User:Crazyeddie/Democratic wikis

Prologue and Preamble

Back in 2004, I developed a desire to become more active in politics, for what I assume are fairly obvious reasons. Although, like most Americans, I am not a member of either major party, or any of the minor parties for that matter, I was quite opposed to the Republican candidate, so I went to the local Democratic party headquarters to see what I could do. I quickly discovered that the main focus there was getting out the vote, with very little discussion of the issues of the election. I also discovered (or re-discovered) that I am not a people person, and that local politics bore me.

Of course, if I wanted to find a forum for the discussion of issues, I have only to turn to the internet to find all the discussion I can handle. However, these online forums are subject to groupthink, and anybody who disagrees with the party line is quickly ostracized. Furthermore, these forums have only a weak effect on politics in the real world. For the most part, these sites only serve as arenas for amateurs to blow off some hot air.

In addition to the usual run-of-the-mill forums, there are some activists blogs, LiberalOasis.com, for example, that do have some effect in the larger political debate. But just like the local party organizations, these sites focus more on getting their chosen policies enacted into law, not on whether or not those policies are a good idea in the first place.

Lastly, there are other sites, such as various e-petition sites and virtual-politics.com, which allow individuals to make statements of positions on various issues and collect support for those positions. However, there is little opportunity for the community to debate, amend, and agree to these statements, but only to give up or down support. What is needed is a venue for individuals to come together and make collective statements on what path this country should take, without worrying too much about making that dream a reality. That is not to say that the dream can not be made a reality, only that first we must agree that the dream is, in fact, desirable.

To that end, I propose the creation of a new kind of website, which I provisionally call VirtualDemocracy.org. This site will incorporate a modified rules-of-order, which will adapt the procedures of democratic bodies to the new environment of cyberspace. These rules-of-order will allow the community as a whole to create, debate, modify, and "enact" resolutions which truly embody the spirit of the people. Members of the site will also be divided into small groups which will share basic values. These intimate discussion groups will provide a nurturing environment where new ideas can be given an initial polish before being sent out into the larger arena of the site-wide community. It is my hope that these small nooks, where birds of a feather can flock together, will alleviate the tendency of forums towards groupthink and lockstep conformity with the larger group's values.

Finally, steps will be taken to ensure that the resolutions of this virtual community have a very real effect on the politics of the real world. The "virtual" of virtual democracy does not signify that this resolutions of this site will have no impact, but that virtual democracy will act as a virtualization layer running on top of the politics of the real world, making the machinery of the political world more accessible to the normal everyday "user" of that system.

Organization

Structure

The groups of Virtual Democracy will be arranged as follows: at the top of the hierarchy, there will be the Virtual Democracy Senate, which all citizens of Virtual Democracy will be members of. Below the Senate is three Tier 1 groups, below that nine Tier 2 groups, and so on by powers of three. Each citizen will be a member of the Senate, of one Tier 1 group, of one Tier 2 group, and so on. Citizens will be assigned to a group in each Tier independently of their group assignment in the other Tiers. In other words, two citizens might be members of the same Tier 2 group, but members of different Tier 1 groups.

If a group votes on a proposal and it fails, the proposal will be down-propagated to any group on the next lowest tier whose members voted for the proposal. The purpose of this is to give proposals that are basically good time for some extra polishing. The purpose of the partially non-hierarchical structure of Virtual Democracy is to encourage the spread of ideas to groups of differing beliefs and political stances. For example, an idea proposed by a radical of one stripe or another might have a better chance of passing after it has been modified by a more centrist group.

If a group votes on a proposal and it passes, then it will be up-propagated to any group on the next higher tier whose members voted for the resolution, and down-propagated to any group on the next lower tier whose members voted for the resolution. The purpose of this is to create a Darwinian competition of ideas, leading to the improvement of ideas that have already been accepted.

A resolution will be considered by a group a maximum of one time during a 3-month session. If a proposal is propagated to a group which had given an up-or-down vote to another version in a previous session, both the incoming proposal and the proposal from the previous session will be considered as separate forks (see the discussion of the Rules of Order further down). If a proposal is propagated to a group while the group is debating a different version of the proposal, then the incoming version will be treated as a separate fork. If the group has given an up-or-down vote on the proposal, or in the process of an up-or-down vote, or is in the final stages of a session, any further incoming versions will be tabled until the next session.

If after one year, a successful resolution has experienced no further action, it will be placed before the group for renewal. If the resolution is not approved during the course of the session, it will lapse. Such a resolution will not be placed before the group during the final stages of a session - it will be tabled until the start of the next session.

Grouping

For the purposes of grouping, Virtual Democracy will keep track of what answers citizens give to poll questions, what responses they give on up-and-down votes, and what their first choices are in Instant Runoff Votes.

In order to provide a starting framework for the groups, I am collecting a sample of responses to a set of politically-oriented questions. This sample will be sorted into three groups of equal size, and these placeholders will form the basis of the initial groups of Tier 1. At the beginning, there will be 90 placeholders. When a new member joins Virtual Democracy, a placeholder will be removed at random. If a member going inactive causes the total number of active members and placeholders to go under 90, their profile will be retained as a placeholder.

The method used to sort the placeholders into the three groups is Bachman's method. This method will sort individuals into groups that roughly share the same beliefs and ideals, based on their poll results.

Possible problem: It is possible that an individual who "naturally" belongs to one group (according to Bayes' theorem, at least) will be assigned to another group which they have less in common with. One possibility to this issue is to ignore it - hope that the individual doesn't notice and plays well with the other members of the group. However, I would like to make use of the probabilities that Bayes' Theorem provides, in a way that would make it difficult for the individual not to notice.

Another possibility is to be open about it, and explain that such individuals might act as ambassadors - people who provide a slightly different point of view to the group, and, given the way proposals propagate through the Virtual Democracy hierarchy, a vector through which new ideas can be brought into the group.

Dr. Bachman has suggested that, if the individual requests it, they can be reassigned to their "natural" group. Combined with the "ambassador" concept, this might be workable. I would suggest that such reassignments be limited to a window - more than 2 weeks after the beginning of a session (in order to give the individual a chance to get used to the group they have been assigned and see if they are really that intolerable) but before the final month of the session.

Assignment

New members will be assigned to their groups through the use of Bayes' Theorem when they first join Virtual Democracy. At the beginning of the assignment process, it will be assumed that the new member has an equal chance of being a member of any of the groups on a tier. Based on the percentage of the members of the groups who answered each question the same way as the new member, Bayes' Theorem will recalculate the probability that the member belongs to each group. Barring pathological cases, this should lead to one group standing out as the likeliest candidate.

Things to consider during this process:

1. Avoid falsification - if all members of a group vote one way on a question, and the new member votes another, or the new member chooses an answer to a question that nobody else in the group as, then Bayes' Theorem will permanently drop the probability of the new member being a member of that group to zero, regardless of what else the member has in common with the group. We should not us questions where there is a possibility of falsification for assignment.
2. Avoid questions that have had few responses - a question should have been answered by at least three members of every group before it is used for assignment.
3. Use poll questions for assignment tests - while we will also use members' up-and-down votes and their first choices in IRV votes, these are too complex for the user to use in assignment tests.

Some ways to use this process:

1. Use a standard test with a set number of questions. For example, the test that I am currently using to obtain placeholder profiles. Some problems with this approach: 1) As the Virtual Democracy expands, this test may not be sufficient to assign new members within the lowest tiers. 2) The test is rather long to include in the account creation process. 3) I don't trust this test to fully capture the nuances of the various individual political stances. 4) The test may be copyrighted (need to check this before opening the website for business!) If we do use this approach, it will probably be used only initially, and by replaced by one of the other approaches after it has out-lived its usefulness. At the very least, it will establish a pool of politics-related questions that can be used for group assignment by the other approaches.
2. Create an adaptive assignment test. The first page of this test would consist of a total of 6 questions - the two questions which have the greatest (dis)confirmatory power for each of the three Tier 1 groups (and going on to the most confirmatory question in case of a repeat). This should establish one of the three groups as the likeliest candidates (barring pathological cases). The next page would have the top five most (dis)confirmatory questions for the likeliest candidate group. The sixth question would be one that potentially falsifying for the likeliest candidate group, or has not been answered by at least three members of the likeliest candidate group (or else no sixth question would be used). This sixth question would not be used as part of the Bayes' Theorem assignment process - the purpose of this is to increase the pool of possible questions.

The process continues until the probability that the member belongs to a certain group is greater than 90%, and which point the process continues on to the next tier, until the member has been assigned to one group for each tier. There should also be a (optional?) time out on the total number of questions asked - there is no guarantee that the 90% probability will be reached, and nobody likes taking an infinitely long test. If the time out is reached, then one solution is to simply assign the new member to the likeliest candidate group in each of the remaining tiers. Another is to postpone assignment until more information is obtained.

It is likely that the new member will find some of the questions offensive or otherwise unanswerable. Because of this, new members should be given the opportunity to skip any question. It is tempting to use the fact that a new member has skipped a given question itself as a datum in the assignment process, but this would probably be politically undesirable. In order to prevent new members from simply skipping all of the questions, a skipped question shall not count against the time-out.

1. Take a slow approach. At first, new members will not be assigned to any groups, but will be restricted to the commons - the Senate, or possibly a "Plebiscite" area which would give up-and-down votes on Senate resolutions. As the new members participate in the decisions and polls in the commons, the machinery of Virtual Democracy will be using this information to assign them to groups. New members would be assigned to a group when there is a greater than 90% probability that they are a member, with the process continuing until this has been done for all tiers. Any new member who wishes to accelerate the process will be offered the opportunity to take a test (by one of the above methods). This approach would reduce the hassle of account creation. It would also reduce the dangers of sockpuppetry, especially if new members were restricted to a Plebiscite commons area, and kept out of the Senate until they have been assigned to a group on every tier. On the other hand, this might create an old hand vs. noob elitism, but this is not necessarily a bad thing.

Rules of Order for Cyberspace Assemblies in General

Differences Between Meatspace and Cyberspace Assemblies

In order to keep discussions manageable and moving forward, real world assemblies use rules of order. In the United States, most assemblies use Robert's Rules of Order, which are based on the Rules of Order used by the United States House of Representatives.

Like meatspace assemblies, Virtual Democracy will also have to use rules of order to keep discussions manageable and moving forward. However, there are some very real differences between meatspace discussions and cyberspace discussions. Meatspace forums are essentially uniplex - in a large group, only one person at a time can talk and hope to be understood. The chairperson's main task is determining who has the "transmission token." By contrast, cyberspace forums are essentially multiplex - within some fairly large limits, many people can "talk" at the same time while still maintaining an relatively coherent conversation.

Another difference is that meatspace assemblies are synchronous, while cyberspace assemblies are asynchronous, with the exception of real-time chat rooms. In meatspace, everyone is listening to the discussion at the same time, but with online forums, members check in on the discussion at different times during the day. The main effect this has is on voting. It is fairly easy to have a vote in a meatspace assembly - a few seconds in a show of hands or a voice vote, a few minutes if there is a roll call. But in cyberspace, a large chunk of time must be set aside in order to ensure that everyone has had a chance to vote - usually a week.

Introducing a Proposal

In meatspace assemblies, a proposal (a primary motion) must have two sponsors before it is taken into consideration. As far as I can tell, this serves as a filter, weeding out obviously bad proposals before they waste the time of the assembly. But, online, we have a lot of time to waste (because of multiplexing), so this filtering function is not needed. Cyberspace primary motions will only need a single sponsor.

Proposals are subject to a measure known as Objection to Consideration. An Objection to Consideration means not only that a proposal is a bad idea, but that it should never have been brought before the assembly in the first place. In order to succeed, an Objection to Consideration requires a 2/3rds vote, and it is strongly suggested that, if such a motion is taken, it is taken early in the career of a proposal. This feature will be retained in cyberspace, and should be used against "proposals" that are spam, or that are Likely To Get The Proprietors Of The Website Sued (for example, a proposal to nuke the White House). Other grounds for an Objection to Consideration will no doubt become apparent as time goes on. As a secondary motion, an Objection to Consideration will require a second sponsor. If an Objection to Consideration of a proposal is successful, then the proposal should be deleted from the database of the website, or, at the very least, blocked from search engines.

In meatspace assemblies, the sponsor of a proposal is allowed to withdraw their proposal unless the proposal has been amended. This is, of course, a filtering function, so it is not necessary in cyberspace. If a sponsor decides that their proposal was a mistake, they are encouraged to bring the proposal to a final vote as quickly as possible, and allow the assembly as a whole to decide its fate.

Amending a Proposal

In meatspace assemblies, a secondary motion is required to edit the proposal. This requires someone to propose an amendment, someone else to second it. The amendment must then be debated and voted on, before the assembly returns to consideration of the proposal as a whole. As you can imagine, this could be quite depressing if the only change you want to make is to repair a misplaced comma.

Fortunately, technology has advanced some new methods of the collaborative creation of documents, including documents that are highly controversial.

For most edits, cyberspace proposals will be edited wiki-style. With some exceptions, anyone will be able to edit a proposal, including, if the group is willing, non-members and even anonymous passer-bys.

As any experienced Wikipedian can attest, while this method does lead to the rapid advancement of a document's quality, it can also lead to no-holds-barred bare-knuckle fights. Because of this, the wiki-style method of editing will be supplemented with a more formal method, based on open source programming projects - the right to fork.

Each proposal will have a gatekeeper (the original sponsor of the proposal). This gatekeeper will "own" their version of the proposal, and will have the right to bar anonymous editors, non-members, and even members of the group from editing it. To balance this power, all members of the group will have the right to fork the proposal, to create their own alternative version of the proposal, and have the same gatekeeper powers over that version as the sponsor has over the original.

Before the proposal as a whole is voted on, the group will select one version of the proposal through an Instant Runoff Vote. In this style of voting, voters list their preferences in descending order. If no candidate receives 50%+ of the first-choice votes, then the candidate with the lowest number of votes is removed from consideration. The votes of those who voted for that candidate is transfered to their next preference, and the process continues until one candidate has a 50%+ majority.

Such a merge vote can be triggered by two spongers, and it will be automatically triggered if there are more than five forks under consideration. The versions will be locked from further editing by anybody other than the gatekeepers, who will be given 24 hours to repair any last-minute vandalism. In order to expedite the process, the gatekeepers are encouraged to indicate when they have completed their last-minute check. They are also encouraged not to make any radical changes in their version after general editing has been locked. After this last-minute check is completed (either by all gatekeepers signaling that they are ready, or when the 24 hour period expires), the merge vote will be held open for one week, or until one candidate has enough first-choice votes that the votes of the remaining active members of the group will not change the outcome. After the merge vote, debate will continue on the proposal as a whole.

During debate, it may be desirable to split off a fork and consider it separately as a proposal in its own right. This secondary motion should require two sponsors and a 2/3rds majority vote.

Ending Debate and the Final Vote

In order to end debate and bring a proposal to a final vote, a secondary motion (sponsored and seconded) must be passed with a 2/3rds vote. This allows a minority to block an up-or-down vote and continue debating. A merge vote can also be bundled with a final vote - the final up or down vote will take place immediately after the results of the merge vote are released. If there are no other forks, then the gatekeeper of the proposal will be given a 24 hour last-minute check period. Again, the gatekeeper is strongly advised not to make radical changes to a proposal during the last-minute check period, and doing so should be considered grounds for banning the gatekeeper from the group, at least temporarily.

Other Subsidiary Motions

work in progress

• Postpone to a Certain Time
• Make a Special Order
• Lay on the Table
• Limit Debate
• Take from the Table
• Reconsider
• Rescind
• Reconsider and have Entered on the Minutes

http://www.constitution.org/rror/rror--00.htm