not the classical one, where one moderator controls >the show, a democratic one, where it is votes that define what is shown >or not.

That’s not moderation, and, it seems to me, it is circular. If votes define what is shown, who sees the material so that it gets votes? When does this filtering take place? How much delay is involved?

You can set up a system where posts are rated, and there seem to be quite a few of these. Then the user can select a rating level.

Read more… / Lire plus…

But this will exclude unpopular ideas. Some very good ideas seem to be flawed at first glance. So they could get a lot of negative votes. And then they become relatively invisible. The few who read them closely enough to understand them and see the value can’t overcome the inertia of the rest….

Sure, a rating system like that would be better than nothing. But we can do much better than that….

>>But we see more to the matter of proxies than this. Proxies serve >>as filters. They protect the client from too much traffic, and they >>protect the organization from too much traffic. > >A filter can act just the same. Based on votes, participants can define >what level of details they want to see. There is still as much traffic, >but you can easily be shielded from most.

Let me just say that this is like equating a swiss army knife with a pushpin. Both can make holes in objects. Echarp is looking a one narrow aspect of the problem, the traffic problem, in one direction, that is, out to the membership.

When you are deliberating, there should be a record, and it is a presumption, not always true but still important, that those who are voting on an issue have read the record. (In face-to-face meetings, they were there when the speeches were given.) In a rating system, what is the record? Is it all submissions? But, remember, many submissions will not have been seen by the members.

I am trying to make deliberation practical on a large scale. It’s really important to understand the problem.

>>There are attempts afoot to try to do the filtering with automated >>systems, but my opinion is that we are safer with people. If a >>proxy does not take on too many clients, the load is light. > >Filtering based on votes should not be considered too automated, it >relies on participants.

Sure. Better than pure automation. But are all participants equal? If you think they are, then you don’t understand how social systems work. They add weight to some participants, and for very good reasons.

There are ways to automate this process, I think Mark may have one. But my point is that we don’t need the automation, we can do very well with people. If you want to trust a machine, including how it assembles votes, and you want to trust that people, en masse, are going to give your ideas a fair hearing, fine. I don’t trust that, in fact. People are very conservative. Mark’s term is “lemmings,” and he uses the term perjoratively. I don’t. People are conservative for very good reasons. But that conservatism makes it very difficult for some new ideas to be heard. Delegable proxy, I believe, solves this problem, among others. And it is blindingly simple.

>This is what an electoral list would bring, but relying not on one >moderator, but on a democratic vote/moderation.

Direct democracy is very attractive, at first, until one realizes just how much work it involves. Most people don’t have time. So how can we include the people who don’t have time, how can we keep them connected so that they will quite appropriately feel, “this is my organization.” Delegable proxy is an answer to that question. Vote moderation of posts hardly begins. But, still, better than nothing….

[top-politics] Re: Version 0.10

echarp — 2006-12-22 14:21:18+0100

> What I’ve noticed is that the problem of scale does not apply to > voting. It only appears with deliberation, with meeting process. If > everyone can speak, and the group is large, meetings start to become > long and tedious. Scale brings with it the necessity of some kind of > representation, but proxy representation is not only a very old > solution to the problem, it avoids elections completely. It is > standard practice in share corporations that you may vote your shares > directly, i.e., you can attend the Annual Meeting and vote, or you > can delegate the right to vote to your proxy. We have added to this > delegability, that’s what is new and untried.

Personally, I agree that a delegate is one way to scale DD. But there is another: moderation. Not the classical one, where one moderator controls the show, a democratic one, where it is votes that define what is shown or not.

> But we see more to the matter of proxies than this. Proxies serve as > filters. They protect the client from too much traffic, and they > protect the organization from too much traffic.

A filter can act just the same. Based on votes, participants can define what level of details they want to see. There is still as much traffic, but you can easily be shielded from most.

Read more… / Lire plus…

> There are attempts afoot to try to do the filtering with automated > systems, but my opinion is that we are safer with people. If a proxy > does not take on too many clients, the load is light.

Filtering based on votes should not be considered too automated, it relies on participants.

> >So, can parelemnt in this very time do such thing? It can not. At least > >I do not trust it at all. What I want to see is a feedback mechinism > >that can not be hijacked by majority or something like that. I want to > >see free process of networking and creating popular clusters where most > >fine would lead others in this proliferation process of such forum.

As you said, a “feedback” mechanism. Just like the temperature in a room, it can be easy to regulate manually when you start. It’s only when you add more rooms and more complexity, that an automatic system becomes required.

I have planned to add electoral lists, but it is a big feature and I don’t want to start it before finishing some of the smaller ones. Right now I’m modifying the way forums are displayed on the web. They currently are shown in the reverse order of their creation (last one first). I plan to use another variable: last activity. So that the most active elements will be shown first.

It’s almost done already.

Then I would like to improve the looks of the web pages. They are still too confusing for most newcomers. Any suggestions on that?

> Consider an ordinary mailing list, with some moderators. The list > sails along, completely open, and usually works well. But > occasionally somebody trolls, spams, flames. So a moderator steps in > and puts the member on moderation. This, by itself, could seem to be > censorship. But if the moderator is supported by, at least, a > majority, it is quite proper. What is offensive is where there is no > appeal, no process whereby the decision of the moderator can be > reviewed. And if you engage in debate on the list over a moderation > action, it can defeat the purpose of moderation.

Electoral lists could be the solution to that problem.

At first parlement allows everybody to vote on any element (you can even vote on votes). And every participant can decide to only see or receive those elements which have reached above a threshold of their choice (a filter). But when a given number of users has been attained, there will probably be problems occurring due to the legitimacy of the votes.

Basically, at first everybody participates in the moderation democratically, but when electoral lists will be created, participants will have the possibility to choose individually whose moderation they want to follow.

Legitimacy.

> >And you ask me how? I can offer you our past vision: > > > >http://kovach.web.srk.fer.hr/tiaktiv/index.php?mode=projekt_forum&m=forum&jezik=en > > > >Yet, I believe we might go much simpler and more effective that it was > >our first model we developed. I hope I gave you some more information > >about what I believe we do really need. > > It appears that in Tiaktiv, moderators serve, more or less, as > proxies. Members can directly read whatever they want, but they may > also routinely only see traffic that was approved by the moderator > they choose. This is exactly what we expect proxies to do.

This is what an electoral list would bring, but relying not on one moderator, but on a democratic vote/moderation.

echarp – http://leparlement.org

[top-politics] Re: Version 0.10

AbdLomax — 2006-12-21 04:17:52+0100

At 02:11 AM 12/20/2006, Gordan Ponjavic wrote:

>I just looked at clasical forum about politics, vbuletin is its name. >And what do I see? Regular partisans/ustashas fight and simmilar not >interesting topics. > >People who worth something, who are willing to involve some engagement >in their writings do not like that place, nor any other simmilar place.

My wife wouldn’t touch these places of controversy with a 10-foot pole….

>They regularly come to such place, give it a try few or several times >and go on, being not sartisfied with what they see. In the same time, >spammers/trolls/flamers succeed in destroying any cool topic that could >gather other cool people at one place.

Read more… / Lire plus…

This is open list behavior. There are a number of solutions, but many of them involve setting up a dictator. I.e., a moderator. More on this below.

>I do want that thing to be changed. I want to enable people who are >giving their time, who are pushin quality levels higher, I want these >people not to leave such place, but stay there enabling creation of a >place that would become relevant, hot, popular place. Place where >people could really see constructive, progresive topics and other >people who share their aproach.

Yes, and this often happens, though not so often in politics…..

I think it is important to recognize the organizational problem as a generic one. Special fields may have special problems, but the basic problem is the same, especially when the scale becomes large.

Direct democracy works very well in small groups, but when the group size gets large, deliberation breaks down, unless something is done. In government, the common solution, in democracies, is to convert from direct democracy to something like Mayor/Council, with this officer and these representatives being elected. But then, to some degree or other, the freedom of direct democracy is lost. Political scientists seem to generally believe that this is inevitable. I think not.

What I’ve noticed is that the problem of scale does not apply to voting. It only appears with deliberation, with meeting process. If everyone can speak, and the group is large, meetings start to become long and tedious. Scale brings with it the necessity of some kind of representation, but proxy representation is not only a very old solution to the problem, it avoids elections completely. It is standard practice in share corporations that you may vote your shares directly, i.e., you can attend the Annual Meeting and vote, or you can delegate the right to vote to your proxy. We have added to this delegability, that’s what is new and untried.

But we see more to the matter of proxies than this. Proxies serve as filters. They protect the client from too much traffic, and they protect the organization from too much traffic.

There are attempts afoot to try to do the filtering with automated systems, but my opinion is that we are safer with people. If a proxy does not take on too many clients, the load is light.

>So, can parelemnt in this very time do such thing? It can not. At least >I do not trust it at all. What I want to see is a feedback mechinism >that can not be hijacked by majority or something like that. I want to >see free process of networking and creating popular clusters where most >fine would lead others in this proliferation process of such forum.

FA/DP is exactly this, particularly if the delegable proxy part is implemented. DP effectively sets up virtual caucuses, groups of members united by sharing the same proxy, and these proxies can independently contact all the clients. So somebody can hijack (by majority vote or otherwise) the central structure, and the proxies simply recreate, independently, what they want. Proxies also can contact their proxies, plus they will generally have contact information for their peers; we think that a proxy will normally operate a mailing list for his or her clients, and those who mail to this list would be providing their email address to all subscribers.

Very, very difficult to successfully hijack such a structure. As I’ve written, somebody can go to a lot of trouble to create sock-puppet accounts, then vote in whatever they want, and all they end up with is a handful of sand. This is the FA protection: this is why FAs don’t collect power. No collected power, nothing to hijack. The power remains with the members.

Without DP, though, hijacking the communications structure can effectively hijack the organization even if it is only an advisory one. This is because the members don’t have any way to easily contact each other except through the organization…. and what I’ve seen when an organization has gone astray and is censoring communication improperly is that members who try to object and to contact other members are seen as troublemakers, nut cases. But if your proxy, whom you have chosen because you trust this person — or are at least willing to see what happens if you trust him or her — contacts you and tells you what is going on, your response will be quite different than if it is someone you don’t particularly know….

>So. That is the point. You need FEED BACK MECHANISM that would enable >bypassing of spamers/flamers/trolls and in the same time not to disable >freedom of speech. When you do that, I believe we will have a place >that could start new era of internet communication, based on >autopoitical process of selforganisation of mases.

Freedom of speech is actually not the most important freedom, freedom of association is more important. And freedom of association includes the freedom not to be overloaded with unwanted communication.

Consider an ordinary mailing list, with some moderators. The list sails along, completely open, and usually works well. But occasionally somebody trolls, spams, flames. So a moderator steps in and puts the member on moderation. This, by itself, could seem to be censorship. But if the moderator is supported by, at least, a majority, it is quite proper. What is offensive is where there is no appeal, no process whereby the decision of the moderator can be reviewed. And if you engage in debate on the list over a moderation action, it can defeat the purpose of moderation.

So what do you do? My solution has been a metalist, or an administrative list. This list handles administrative questions, including appeals from decisions of the moderator. The admin list must have a decision-making procedure, it must be able to engage in deliberative process. But it has its own rules. Any member of the mail list can join it, but the member may go on no-mail status; if there is a proxy list where members can name a proxy, then DP can ensure that every member who cares can be represented in deliberation and votes.

I’ve seen this work without DP, but simply because there was a congenial group of moderators who maintained the metalist. Not reliable when there is much controversy…. that metalist grew gradually, as moderators turned over active moderation to others but remained on the list, becoming an extended resource with substantial moderation experience. DP could make this wider, much wider.

Whenever traffic on a list becomes too great, one solution we have worked on has been to moderate the list, but to allow established writers to post without moderation. Others post by getting moderator approval or by convincing any writer with the privilege to forward their post.

I was banned from one list — some moderators are quite allergic to my advice — but I continue to participate at a lower level. When I really want to write to the list, I simply write to my “proxy.” Who then, if he agrees that the post is worthwhile for the list, forwards it to the list….

I could also go onto no-mail status on the list (I was banned from posting, not from receiving the list, and, in any case, it is generally easy to set up another list membership, and not a problem if you don’t post through it), and ask my proxy to let me know if there was something I should see, in his opinion.

What we need to see is more usage of the proxy concept. It doesn’t have to be complicated.

And, if an organization wants overcome the “participation bias,” the “bias of the active,” it can set up and use a proxy list. Proxies are valuable even when the organization doesn’t recognize them, but the possibilities rapidly expand if proxies and delegated proxies are recognized. Proxies counterbalance the participation bias, by giving weight to those active participants who represent those who are not active.

>And you ask me how? I can offer you our past vision: > >http://kovach.web.srk.fer.hr/tiaktiv/index.php?mode=projekt_forum&m=forum&jezik=en > >Yet, I believe we might go much simpler and more effective that it was >our first model we developed. I hope I gave you some more information >about what I believe we do really need.

It appears that in Tiaktiv, moderators serve, more or less, as proxies. Members can directly read whatever they want, but they may also routinely only see traffic that was approved by the moderator they choose. This is exactly what we expect proxies to do.

[top-politics] Re: Version 0.10

Gordan Ponjavic — 2006-12-20 08:11:17+0100

I just looked at clasical forum about politics, vbuletin is its name. And what do I see? Regular partisans/ustashas fight and simmilar not interesting topics.

People who worth something, who are willing to involve some engagement in their writings do not like that place, nor any other simmilar place. They regularly come to such place, give it a try few or several times and go on, being not sartisfied with what they see. In the same time, spammers/trolls/flamers succeed in destroying any cool topic that could gather other cool people at one place.

I do want that thing to be changed. I want to enable people who are giving their time, who are pushin quality levels higher, I want these people not to leave such place, but stay there enabling creation of a place that would become relevant, hot, popular place. Place where people could really see constructive, progresive topics and other people who share their aproach.

So, can parelemnt in this very time do such thing? It can not. At least I do not trust it at all. What I want to see is a feedback mechinism that can not be hijacked by majority or something like that. I want to see free process of networking and creating popular clusters where most fine would lead others in this proliferation process of such forum.

Read more… / Lire plus…

So. That is the point. You need FEED BACK MECHANISM that would enable bypassing of spamers/flamers/trolls and in the same time not to disable freedom of speech. When you do that, I believe we will have a place that could start new era of internet communication, based on autopoitical process of selforganisation of mases.

And you ask me how? I can offer you our past vision:

http://kovach.web.srk.fer.hr/tiaktiv/index.php?mode=projekt_forum&m=forum&jezik=en

Yet, I believe we might go much simpler and more effective that it was our first model we developed. I hope I gave you some more information about what I believe we do really need.

ATB;
Gale

[top-politics] Re: Version 0.10

echarp — 2006-12-20 00:32:39+0100

The threshold is chosen by the participants.

Any chance you could try parlement and help improve it?

How do you envision the management of an electoral list in a P2P context? How to declare it, add or remove people from it?

Parlement is lacking real security right now, and it will as long as PGP signatures and electoral lists are not set up. But still, it is hopefully of interest already. The foundations, the architecture, are there.

Read more… / Lire plus…

There is already the basic and most useful functionalities: deliberations, proposals, votes.

[top-politics] Re: Version 0.10

Gordan Ponjavic — 2006-12-20 00:06:16+0100

When you say democratically, you mean by principle of majority? Because idea of 50%+1 is based on legitimation of procedure, which is not this case. As long as there is no legitmation, there is no actually democratical procedure neither.

ATB,
Gale

[top-politics] Re: Version 0.10

echarp — 2006-12-19 23:50:43+0100

You have seen democratically moderated mails before??

[top-politics] Re: Version 0.10

eggy — 2007-03-21 13:12:35+0100

-1