4 ms·

The idea of "open source governance" is hardly new. I'd imagine such a system in the form of a web app would be swamped with irrelevant queries. Assuming an ide

The idea of "open source governance" is hardly new. I'd imagine such a system in the form of a web app would be swamped with irrelevant queries. Assuming an idealistic direct democracy where citizens draft new laws or modify existing ones, the feedback loop of constantly changing legal information to its application would be overwhelming. On the flip side, too much unaddressed issues and slow or wasteful processes would create apathy. Personally I always thought the most attractive model for such an endeavor is to store laws in a markup format, and go through the old school route of mailing lists and patches. You'd be making use of highly tested infrastructure and actually require for participants to put a little effort in learning.

santisiri 12y ago
I agree, we did a lot of research on a decent markup formar for law making (LML!). There are some efforts out there like (search for Akomantoso) But the real challenge is getting TRACTION on a technology like this. It's not just the protocol (which I think it should be based on the Blockchain).. but also the product that makes citizens engaged with political participation.
saraid216 12y ago
Well, this has the fun distinction of actually being functioning code in active use. I'm pretty happy to see some "open source governance" that isn't just talk. I'm only aware of one another project that has crossed that line.
- kpatrick 12y ago
  I'm actually pitching a similar idea to a major corporation. Here is a reading list if you are interested in the subject. There have been (at least) four conferences on the subject of online deliberation. https://www.loomio.org/ https://www.loomio.org/ http://wikis.evergreen.edu/civicintelligence/index.php/ELiberate http://wikis.evergreen.edu/civicintelligence/index.php/ELibe... http://odbook.stanford.edu/static/filedocument/2009/11/15/Chapter_26._Schuler.pdf http://odbook.stanford.edu/static/filedocument/2009/11/15/Ch... http://www.publicsphereproject.org/ncn/ http://www.publicsphereproject.org/ncn/ http://online-deliberation.net/ http://online-deliberation.net/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_deliberation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_deliberation http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/login.jsp?tp=&arnumber=1342861&url=http%3A%2F%2Fieeexplore.ieee.org%2Fxpls%2Fabs_all.jsp%3Farnumber%3D1342861 http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/login.jsp?tp=&arnumber=134286... http://www.virtualagora.org/ http://www.virtualagora.org/ http://parliament.sourceforge.net/ftf-paper.pdf http://parliament.sourceforge.net/ftf-paper.pdf Parliament: A Module for Parliamentary Procedure Software http://www.cs.uu.nl/groups/IS/archive/henry/RobertReport.pdf http://www.cs.uu.nl/groups/IS/archive/henry/RobertReport.pdf Prakken, Henry. 1998. Formalizing robert’s rules of order: An experiment in automating mediation of group decision making. Tech. Rep. REP-FIT-1998-12, GMD.
  - saraid216 12y ago
    Huh. I was briefly exposed to CSCW in college, but somehow I never made the leap to its relevance to modern democratic procedure. Very neat. Thank you for the list.

santisiri 12y ago

I agree, we did a lot of research on a decent markup formar for law making (LML!). There are some efforts out there like (search for Akomantoso) But the real challenge is getting TRACTION on a technology like this. It's not just the protocol (which I think it should be based on the Blockchain).. but also the product that makes citizens engaged with political participation.

saraid216 12y ago

Well, this has the fun distinction of actually being functioning code in active use. I'm pretty happy to see some "open source governance" that isn't just talk. I'm only aware of one another project that has crossed that line.

kpatrick 12y ago
I'm actually pitching a similar idea to a major corporation. Here is a reading list if you are interested in the subject. There have been (at least) four conferences on the subject of online deliberation. https://www.loomio.org/ https://www.loomio.org/ http://wikis.evergreen.edu/civicintelligence/index.php/ELiberate http://wikis.evergreen.edu/civicintelligence/index.php/ELibe... http://odbook.stanford.edu/static/filedocument/2009/11/15/Chapter_26._Schuler.pdf http://odbook.stanford.edu/static/filedocument/2009/11/15/Ch... http://www.publicsphereproject.org/ncn/ http://www.publicsphereproject.org/ncn/ http://online-deliberation.net/ http://online-deliberation.net/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_deliberation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_deliberation http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/login.jsp?tp=&arnumber=1342861&url=http%3A%2F%2Fieeexplore.ieee.org%2Fxpls%2Fabs_all.jsp%3Farnumber%3D1342861 http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/login.jsp?tp=&arnumber=134286... http://www.virtualagora.org/ http://www.virtualagora.org/ http://parliament.sourceforge.net/ftf-paper.pdf http://parliament.sourceforge.net/ftf-paper.pdf Parliament: A Module for Parliamentary Procedure Software http://www.cs.uu.nl/groups/IS/archive/henry/RobertReport.pdf http://www.cs.uu.nl/groups/IS/archive/henry/RobertReport.pdf Prakken, Henry. 1998. Formalizing robert’s rules of order: An experiment in automating mediation of group decision making. Tech. Rep. REP-FIT-1998-12, GMD.
- saraid216 12y ago
  Huh. I was briefly exposed to CSCW in college, but somehow I never made the leap to its relevance to modern democratic procedure. Very neat. Thank you for the list.