Experiment in Direct Democracy
03-05-2017
, 09:21 PM
Hello all! I noticed there is a lot of discussion regarding moderation in this forum, and I thought I would start a thread here to see if people want to participate in an experiment. This idea is a modification of the General Assembly from Occupy Wall Street, and can be used by willing participants to organize the forum, and make horizontal, consensus based decisions, rather than allowing a no-holds-barred approach where things like white nationalist ideology is allowed to flourish, and rather than a top down approach to decision making and moderating where one person, or a small group of people dictate what the rules are without input from the users.
What happens in this thread is independent of the forum, meaning that decisions that are made in this thread on things like rules or actions only apply to this thread, because this is a little experimental world.
In order for this to work, it requires a good-faith effort from willing participants. No one has to participate if they don't want to, and anyone is free to come and participate, or leave and not participate, at any time. Here's how it works:
There is an area of open discussion, where anyone discusses anything. Ideally this discussion would be used for hashing out and formulating proposals.
Someone can then make a proposal, and it will go to the General Assembly.
In the General Assembly, there is a facilitator (me) who facilitates the process. The proposer will outline the details of their proposal, and it will go up to a vote of the users in this manner:
1. Proposal is made and this opens the General Assembly.
2. A vote is cast to determine if the proposal shall be opened for amendments or not.
3. If voted yes, the proposal will be open for amendments for a period of 48 hours, and anyone can offer any amendment they like. As soon as an amendment is proposed, it is voted on and is either adopted or not.
4. As soon the amendment period ends, the entire proposal is voted on. If passed, the proposal is enacted. If failed, the proposer can feel free to refine their proposal, hash out in discussion why people didn't support it, etc. and other people can make other proposals. (Only one proposal can be active at a time, and only one amendment can be voted on at a time)
While voting you can
a. Abstain (if Abstain, you are not counted in vote talley)
b. Vote yes
c. Vote no
And you can also perform four actions:
1. Point of Information (POI) - A POI is raised when a member feels like they have important information that was unaddressed, and they need to make everyone aware of it.
2. Point of Process (POP) - A POP is raised when what is occurring does not follow the established rules of procedure.
3. Question or Clarification (QOC) - A QOC is raised when a member is unsure about a detail in the proposal or amendment.
4. Block - A block is raised when what is happening in the GA might be very bad, or it might go against the safety of the users, or it might lead to some bad consequence like serious legal action taken against users or the owners of the site, or something like that. A block is not a no vote, and is not merely a disagreement, a block is a safety check on the integrity of the GA.
Whenever one of these four actions is taken, the vote is halted, reset, and a revote occurs.
The voting rules are as follows:
The normal voting rule in effect is simple majority, meaning you just need a majority to pass a proposal or amendment. But if a block action is taken, after the vote is reset, it goes into a one vs. all rule. In this rule, if there is more than one person voting no, the vote doesn't pass. It can only pass if it's everyone voting yes, versus a single no vote (the blocker). (This may need to be modified to a 1% vs. 99%, or 10% vs. 90% rule, meaning that the vote needs 1% or 10% of the voters to vote no for it to fail. This modification may be necessary to combat abuse, but for now the rule will remain one vs. all.
Users don't have to participate, and can leave at any time. It's Direct Democracy, and horizontal decision making, where everyone has equal say and input to the outcomes.
I am acting as the facilitator, and for the time being I am the sole facilitator, which means I do things like outline which point in the process the GA is in, open the GA to a vote, manage the time, count the votes, things like that. They are sort of the Operating System of the GA. What's important to note is that the facilitator does not have more power in the GA than any other user, they are merely facilitating the process.
This approach does have a weakness however, and that is a user could do nothing but block every vote, or use one of the other four actions to continuously reset the vote. If a user exhibits this behavior, their comments, votes, and actions in this thread will be ignored. This is necessary to keep the GA functioning, which is important because with this approach, everyone that participates in a good-faith manner will have direct influence in the thread.
Here is a flow chart that I made to visually illustrate the process:
So since this experiment is just starting, I'm going to arbitrarily choose 48 hours as a time duration for votes, and amendment periods. When a proposal is made, it immediately triggers a vote to open for amendments, and this vote will last for 48 hours. If it's opened for amendments, the amendment period will be 48 hours. All votes are 48 hours in duration. I thought about doing 24 hours, but I'm a University student and I have a lot of work, and I'm sure other people have busy lives as well, so I'm going to make it plenty of time, but not a very excessive amount of time.
Some final advice and directions to any willing participants:
* Please make sure your proposal is well thought out and well formulated before officially making the proposal. If it's not well thought out, it likely will not receive much support
* When you make a proposal, vote, and perform actions, please make it clear and bold it. Examples:
I am making a proposal: I propose .....
Vote yes
I raise a POP, what's happening right now doesn't follow the process ...
* Polls will not be created. All votes will be posted as text, and counted manually by me, as the facilitator. If I make an error, please point it out.
* The three voting choices, and the four actions can only be taken during an active voting period. No other time.
* Remember that a block does not mean vote no.
* Please be civil and kind, and respect others, even if you disagree.
Thanks to all who feel like participating, and no hard feelings if anyone doesn't want to participate. I do ask that if you participate, do so in a good-faith manner, not with the intentions of disrupting the process. To do so is to deny others the chance to participate.
Having said all of the above,
We are now in Open Discussion. I hope everyone that participates enjoys this experiment!
What happens in this thread is independent of the forum, meaning that decisions that are made in this thread on things like rules or actions only apply to this thread, because this is a little experimental world.
In order for this to work, it requires a good-faith effort from willing participants. No one has to participate if they don't want to, and anyone is free to come and participate, or leave and not participate, at any time. Here's how it works:
There is an area of open discussion, where anyone discusses anything. Ideally this discussion would be used for hashing out and formulating proposals.
Someone can then make a proposal, and it will go to the General Assembly.
In the General Assembly, there is a facilitator (me) who facilitates the process. The proposer will outline the details of their proposal, and it will go up to a vote of the users in this manner:
1. Proposal is made and this opens the General Assembly.
2. A vote is cast to determine if the proposal shall be opened for amendments or not.
3. If voted yes, the proposal will be open for amendments for a period of 48 hours, and anyone can offer any amendment they like. As soon as an amendment is proposed, it is voted on and is either adopted or not.
4. As soon the amendment period ends, the entire proposal is voted on. If passed, the proposal is enacted. If failed, the proposer can feel free to refine their proposal, hash out in discussion why people didn't support it, etc. and other people can make other proposals. (Only one proposal can be active at a time, and only one amendment can be voted on at a time)
While voting you can
a. Abstain (if Abstain, you are not counted in vote talley)
b. Vote yes
c. Vote no
And you can also perform four actions:
1. Point of Information (POI) - A POI is raised when a member feels like they have important information that was unaddressed, and they need to make everyone aware of it.
2. Point of Process (POP) - A POP is raised when what is occurring does not follow the established rules of procedure.
3. Question or Clarification (QOC) - A QOC is raised when a member is unsure about a detail in the proposal or amendment.
4. Block - A block is raised when what is happening in the GA might be very bad, or it might go against the safety of the users, or it might lead to some bad consequence like serious legal action taken against users or the owners of the site, or something like that. A block is not a no vote, and is not merely a disagreement, a block is a safety check on the integrity of the GA.
Whenever one of these four actions is taken, the vote is halted, reset, and a revote occurs.
The voting rules are as follows:
The normal voting rule in effect is simple majority, meaning you just need a majority to pass a proposal or amendment. But if a block action is taken, after the vote is reset, it goes into a one vs. all rule. In this rule, if there is more than one person voting no, the vote doesn't pass. It can only pass if it's everyone voting yes, versus a single no vote (the blocker). (This may need to be modified to a 1% vs. 99%, or 10% vs. 90% rule, meaning that the vote needs 1% or 10% of the voters to vote no for it to fail. This modification may be necessary to combat abuse, but for now the rule will remain one vs. all.
Users don't have to participate, and can leave at any time. It's Direct Democracy, and horizontal decision making, where everyone has equal say and input to the outcomes.
I am acting as the facilitator, and for the time being I am the sole facilitator, which means I do things like outline which point in the process the GA is in, open the GA to a vote, manage the time, count the votes, things like that. They are sort of the Operating System of the GA. What's important to note is that the facilitator does not have more power in the GA than any other user, they are merely facilitating the process.
This approach does have a weakness however, and that is a user could do nothing but block every vote, or use one of the other four actions to continuously reset the vote. If a user exhibits this behavior, their comments, votes, and actions in this thread will be ignored. This is necessary to keep the GA functioning, which is important because with this approach, everyone that participates in a good-faith manner will have direct influence in the thread.
Here is a flow chart that I made to visually illustrate the process:
So since this experiment is just starting, I'm going to arbitrarily choose 48 hours as a time duration for votes, and amendment periods. When a proposal is made, it immediately triggers a vote to open for amendments, and this vote will last for 48 hours. If it's opened for amendments, the amendment period will be 48 hours. All votes are 48 hours in duration. I thought about doing 24 hours, but I'm a University student and I have a lot of work, and I'm sure other people have busy lives as well, so I'm going to make it plenty of time, but not a very excessive amount of time.
Some final advice and directions to any willing participants:
* Please make sure your proposal is well thought out and well formulated before officially making the proposal. If it's not well thought out, it likely will not receive much support
* When you make a proposal, vote, and perform actions, please make it clear and bold it. Examples:
I am making a proposal: I propose .....
Vote yes
I raise a POP, what's happening right now doesn't follow the process ...
* Polls will not be created. All votes will be posted as text, and counted manually by me, as the facilitator. If I make an error, please point it out.
* The three voting choices, and the four actions can only be taken during an active voting period. No other time.
* Remember that a block does not mean vote no.
* Please be civil and kind, and respect others, even if you disagree.
Thanks to all who feel like participating, and no hard feelings if anyone doesn't want to participate. I do ask that if you participate, do so in a good-faith manner, not with the intentions of disrupting the process. To do so is to deny others the chance to participate.
Having said all of the above,
We are now in Open Discussion. I hope everyone that participates enjoys this experiment!
Last edited by AllCowsEatGrass; 03-05-2017 at 09:31 PM.
03-05-2017
, 09:38 PM
