[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.

[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….