Global Assembly Dialog
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The Global Assembly Dialog is implemented at http://globalassembly.net, however, we are establishing our central web 2.0 community presence here on WiserEarth. We think that a WiserEarth / GA Dialog combo can play an important role in building that just, sustainable and spiritually fulfilling global civilization that we all want, and that is so tantalizingly possible.
Please join the Global Assembly Dialog Group here on WiserEarth. The Global Assembly Blog is now active.
---------------------------------
The technology of the Global Assembly Dialog described below is written in dot.net alas. It makes sense that it be rewritten in a form more compatible with the open source community.
---------------------------------
The Global Assembly in a Nutshell - by popular request - four ideas
1) The basic idea is that we can elect messages to represent us. This would be online, of course. So why not apply the method globally? It is not all that hard to create an online Voice of Humanity with hundreds of millions of participants voting to elect messages that represent everyone.
2) The second idea is to structure this voting on messages into a dialog that alternates between "unity" and "diversity" rounds. In the unity rounds everyone together elects a message to represent our common humanity, and in the diversity rounds we break out into groups, each of which elects its own message. This structure co-opts the hard-liners.
3) The third idea is to use the building of the online dialog as a framework to organize civil society into a bottom up Global Assembly devoted to making a "World that Works for Everyone".
4) The final big idea is to organize a Nonviolent Service Arm for the Global Assembly so we have a way of getting things done.
See below for a statement of Values, Ends and Means.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Here is the latest writeup of the GA Dialog, including a link to join.
Introduction
The prototype Global Assembly Dialog is an experiment in participatory democracy on the web aimed at massively involving "We the People of the Earth" and leading to the formation of a nonviolent bottom-up Global Assembly with real power to build a world that works for everyone.
Global Assembly Dialog Results so far:
The Dialog uses a web rating technology to vote on messages written by the participants. Please join us. Your part will be to write a message and to read and rate messages written by others. The highest rated messages will be distributed back to everyone by email. The goal is to go global with massive numbers so that the "elected" messages truly represent the entire human race.
The Dialog is sponsored by the Unity-and-Diversity World Council. We are co-sponsored by the Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Ethics in Malibu. Additional co-sponsors wanted. Contact UDC's Rev Leland Stewart or Roger Eaton.
At this point we have 900+ email addresses, which equates to 50+ active members. The sponsors are in it for the long haul, so please stay with us and use the Invite a Friend feature to bring in others. Plans are 1) to add forums so we can discuss the messages before we vote on them and 2) to build a Facebook widget so we can tap into the massive Facebook friendship networks. Once we hit critical mass, estimated at 10,000 active members, we should be able to zoom to planetary size in three or four years. Please join us as we build a world that works for everyone.
We are betting that democracy on a global scale is the solution to the ever more obvious shortcomings of the nation-state system. We love our nations, but we have to rise up to the global level to solve global problems. Unifying mankind, if we do it right, will mark the beginning of a golden age – and it is in our reach.
We have two plans to bring the online GA Dialog down to earth so it will have its effect. First, as we recruit groups and networks for the Dialog, we will be asking them to add a mention of Dialog results to their local agendas and to provide representatives to an annual in-person Global Assembly meeting. The annual Global Assembly meeting is expected to evolve into a global institution that sits permanently, something like the U.N. General Assembly, but organized bottom up from groups and networks rather than top-down from the nations. Second, we have high hopes for a Nonviolent Service Arm (NVSA) of the Dialog as described below.
In More Detail
The Global Assembly Dialog process is designed for the exchanging of messages between groups online. The focus is on the group level message exchange, not on the exchange of messages between individuals.
In the GA Dialog, topics are provided and each member of the group responds, adding his or her comments to the dialog. These messages are voted upon and the message that the group rates highest is put forward. Here's how it works:
The GA Dialog alternates between unity and diversity rounds using the Eaton Model of Collective Communication. In the unity rounds, everyone cooperates to elect a single message. In the diversity rounds, the separate groups each elect their own message. The prototype GA Dialog will begin with at least the following groups: Education Network, Environment Network, Independents, Interfaith Network, Overview, and Peace & Justice Network.
Dialog Expectations
The theme of the Dialog is how to build "a world that works for everyone." Humanity, we believe, is composed largely of intelligent and generous human beings who already agree it is past time to get on with the job. The missing ingredient is the common awareness that we, the people of the world, are already united. Consciousness of that unity is an important part of what the Dialog will provide.
The structure of the Dialog gives the advantage to those who want to work together for our common peace and prosperity in a well-sustained natural environment. The hardliners are faced with the difficult choice of either staying away, in which case they lose influence entirely, or participating, in which case they are effectively endorsing human unity and will feel the pressure every day to moderate their views. Therefore we, the Dialog proponents, are in the enviable position of being entirely inclusive in our attitude. If you are not against us, you are for us!
Electing a message is a unifying activity. Elected messages become doubly important, first because, by the nature of the rating system, they are highly approved and interesting but also because we realize that everyone knows that everyone knows that everyone has read these messages. In other words, the top rated messages have reached collective consciousness. They are shared messages, and as such leap ahead of the other messages in everyone's imagination. We get everyone on the same page in a very literal way, thus encouraging the groups to self-coordinate. At some point we will have enough participation so the whole world will be reading the messages elected by humanity. That will be such powerful PR for the global perspective that all the media money and hardliner spin-machines in the world will not be able to dent our impact.
Moreover, the highly rated messages will consistently express love and wit, because these core attributes are what all the world appreciates. As we see generous, intelligent and good-humored messages prevail again and again, our sense of trust will grow, and our feelings for the "other" in general will be uplifted. This effect will take hold within our developing movement and raise our spirits from the start, giving us the energy to go global in a big way. Along these lines, see the wonderful results of a Jewish-Muslim dialog using an earlier version of the GA technology.
Finally we should consider the effect of participation on the participants. The continued alternation of viewpoint from the unity perspective to the separate group perspective and back should prove highly educational. Because the framework of the dialog itself guarantees the separate group identities, the participants can ardently promote unity in the unity phase without feeling any sense of disloyalty to their separate group. And it works the other way about as well, where the participants can whole-heartedly promote the welfare of the separate groups in the diversity phase without thereby betraying their common humanity.
The Nonviolent Service Arm (NVSA)
The Nonviolent Service Arm of the Global Assembly will be composed of autonomous local task-forces connected via the internet. The purpose of the local NVSA task-forces will be to support the Global Assembly through nonviolent action based on GA advisories. Each local task-force will have a secretary whose responsibility will be to coordinate with the other task-force secretaries and to respond as a group via the dialog software to the Global Assembly. See also the Wedding of Humanity and Nonviolence article. The expectation is that the NVSA task-forces will self-assemble into an autonomous organization devoted to, but separate from, the Global Assembly.
The dialog software has a feature called "Shared Subjects". In the writing phase of a round, the participants will be able to see the subjects that have been used so far. They will then either pick an existing subject or start a new one. In addition to an overall selected message for the round, each subject will have its own selected message. For the Global Assembly Dialog, one of the provided Shared Subjects will always be Advice for the Nonviolent Service Arm. A major function of the NVSA will be to respond to and, insofar as practical, to act upon the GA advisories.
Having the NVSA in place will add credibility to the process, making it apparent that we can have an effect in the world. On a more theoretical level, by channeling all action through a nonviolent body, we will train the Global Assembly to think in terms of nonviolence. When we get to a position of global power, the built in nonviolent bent of the Global Assembly will help prevent the misuse of that power.
Because the Nonviolent Service Arm will be built from the bottom up, it is impossible to specify exactly how it will be structured, and this vagueness about structure makes it hard to explain and recruit for the NVSA. To begin, therefore, the NVSA will be a network within the Global Assembly Dialog. This is structurally clear and it gives the NVSA a built in way to respond to the GA advisories. Also, it makes it easy for Global Assembly participants to be recruited for the NVSA.
How to Make it Happen
We have to work our way up in stages. This is why we have decided to call our September 2007 launch with some 800+ email addresses a "prototype". That will give us a chance to relaunch in 2008 after we have more experience. The Global Assembly meetings will continue the pattern of expanding by stages. Each Global Assembly will bring in the new players to decide directions, always including a new relaunch, until the next Global Assembly.
For the upcoming 2008 relaunch, we will build on our existing strength in the Interfaith and Peace communities, and reach out to the Environmental community, which we think is a natural ally. We will be enlarging the initial groups by seeding the internet with as many links as we c
an to bring in participants. The software has multiple paths for bringing people in:
via direct invitation from the Dialog coordinator and moderators, via
email links, via web links and through an "Invite a Friend" link that
will be at the bottom of the page for existing participants. All these
will come into play. Please join us!!!
----------------------------------
Statement of values, ends and means from the Unity-and-Diversity web site.
The Purpose of the UDC is to establish and sustain a worldwide coordinating body of individuals, groups, and networks -- to foster the emergence of a new person and civilization based on the dynamic integration of diversity among all peoples and all life.
Objectives:
----------------------------------
-- RogerEaton Roger Eaton
Voice of Humanity Blog 310 390 5220 (Los Angeles)
rogerweaton@gmail.com
This page is the main writeup of the Dialog here on Wiser Earth.
The Global Assembly Dialog is implemented at http://globalassembly.net, however, we are establishing our central web 2.0 community presence here on WiserEarth. We think that a WiserEarth / GA Dialog combo can play an important role in building that just, sustainable and spiritually fulfilling global civilization that we all want, and that is so tantalizingly possible.
Please join the Global Assembly Dialog Group here on WiserEarth. The Global Assembly Blog is now active.
---------------------------------
The technology of the Global Assembly Dialog described below is written in dot.net alas. It makes sense that it be rewritten in a form more compatible with the open source community.
---------------------------------
The Global Assembly in a Nutshell - by popular request - four ideas
1) The basic idea is that we can elect messages to represent us. This would be online, of course. So why not apply the method globally? It is not all that hard to create an online Voice of Humanity with hundreds of millions of participants voting to elect messages that represent everyone.
2) The second idea is to structure this voting on messages into a dialog that alternates between "unity" and "diversity" rounds. In the unity rounds everyone together elects a message to represent our common humanity, and in the diversity rounds we break out into groups, each of which elects its own message. This structure co-opts the hard-liners.
3) The third idea is to use the building of the online dialog as a framework to organize civil society into a bottom up Global Assembly devoted to making a "World that Works for Everyone".
4) The final big idea is to organize a Nonviolent Service Arm for the Global Assembly so we have a way of getting things done.
See below for a statement of Values, Ends and Means.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Here is the latest writeup of the GA Dialog, including a link to join.
About the Global Assembly Dialog
Introduction
The prototype Global Assembly Dialog is an experiment in participatory democracy on the web aimed at massively involving "We the People of the Earth" and leading to the formation of a nonviolent bottom-up Global Assembly with real power to build a world that works for everyone.
Global Assembly Dialog Results so far:
The Dialog uses a web rating technology to vote on messages written by the participants. Please join us. Your part will be to write a message and to read and rate messages written by others. The highest rated messages will be distributed back to everyone by email. The goal is to go global with massive numbers so that the "elected" messages truly represent the entire human race.
The Dialog is sponsored by the Unity-and-Diversity World Council. We are co-sponsored by the Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Ethics in Malibu. Additional co-sponsors wanted. Contact UDC's Rev Leland Stewart or Roger Eaton.
At this point we have 900+ email addresses, which equates to 50+ active members. The sponsors are in it for the long haul, so please stay with us and use the Invite a Friend feature to bring in others. Plans are 1) to add forums so we can discuss the messages before we vote on them and 2) to build a Facebook widget so we can tap into the massive Facebook friendship networks. Once we hit critical mass, estimated at 10,000 active members, we should be able to zoom to planetary size in three or four years. Please join us as we build a world that works for everyone.
We are betting that democracy on a global scale is the solution to the ever more obvious shortcomings of the nation-state system. We love our nations, but we have to rise up to the global level to solve global problems. Unifying mankind, if we do it right, will mark the beginning of a golden age – and it is in our reach.
We have two plans to bring the online GA Dialog down to earth so it will have its effect. First, as we recruit groups and networks for the Dialog, we will be asking them to add a mention of Dialog results to their local agendas and to provide representatives to an annual in-person Global Assembly meeting. The annual Global Assembly meeting is expected to evolve into a global institution that sits permanently, something like the U.N. General Assembly, but organized bottom up from groups and networks rather than top-down from the nations. Second, we have high hopes for a Nonviolent Service Arm (NVSA) of the Dialog as described below.
In More Detail
The Global Assembly Dialog process is designed for the exchanging of messages between groups online. The focus is on the group level message exchange, not on the exchange of messages between individuals.
In the GA Dialog, topics are provided and each member of the group responds, adding his or her comments to the dialog. These messages are voted upon and the message that the group rates highest is put forward. Here's how it works:
- Members of the group write "candidate" messages either on a preset topic or on their own topic if so desired.
- The members rate the candidates on two scales, for interest and approval, and the highest rated message wins that "round" and is delivered to the other group(s) as an expression of the authoring group - this is what is meant by "group level" message exchange. To determine the highest rated message, we multiply average interest times average approval for each message and compare. Elected messages are therefore both interesting and approved. Because there are normally very many messages, there is preliminary rating to bring the numbers down for the final runoff.
The GA Dialog alternates between unity and diversity rounds using the Eaton Model of Collective Communication. In the unity rounds, everyone cooperates to elect a single message. In the diversity rounds, the separate groups each elect their own message. The prototype GA Dialog will begin with at least the following groups: Education Network, Environment Network, Independents, Interfaith Network, Overview, and Peace & Justice Network.
Dialog Expectations
The theme of the Dialog is how to build "a world that works for everyone." Humanity, we believe, is composed largely of intelligent and generous human beings who already agree it is past time to get on with the job. The missing ingredient is the common awareness that we, the people of the world, are already united. Consciousness of that unity is an important part of what the Dialog will provide.
The structure of the Dialog gives the advantage to those who want to work together for our common peace and prosperity in a well-sustained natural environment. The hardliners are faced with the difficult choice of either staying away, in which case they lose influence entirely, or participating, in which case they are effectively endorsing human unity and will feel the pressure every day to moderate their views. Therefore we, the Dialog proponents, are in the enviable position of being entirely inclusive in our attitude. If you are not against us, you are for us!
Electing a message is a unifying activity. Elected messages become doubly important, first because, by the nature of the rating system, they are highly approved and interesting but also because we realize that everyone knows that everyone knows that everyone has read these messages. In other words, the top rated messages have reached collective consciousness. They are shared messages, and as such leap ahead of the other messages in everyone's imagination. We get everyone on the same page in a very literal way, thus encouraging the groups to self-coordinate. At some point we will have enough participation so the whole world will be reading the messages elected by humanity. That will be such powerful PR for the global perspective that all the media money and hardliner spin-machines in the world will not be able to dent our impact.
Moreover, the highly rated messages will consistently express love and wit, because these core attributes are what all the world appreciates. As we see generous, intelligent and good-humored messages prevail again and again, our sense of trust will grow, and our feelings for the "other" in general will be uplifted. This effect will take hold within our developing movement and raise our spirits from the start, giving us the energy to go global in a big way. Along these lines, see the wonderful results of a Jewish-Muslim dialog using an earlier version of the GA technology.
Finally we should consider the effect of participation on the participants. The continued alternation of viewpoint from the unity perspective to the separate group perspective and back should prove highly educational. Because the framework of the dialog itself guarantees the separate group identities, the participants can ardently promote unity in the unity phase without feeling any sense of disloyalty to their separate group. And it works the other way about as well, where the participants can whole-heartedly promote the welfare of the separate groups in the diversity phase without thereby betraying their common humanity.
The Nonviolent Service Arm (NVSA)
The Nonviolent Service Arm of the Global Assembly will be composed of autonomous local task-forces connected via the internet. The purpose of the local NVSA task-forces will be to support the Global Assembly through nonviolent action based on GA advisories. Each local task-force will have a secretary whose responsibility will be to coordinate with the other task-force secretaries and to respond as a group via the dialog software to the Global Assembly. See also the Wedding of Humanity and Nonviolence article. The expectation is that the NVSA task-forces will self-assemble into an autonomous organization devoted to, but separate from, the Global Assembly.
The dialog software has a feature called "Shared Subjects". In the writing phase of a round, the participants will be able to see the subjects that have been used so far. They will then either pick an existing subject or start a new one. In addition to an overall selected message for the round, each subject will have its own selected message. For the Global Assembly Dialog, one of the provided Shared Subjects will always be Advice for the Nonviolent Service Arm. A major function of the NVSA will be to respond to and, insofar as practical, to act upon the GA advisories.
Having the NVSA in place will add credibility to the process, making it apparent that we can have an effect in the world. On a more theoretical level, by channeling all action through a nonviolent body, we will train the Global Assembly to think in terms of nonviolence. When we get to a position of global power, the built in nonviolent bent of the Global Assembly will help prevent the misuse of that power.
Because the Nonviolent Service Arm will be built from the bottom up, it is impossible to specify exactly how it will be structured, and this vagueness about structure makes it hard to explain and recruit for the NVSA. To begin, therefore, the NVSA will be a network within the Global Assembly Dialog. This is structurally clear and it gives the NVSA a built in way to respond to the GA advisories. Also, it makes it easy for Global Assembly participants to be recruited for the NVSA.
How to Make it Happen
We have to work our way up in stages. This is why we have decided to call our September 2007 launch with some 800+ email addresses a "prototype". That will give us a chance to relaunch in 2008 after we have more experience. The Global Assembly meetings will continue the pattern of expanding by stages. Each Global Assembly will bring in the new players to decide directions, always including a new relaunch, until the next Global Assembly.
For the upcoming 2008 relaunch, we will build on our existing strength in the Interfaith and Peace communities, and reach out to the Environmental community, which we think is a natural ally. We will be enlarging the initial groups by seeding the internet with as many links as we c
an to bring in participants. The software has multiple paths for bringing people in:
via direct invitation from the Dialog coordinator and moderators, via
email links, via web links and through an "Invite a Friend" link that
will be at the bottom of the page for existing participants. All these
will come into play. Please join us!!! ----------------------------------
Statement of values, ends and means from the Unity-and-Diversity web site.
The Purpose of the UDC is to establish and sustain a worldwide coordinating body of individuals, groups, and networks -- to foster the emergence of a new person and civilization based on the dynamic integration of diversity among all peoples and all life.
Objectives:
- To realize our connection to the Source of All Life and to all life forms.
- To facilitate personal and social transformation and cooperative activities for global peace and justice.
- To create an international vehicle for economic cooperation.
- To study and take action on different issues, as well as making recommendations for needed action to institutions around the world.
- To support the United Nations and its efforts in behalf of global community
----------------------------------
-- RogerEaton Roger Eaton
Voice of Humanity Blog 310 390 5220 (Los Angeles)
rogerweaton@gmail.com
Comments (1 - 20 of 27)
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Flag comment for removal RogerEaton 6 months ago
good idea - I will set it up over the weekend - one thing I see right away doesn't work is the one message per author per round. That might not be so easy to fix, either. I will ask Marcelo right away. What I am thinking is that if we list rights, each of us might easily think of a number of rights to be listed separately. There will be duplicates - this is why I thought the prioritizing function should be mediated by an Editor, so the items to be prioritized are uniformly packaged and duplicates are removed. Hmm.. Needs some thought.
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I insert here an excerpt regarding how DailyKos assigns what they call "Trusted User" status to contributors:
Trusted Users If a user gathers enough comment mojo, they become a Trusted User. To prevent people from gaming the system, the exact amount of mojo required is not publicly revealed. Trusted Users have a few additional privileges compared to regular users. A regular user can recommend comments; a TU can also hide comments. If a comment gets enough hide ratings, it becomes hidden to regular users (also see the trolls section below). TUs can, if they wish, see the hidden comments. TUs thus have the responsibility of deciding whether comments should be hidden or not. In addition, TUs can edit and remove tags from diaries; regular users can only add new tags. There are two easy ways to tell if you are a TU. First is to look at the Tools sidebar; if there is an entry reading 'Hidden Comments', you are a TU. The other way is to try to rate a comment; if there is a 'Hide' button next to the 'Recommend' button, you are a TU. One of the factors that goes into determination of TU status is time. If a user stops commenting, or their comments stops getting recommendations, eventually that user will lose TU status. This can be easily remedied by posting more comments that meet with the approval of the readership community. " Generally then, the active participation of a user and the 'feedback' (Ie, relevance as determined by community of users) which the participant receives determines being assigned "Trusted user' status. Something along these lines might be of interest in determining 'rights of users." I really like the idea of creating a group for discussion and determination and the GA prioritizing software would be ideal for this project. Perhaps by setting up the group and inviting participants we can lay the groundwork and perhaps even start with creating among ourselves some guiding principles (suggestions) which can then be used to begin the dialog (prioritizing) process ... |
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I'd love to set this up, Michael. However, the new GA Forum is not quite ready. We are looking at Mid March and even then it would not be fully user tested. Do you think the WE folks would be willing to give it a try under those conditions? If not, then it will be April and that might be putting this key discussion off too long.
Without the forum we could suggest and rate a list of WE Rights, but we could not discuss them properly, so I think we have to wait for the Forum to be ready. What say, shall we go ahead and set up for a mid-March beta (or alpha, really) test of the GA Forum to handle the prioritizing of Rights of WiserEarthlings? |
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I'd like to ask all you users out there for thoughts on the creation of a "Rights of WiserEarthlings" group (name subject to change). First some background, the WiserEarth Editors group was created partly to invite distinguished WE users to have "Editor" status.
After having a discussion with Sheri in the Editors group on what privileges and rights they should receive, we realized that there hasnt really been a strong WE community discussion on the rights that ALL WiserEarth users should have. Sheri requested that all users have the ability to view all deleted comments, but currently this is not a right of all users. But shouldn't it be? Without knowing the rights of all users, how do we determine the rights of the Editors? Without knowing why Editors had certain rights above others, the discussion on giving new users "Editor" status has come to a standstill. I imagine this will be a long, very complex but exciting discussion. While we have our WiserEarth Principles, a discussion based around "rights" would be very different as it'd touch on not what we should do, but what we are entitled to, so it'd be important to make that discussion open to the users. How does everyone feel about creating a group to host this discussion on the rights of WiserEarthlings? Roger Eaton from the GA Dialog is willing to help us use the GA Dialog model to moderate/facilitate this process. Please share your thoughts! If this is going to be a group on our "rights" it has to be one that includes a lot of participation. I'll create the group within a few days after waiting for comments, group suggestions, etc. and if there are no objections. please leave comments regarding this topic here: http://wiserearth.org/forum/view/1aefbb83d083fffab18812a3f2b2cb94 |
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The drafting of a constitution for Wiser Earth will need a group, I agree, unless it is going to be done under the governance group. If under the governance group, then that group will need to be opened up. It is going to take a year easily to come up with version 1.0 of the WE Agreement, or Constitution, whatever we decide to call it. The process itself will involve a lot of folks in defining the future of Wiser Earth, and that is a good thing. I will reserve further comment until the new group is established.
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Hey Boatsie, I think that the idea of a "constitution" or "bill of rights" first needs some discussion. To get this off the ground, a few of us should start a forum. After weeding out, fleshing out, some ideas I think we can start the process of electing messages.
I imagine that we could begin with a group (yes another group!!!!) modeled off of the Suggestions page, to host and organize this discussion. |
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This comment was removed by a WiserEarth editor for the following reason:
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Michael,
I think this is a great idea. Should it maybe go into suggestions? Or do you wait for other editors to respond first? |
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This comment was removed by a WiserEarth editor for the following reason:
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Hi Roger and all, I would love to see the decision-making procedure for the GA be used for WiserEarth to adopt its "Constitution" or "rights of WiserEarthlings". I have listed this suggestion in the Editor's group here: http://wiserearth.org/forum/view/df1626bd9ca66f744354217cee582477/group/WiserEarthEditors
How does this sound? |
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Hi Benjamin,
On the technical side we are working up the specs for adding forum discussions to the process. http://www.wiserearth.org/article/5efda27237688d403e1c72ff5bd1ea9d/group/GAdialog On the promotion side, we are just beginning to use the WiserEarth group/wiki/calendar system. Overall, we are moving but too slowly. At some point I am assuming we will have a breakthrough. As our contacts enlarge, someone will point us in the right direction. As you look more closely you will discover we are using dot-net technology, alas. It makes it hard to attract open source support. I see you are heavily involved in open source yourself, so I hope you will not hold this against us. The plan is to switch over at some point, but we have too few resources to do that now. One of the obvious directions is what I call "Community Directed Media". Basically it means using the voting system to get direction from the subscription base for news or other media. The editor engages in a conversation with the readership, allowing the readership to influence the direction of the publication. So I signed up for the Knights News Challenge, which I picked up on from your pwgd site to be notified when 2008 opens up. Any interest in a joint application? All the best, Roger |
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Hello Roger,
I don't know how I missed your e-mail in my inbox six months ago-- I'll also post publicly because I want to restart the discussion and I'm not 100% sure the reply was sent. I am very, very interested in "voting-on-messages methodology" to give people a way to communicate and coordinate en masse. Democratic communication is what I consider the most important foundational infrastructure we need to forge a better world. I would love to have an update on the process. Thank you, ben melançon Agaric Design Collective http://AgaricDesign.com/ People Who Give a Damn http://pwgd.org/ Social Way: Share Life http://socialway.org/ |
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Hi Bowo - sorry I have been on forced vacation from WE. Here are latest browser statistics:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_web_browsers Market share for August 2007 Internet Explorer - 78.68% Firefox - 14.56% Safari - 4.68% Opera - 0.88% Netscape - 0.71% Opera Mini - 0.27% Other - 0.22% The Global Assembly currently only supports IE and Firefox. We will support Safari 3.0 when it comes out. I have added Opera to the list, but it will be a while - do you have Firefox? The "diversity" round can handle many voices, not just two. However there is still a very difficult conceptual problem that is not resolved. The real world is not organized in a strict single hierarchy. Rather there are many overlapping hierarchies. Yet for ease of programming, the GA is set up as a simple three level hierarchy of groups / networks / unity. Moreover, the sheer multiplicity of groups and categories overwhelms any top-down design. I do have a couple of ideas, but for now I am concentrated on getting this admittedly simplistic model to work. |
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Oh yes, I tried to join GA via the invitation link. But keeps failing. Either I get the message "The invitation hasn't been sent." or clicking "Join" didn't produce anything.
Any idea why? I'm on Opera 9.21 in Windows XP SP2, over GPRS class 10 connection. |
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Oops, I forget to clarify a crucial point:
Is your dialogue model designed only to work for two groups? Meaning, only for two different point of view? While we know in the real world, there are many sides on every issue, instead of just one. If it is only for two groups, why so? If not, I guess the problem of scale would emerge in the "unity" cycle and your "messages survives into the next cycle" solution would only prevent a part of the scale problem but does not seem to solve it completely. It's just guesses though. |
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Greetings Mr. Eaton :)
It sure is nice to have a good conversation. >>> Very good to get encouragement. --RE <<< I know the feeling, almost like drugs, though I never use them >>> The people in the Muslim-Jewish dialog were self-selected, so they started out with a willingness to listen. At the time, this was not so clear - the dialog itself made it obvious that for these people we were not dealing with an intrenched hostility. This self-selection is something that I am counting on for the future of the Global Assembly dialog as well. At first the GA will be too unimportant to attract people who are hostile and if it does rise to importance, then I think it will be too late for it to be dominated by any particular brand of hard-liner, so I am hoping they will all continue to stay away because of fundamental distaste for anything that smacks of human unity. All the Muslim-Jewish messages could be seen by dialog participants only. We advertised that the winners would be made public, so cannot at this point go back and make all the messages available. There was no great hostility, though some amount of suspicion was shown. In the GA, all messages will be viewable at the end of each round by all participants. I am inclined to think we should continue to publish only top rated messages, but I foresee this kind of decision eventually being handled by a committee of the Global Assembly, so my influence will be limited. --RE <<< I guessed that would be the starting condition, mild or little disagreement. I once learned of a webcast by the NGO "Global Exchange" where they held face to face dialogue for several days between Palestinians and Israelis (around 30 people in total) with extreme prejudices at the beginning of the dialogue. The two sides were both victims of the war, in the sense that some loose members of their family, or sustained injuries and insecurities resulting from the war. After all prejudices, suspicions, accusations and anger were expressed, and the facts starting to emerge, they end up in a more or less consesus to the fact that no body wins, both parties were losers in the war and that they were just humans with the same concers and desires in life. The point I'm tryin to make here is that, if well facilitated, a truly "open" and "sincere" dialogue will give the best result in reaching a consensus shared by all participants in the dialogue process. And making sure that each view is given the necessary time to be heard by all is of crucial importance. This would somehow be along the lines of Tom Atlee's conception of co-intelligence in his book "the Tao of Democracy". As with the hardliners, the problem with them is that they seem to have a natural tendency to be party crashers. Let's do hope that they don't crash yours as your party gets more interesting and fun. Thus, the reason why I suggest all the messages should be made public is so that people, especially those who did not or late to participate in the dialogue cycles, can learn whether or not their message has been expressed there and learn about the range of views out there. I do understand, I think, why you prefer to show only top rated messages: to increase the clarity of the dialogue process and results, and encourage late comers to find the "wisdom of the crowd" contained there. I haven't join GA yet, and haven't seen how the cycles are displayed, but I assume they would be along the lines of the Muslim-Jewish dialogue, except for the fact that in the diversity phase, there will be numerous messages corresponding to the number of groups participating in the dialogue, instead of just two. Thus, giving a clickable link for late comers to "view all messages in this cycle or from this group" would be more than enough for the curious minds who wish to explore further. After all, it is the hardliners and late comers that we desperately need to reach, not the already "converted" ones. That's the whole point of participatory democracy, to be the solution and to prevent another kind of "partial democracy" or "partially democratic democracy". >>> It will take longer but the assumption is we can handle any number of participants. We already have multiple cycles of ratings with a percentage of messages surviving into the next cycle. By the time we get large, we will be further advanced in the code, so we will be able to apply statistical methods to make the winnowing process more rapid. --RE <<< Maybe it's too early for me to comment on the technical details, but I would like to know what are the criterias for that "percentage of messages" which survives to the next cycle, and how many percent? I'm also curious about the kind of statistical methods you mentioned. But if my guess is correct, the criteria would look something like "the top 5 rated" messages for each group in each session, which would represent the most supported diverse-point-of-view in each group and across groups. I can't however guess about the statistical method, and how it can help in the winnowing process. >>> My guess is that it will take between a month and three months to select a message when we get global with tens of millions of participants. A guess. To fill that time there is going to be a normal forum discussion capability. I say normal, but of course it won't be normal with so many people, but I do have ideas how to handle it - buried down in my blog.voiceofhumanity.net. --RE <<< This handling method would be of the highest interest for me. Since I see the problem of scale (both in numbers and in time needed) to be the biggest stumbling block of successful participatory democracy, whether offline or online. Can you point out the link for me? >>> In the forum, each Global Assembly candidate message can be replied to and the replies can be replied to and so forth, so as we vote, we can be discussing the merits of the messages. --RE <<< This would be nice and necessary. >>> The reason why I am vague is twofold. First, the local task-forces have to be autonomous, so really what they do is up to them. It is safer if they are autonomous and it is more practical, since we can very possibly enlist entire existing organizations. Second, the advice of the Global Assembly is not predictable. We can guess, but really how do we know? Is the Global Assembly going to call for Direct Nonviolent Action where people go to jail on day one? I hope not, since that would not be smart. We have to get organized and try ourselves first. I would think the early advisories would be to build up the NVSA and a coordinating structure, but we shall see. --RE <<< If you say "entire existing organizations", then the function of G.A. you envisioned would then be similar to WiserEarth, which is to provide structure, resource database, connection, and collaboration platform for the millions of NGOs and individuals working for a better world, with the difference that your focus is on the dialogue and consensus building aspect, and on groups as the main actors (though in the end, it will be individuals that matters). Thus, my suggestion to integrate GA's methodology and technology into WiserEarth becomes ever more relevant. We'll just have to see then how things unfold. By the way, have you had any contact with WiserEarth's administrators on this regard? And can you explain a little more on "a peer-to-peer second generation with many servers across the world instead of just one. Perhaps we can meld the two technologies at that stage?" >>> For better or for worse, we are marginalized although we actually stand for the center. The GA technology can give us central standing - that is its great advantage. Of course, being its author, my opinion might be biased, but I think I am just telling it like it is when I say that GA looks to be the best hope. It allows the disparate elements of the global civil movement to maintain their diversity, while also encouraging a vital sense of unity. That is the right formula. --RE <<< Yes, I do believe your group dialogue methodology have excellent potentials to materialize the elusive "unity in diversity" into actionable concensus. >>> I have put you on the list on my profile page, Bowo. Can you bring in your contacts? Do you have enough contacts to bring in a group? I think we need 50 minimum in a group. --RE <<< I'm new in WiserEarth and have only begun to know a few people, one of them "marcusmatthew" is already on your list. I'll see what I can do. But first, I need to join GA. By the way, is it possible to join GA as an individual? Or should I wait for your list to reach 50 so you can enlist them as a WiserEarth group on GA? Eagerly learning, Bowo |
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Responses to bowo's good comment are in square brackets.
----------------- message from Wibowo Sulistio on Wiser Earth ----------------------- I've been checking out your GA project from WiserEarth wikipage and GA's website, and have some comments for it. I also post these comments in the bottom of the wikipage. First, I think this is a necessary experiment on the road to find a working model of online, global, participatory democracy. [Very good to get encouragement. --RE] Second, I think your "Eaton Model of Collective Communication" is an important discovery in group dialog methodologies. I've read the Muslim-Jewish dialog result and I have to say, it worked fine for those 40 people. I was just wondering what were the content of the other 38 messages on each phase of the dialogue. If you can open up that part of the process for all participants to see, it would be a more "open and sincere" dialogue process. It would also show just from what kind of starting point (total, moderate or little disagreement) did the dialogue took off. If it started from a "total disagreement" position, this method must be really effective. Thus, further experimentations and openness is needed. [The people in the Muslim-Jewish dialog were self-selected, so they started out with a willingness to listen. At the time, this was not so clear - the dialog itself made it obvious that for these people we were not dealing with an intrenched hostility. This self-selection is something that I am counting on for the future of the Global Assembly dialog as well. At first the GA will be too unimportant to attract people who are hostile and if it does rise to importance, then I think it will be too late for it to be dominated by any particular brand of hard-liner, so I am hoping they will all continue to stay away because of fundamental distaste for anything that smacks of human unity. All the Muslim-Jewish messages could be seen by dialog participants only. We advertised that the winners would be made public, so cannot at this point go back and make all the messages available. There was no great hostility, though some amount of suspicion was shown. In the GA, all messages will be viewable at the end of each round by all participants. I am inclined to think we should continue to publish only top rated messages, but I foresee this kind of decision eventually being handled by a committee of the Global Assembly, so my influence will be limited. --RE] Third, what about the problem of "scale"? In a dialogue with 40 group participants, the dialogue process is relatively "trackable" and "understandable", what if it goes up, say 200 groups? Is there a built-in mechanism to prevent dialogues from being too long for effective understanding? or is it assumed that the system will handle dialogue of any scale? [It will take longer but the assumption is we can handle any number of participants. We already have multiple cycles of ratings with a percentage of messages surviving into the next cycle. By the time we get large, we will be further advanced in the code, so we will be able to apply statistical methods to make the winnowing process more rapid. My guess is that it will take between a month and three months to select a message when we get global with tens of millions of participants. A guess. To fill that time there is going to be a normal forum discussion capability. I say normal, but of course it won't be normal with so many people, but I do have ideas how to handle it - buried down in my blog.voiceofhumanity.net. In the forum, each Global Assembly candidate message can be replied to and the replies can be replied to and so forth, so as we vote, we can be discussing the merits of the messages. --RE] Fourth, can you be more specific about what the NVSA will do? is it to facilitate local group dialogue? or to perform non-violent methods of resistance and world-changing at the local level? Your definition of NVSA did not seem to answer this question properly. From the Muslim-Jewish dialogue, I can however deduce some possible role of NVSA. "The Nonviolent Service Arm of the Global Assembly will be composed of autonomous local task-forces connected via the internet. The purpose of the local NVSA task-forces will be to support the Global Assembly through nonviolent action based on GA advisories." [The reason why I am vague is twofold. First, the local task-forces have to be autonomous, so really what they do is up to them. It is safer if they are autonomous and it is more practical, since we can very possibly enlist entire existing organizations. Second, the advice of the Global Assembly is not predictable. We can guess, but really how do we know? Is the Global Assembly going to call for Direct Nonviolent Action where people go to jail on day one? I hope not, since that would not be smart. We have to get organized and try ourselves first. I would think the early advisories would be to build up the NVSA and a coordinating structure, but we shall see. --RE] Fifth, how about experimenting the dialogue method within WiserEarth's "Discussion Forums". WiserEarth is more inclusive, has more features, and better supported (in terms of funding and staffing) than GA, but the forums, in my opinion, is still very very basic in functionality and philosophy, which is still far from what is needed to get a global bottom-up dialogue process going. Of course, other online dialogue methodologies should be tried and tested within WiserEarth. But yours surely is worth trying on a larger scale. [I want very much for WiserEarth to adopt the GA technology. When I have 50 WE participants lined up, or sooner if I can break loose the time, I plan to set up a forum in WE if that can be done, to discuss WE use of GA technology. One thing that doesn't help is that GA is dot-net, and WE is php. It needs to be discussed. WE could opt to play a role in the Global Assembly, or it could decide to do its own Dialog apart from the Global Assembly. I am open to either approach. To make Wiser Earth grow, it needs the same that GA needs, which is a peer-to-peer second generation with many servers across the world instead of just one. Perhaps we can meld the two technologies at that stage. --RE] Sixth, time is running out. Doing similar things in separate places (GA separate from WiserEarth) might be a wasting of precious time. Though I acknowledge that this weakness of the global civil movement, is simultaneously it's strong point. Just like the open-source software collaboration model, which WiserEarth is trying to emulate. They have too many linux distro for example, with many duplicate effort, inhibiting the swift advancement of the operating system. While in the operating system world "being late" is tolerable, in the global crisis we are in, "being late" simply means catasthrope. [For better or for worse, we are marginalized although we actually stand for the center. The GA technology can give us central standing - that is its great advantage. Of course, being its author, my opinion might be biased, but I think I am just telling it like it is when I say that GA looks to be the best hope. It allows the disparate elements of the global civil movement to maintain their diversity, while also encouraging a vital sense of unity. That is the right formula. --RE] Finally, I applaud your marvelous effort. I'll be checking in for it's progress. [I have put you on the list on my profile page, Bowo. Can you bring in your contacts? Do you have enough contacts to bring in a group? I think we need 50 minimum in a group. --RE] |
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First, I think this is a necessary experiment on the road to find a working model of online, global, participatory democracy.
Second, I think your "Eaton Model of Collective Communication" is an important discovery in group dialog methodologies. I've read the Muslim-Jewish dialog result and I have to say, it worked fine for those 40 people. I was just wondering what were the content of the other 38 messages on each phase of the dialogue. If you can open up that part of the process for all participants to see, it would be a more "open and sincere" dialogue process. It would also show just from what kind of starting point (total, moderate or little disagreement) did the dialogue took off. If it started from a "total disagreement" position, this method must be really effective. Thus, further experimentations and openness is needed. Third, what about the problem of "scale"? In a dialogue with 40 group participants, the dialogue process is relatively "trackable" and "understandable", what if it goes up, say 200 groups? Is there a built-in mechanism to prevent dialogues from being too long for effective understanding? or is it assumed that the system will handle dialogue of any scale? Fourth, can you be more specific about what the NVSA will do? is it to facilitate local group dialogue? or to perform non-violent methods of resistance and world-changing at the local level? Your definition of NVSA did not seem to answer this question properly. From the Muslim-Jewish dialogue, I can however deduce some possible role of NVSA. "The Nonviolent Service Arm of the Global Assembly will be composed of autonomous local task-forces connected via the internet. The purpose of the local NVSA task-forces will be to support the Global Assembly through nonviolent action based on GA advisories." Fifth, how about experimenting the dialogue method within WiserEarth's "Discussion Forums". WiserEarth is more inclusive, has more features, and better supported (in terms of funding and staffing) than GA, but the forums, in my opinion, is still very very basic in functionality and philosophy, which is still far from what is needed to get a global bottom-up dialogue process going. Of course, other online dialogue methodologies should be tried and tested within WiserEarth. But yours surely is worth trying on a larger scale. Sixth, time is running out. Doing similar things in separate places (GA separate from WiserEarth) might be a wasting of precious time. Though I acknowledge that this weakness of the global civil movement, is simultaneously it's strong point. Just like the open-source software collaboration model, which WiserEarth is trying to emulate. They have too many linux distro for example, with many duplicate effort, inhibiting the swift advancement of the operating system. While in the operating system world "being late" is tolerable, in the global crisis we are in, "being late" simply means catasthrope. Finally, I applaud your marvelous effort. I'll be checking in for it's progress. Namaste |
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A big shoutout to my homies back west, er east? from Foshan, China! The time is currently 12:35 am.
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Michael, I take that as a YES. Language at this point is pretty muchup to the participant, though you cannot compose from right to left. I think it wise to provide an English translation. Since we have a 400 word limit, this effectively halves the amount of space for non-English messages, which is not good. The GA is a shoe-string boot-strap operation at this point. But even on our current budget, we will get to languages within a year. If we can find funding, it will happen sooner.
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