Idea for automation of online facilitation for reaching consensus

Technological Initiative > Ideas

Brief:

This is an idea for a possible process for realistically achieving full automation of online facilitation of reaching consensus. Comments are welcome! If you would like to participate, please shoot me an email to ziggy[at]occupysydney.org.au, and we can kick-start a workgroup to discuss and refine this idea.

Details:

By Ezequiel Tolnay
27-10-2011 03:54:04

The process involves the following concepts, see link for more info:

-One human per voter avatar (avatars may not include personal details)
-Any individual can submit an idea
-Individuals can search ideas to join workgroups to discuss them (through chat rooms or forums)
-Ideas are turned into Motions once workgroups, with at least a minimum number of participants, achieve consensus
-The main difference between an idea and a motion is that motions can be voted by the general public and ideas only by participants of the idea's workgroup
-Ideas/Motions can be voted by any participant, for support, stand aside, or block
-Every vote is recorded, and anyone can see the history of voting of anyone else, or the total count, or list, of each type of vote for each idea/motion
-Blocks require an explanation to justify the block. A blocker is automatically made part of the workgroup, and has a responsibility for sustaining the block during its resolution in conversation, with the intention of resolving the block once addressed adequately by the idea. Blocks can only be discussed/resolved in workgroups. Every idea/motion has a list of blocks and their resolution.
-Motions are the result of ideas passed by consensus by a workgroup. Motions are versioned, as a result of refinement due to addressing blocks.
-Motions' validity would have a relationship to their popularity, ratio of support to stand aside, no of unaddressed blocks, etc.

** One human per voter avatar **

This may be one of the most challenging parts of the process. I suggest, as an example for ideas that may work, this idea inspired in bitcoin mining. The system produces an identity after successfully responding (or a very high rate of successful responses) to a large number (e.g. 200) wikigame (like thewikigame.com but without a time limit) iterations. Thus, becoming a voter would require a sincere interest for participation, and whilst cheating would not be completely avoided, it could be significantly minimised.

Reference(s):

Blog in which the idea is presented more in detail: http://www.occupysydney.org.au/2011/10/27/idea-for-automation-of-online-facilitation-for-reaching-consensus/

Participate:

Your opinion matters, participate in the debate and let us what you think.