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The rationale for combining e-thepeople.org <http://e-thepeople.org/a-national/about/fullstory>> and Quorum <http://www.democracyproject.org> (some history here) is below. The hard working .org folks with Quorum/Democracy Project received the assets of the commercially non-viable e-thepeople.com 14 months ago. The most valuable part of the transfer was the partnerships ETP built with newspaper web sites across the country. Their decision to integrate their Quorum discussion concepts into the petitioning system makes sense to me. In a similar vein, the more global/UK stage OpenDemocracy <http://www.opendemocracy.net> has built a much larger imprint than I thought possible in a year. However, I am still skeptical of web-first systems for local online civic dialogue, particularly from the top-down. At the national/global level, web systems are working better and better (particularly when they integrate e-mail notification of posts). The challenge remains - can you make online political discussions both valuable to participants and relevant to real politics through agenda-setting and public opinion formation? Why de-emphasize online petitions? Online petitions, like offline petitions outside legally binding structures (such as initiatives, referendums, or other formal petitions that compel some sort of government action or at least an acknowledgment) have limited value in real politics. More on the right to petition <http://w3.trib.com/FACT/1st.petition.html>. The weakness of most citizen-initiated online petitions, like most petitions on ETP and other petitioning sites <http://directory.google.com/Top/Society/Activism/Petitions/Petition_C reation/> is that they have no real political base nor rarely the follow through required to use the petition signatures in an effective way. Are there any new sustainable member-based political organizations (<http://www.moveon.org> started with their own site) that _started_ from a third party petitioning platform? (Perhaps there are a few???) The only online petitioning efforts that have sustained value in my opinion are those that use the petitioning act to gather opt-in e- mail addresses of like-minded supporters <http://www.mail-archive.com/do-wire@tc.umn.edu/msg00296.html>. The real political question is - what does an organization do with their supporters network over the long-term? Do they educate, inform, motivate, and active their supporters based on the issue the individual cares most about? Or does the organization transfer the e- mail addresses into fundraising or general political alert networks in a bait-and-switch sort of way? Pragmatically, I would recommend a bit of both if I were advising an interest group interested in online petitioning and effective e-mail alert networking. A number of years ago while passing through Silicon Alley in NYC, I met with Alex Sheshunoff <http://www.cnn.com/TECH/computing/9810/05/esoapbox.idg/>, the founder for e-thepeople.COM, and his crew (then) with New York Now. They had this demonstration application for petitioning. They asked me who I thought might buy the service - and to their moderately cyber-libertarian surprise - I said local government. They rightly, worked on the media first, but I basically said that if you want petitioning systems to fill pot-holes in the street, improve local schools, etc. you want to build these applications right into the official online offerings of government. You want problems to be solved more organically with direct citizen-to-government connections and save protest and petitioning for more contentious issues. In general, I argue that governments want to do a good job, they just need the tools and a kick in the butt once in awhile. I have little patience for "us" versus "them" forms of technology or e-democracy. Congrats to e-thepeople.org for their redesign and shift away from an emphasis on online petitioning only. Steven Clift Democracies Online From: http://www.e-thepeople.org/a-national/about/news/3657638 Check out their conference call: 5/13/2002 First-ever E The People Conference Call Wonder who runs this shadowy non-profit? Sign up for a conference call and online chat with ETP's founders Mike and Scott on 2 pm EDT on Thursday May 23rd by clicking on the link below: http://www.e-thepeople.org/maillist/signup?list=etp-conference/ We're starting a new democracy conversation, and we're inviting you to participate. On the call, we'll talk about: Who are we? What is "effective e-participation"? What can you do to help improve your community and our democracy? Ask your own questions of two of E The People's founders, Michael Weiksner and Scott Reents. So, please join us! -Mike ------- Forwarded message follows ------- From: "e-thePeople.org" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: e-thePeople relaunch: come try version 3.0 Date sent: Tue, 14 May 2002 20:49:12 -0400 (EDT) Dear e-thePeople User, I'm pleased to announce the release of e-thePeople Version 3.0. Get your first look: http://www.e-thepeople.org Our goal was simple: to make e-thePeople.org the leading Web site for effective e-participation. e-thePeople 3.0 features a number of improvements including: * REVAMPED DISCUSSIONS. We've introduced "user moderation," which means that at the bottom of each post in Conversations there is an "Encourage" and a "Discourage" button. If you are a registered user and you click "Encourage", you are voting for that post, and its prominence on the site increases. Similarly, if you click "Discourage," you are voting against that post, and its prominence on the site decreases. The point is to create a fair, democratic way of encouraging posts that are thoughtful and respectful. * QUALITY, NOT QUANTITY. We've taken a number of steps to ensure that petitions are credible vehicles for political action, including fewer petitions featured on the home page, added verification of electronic signatures, and more. * POLLS BY THE PEOPLE, FOR THE PEOPLE... There is no longer a single People's Poll per week, but rather as many polls as people choose to write. And like Conversations, Polls are subject to user moderation-- the one on the home page is the one that has received lots of responses and very few "I do not like this poll" votes. * FASTER DOWNLOAD. A new architecture ensures blazing response times and better reliability. If it's been a while since your last visit, I encourage you to come take another look. We welcome your feedback, either privately to [EMAIL PROTECTED] or publicly at this e-thePeople Conversation: http://www.e-thepeople.org/a-national/article/10425/view Warm regards, Scott Reents http://e-thePeople.org ------- End of forwarded message ------- From: http://www.e-thepeople.org/a-national/comment/9081/1/view The rationale for mixing ETP/Quorum posted 05/13, by scott_reents (viewed : 122) Popularity 23.0 (4 encourage, 0 discourage) The most important aspect of the E-The People/Quorum integration is not the blending of technology, but rather the blending of communities. Among both Quorum and E-The People users, I understand that there are reservations about the benefits this will bring. Let me try here to make the case for integration: 1) More investment. While operating both sites separately, it was all we could do to keep the two sites running. I think it's fair to say that users from both sites were frustrated with the lack of attention. With a common platform, we now have the resources to make a range of infrastructure improvements, from improved Conversation navigation, to better integration with email, to adding new features such as online chat, etc. Tell us what you want to see! 2) Greater credibility for participation. For e-thePeople to live up to its billing, it's important that it be recognized as a place for thoughtful, respectful conversations among a diverse range of participants. The whole of these two communites combined, by increasing the breadth and scope of opinions represented, can be much greater than the sum of its part. 3) A more interesting experience. Perhaps most importantly, it's my belief that the combination of ETP and Q will result in a more varied, informed and textured conversation for all of us. Finding out about people and ideas you wouldn't otherwise encounter was what the Internet was supposed to be about, wasn't it? I hope I do not overstate things in saying that we all share a desire to improve the way our political system works -- that's what brought us to sites like ETP and Q in the first place. The combination of ETP and Q is experimental, and there's a chance that you won't like it and will leave. I understand that. But I also think there's a lot of potential energy in the fusion of these two communities, and so I ask you to give the new site a test-run before you draw any conclusions. Who knows? It might just work. ^ ^ ^ ^ Steven L. Clift - W: http://www.publicus.net Minneapolis - - - E: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Minnesota - - - - - T: +1.612.822.8667 USA - - - - - - - ICQ: 13789183 *** Please send submissions to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** *** To subscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** *** Message body: SUB DO-WIRE *** *** To unsubscribe instead, write: UNSUB DO-WIRE *** *** Please forward this post to others and encourage *** *** them to subscribe to the free DO-WIRE service. ***
