Hello Michael Allan and all,
First of all, thanks to both Michaels: M. Allan for his constructive remarks, and to M. Ossipoff for his answers by which I stand. Before I reply to M. Allan, allow me to make 2 general remarks. The first one is that the site is in constant evolution. No such site is ever complete and finished. I have myself thousands of ideas of features that could be added and things that could be improved. I try to prioritise my limited development time according to what's more urgent or what's easier to implement. I am currently working hard on improving the back end which in turn will allow me to improve the overall organisation of the site. The second remark is that although I have my own huge list of things I'd like to improve, I welcome user suggestions like Michael's. It gives me some insight on what users would like most. In that spirit, I just created a new poll where registered users can submit specific ideas and vote on them: http://minguo.info/usa/node/124 . Both Michaels are welcome to add their own ideas... I reply now on the specific suggestions made: On Friday, August 17, 2012 22:49:27 Michael Allan wrote: > * Display live counts and other signs of activity. > Otherwise newcomers will assume the site is dead or > dying. If one clicks on the 'Recent Posts' link, one can see that there has been a lost of activity recently: http://minguo.info/usa/tracker This tracker is especially useful for registered members as they can see which polls have been updated, which content has been created and which blogs have had comments added since their last visit. The site has indeed been dormant for a while, but it is now very much alive. As I said, I am currently actively developing both the content and the software. We are also working on a major cooperation deal with Democracy Chronicles ( http://www.democracychronicles.com/ ) that should give a boost to both sites and, more importantly, to the democracy movement. Having said that, I already have in my mind many ideas that I hope to implement sometime in the future that will help users to focus their attention on the type of activity they care the most about (see also below). > * Show the contribution of each participant. Don't > just take it and give nothing in return. (!) Ideally > show the contribution in a social context, because > people vote for social reasons. I can again reply in two parts: what already exists, and what I am currently working on. One can already visit the user profile of each active member and see both a link to their individual blogs on the site as well as a tracking page of all the discussion threads a user has been active. I am also currently working on remodelling the back-end precisely so that individual user blogs become more prominent than they are right now. In addition, I can think of dozens of small features I'd like to implement sometime which would more social features to active users. I must prioritise among all those things, but there is a plan to improve the site along the lines your are suggesting. As to "giving something in return", the most important thing the site provides is a voice to the user. Registered users can use the existing, extensive polling feature of the site to create polls on any topic of their choice, add any new option or candidate to the majority of the currently running polls, and, obviously, cast their own vote. What's more, we've just launched a Community Manifesto: http://minguo.info/usa/manifesto which will compile all the policy positions adopted by the active users (according to the results of each and every poll). We aim to provide a platform that users can use to express their collective opinion and work for change. You can browse the manifesto and see the actively running polls which answer the following questions, among many others: * "What would you like to use this site for?" * "What can we do to improve our democracy?" * "Which Election method do you like?" * "How to use this realm to "Promote better voting systems"?" The site is 100% free of advertising. I personally gain nothing from it (on the contrary, it costs me money to host and a *lot* of time to maintain and develop). It is a tool that I provide for the community to use as they wish, to promote their own policy agenda. Most importantly, it is a tool I am actively developing to promote better Election Methods and to further the cause of democracy. I hope this fulfils your demand (for me) to "give something in return". > * Restrict voting to real people. Bots and sock > puppets ruin the social context and render the results > meaningless. By definition, the polls on the site are internet polls. As such, they suffer all of the flaws of any internet poll anywhere on the web. They also suffer the flaws of any voting maching anywhere in the world. It is for a reason that I am personally a strong advocate for paper and pencil only elections. See the "pencil and paper criterion": http://minguo.info/node/70 Having said that, I can assure you that I have taken necessary measures to prevent ballot-box stuffing as much as I can. I have implemented an algorithm that discards any ballot that appears suspicious (hacking attempts, ballot box stuffing attempts, etc.) I will not publicly discuss the details of the implementation. However, I am obviously dedicated to as much as possible ensure that the results are meaningful and representative of the people who were interested enough to take part in the polls. On a related note, polls come in two general flavours: - polls open to any person, registered or not. Among them, you have the 2012 presidential polls previously presented on this list. - polls restricted to registered users: it is the results of these polls that are used to draft our Community Manifesto. And now, in reply to Michael Ossipoff: On Friday, August 17, 2012 23:15:48 Michael Ossipoff wrote: > But yes, the website could announce each new ballot > (without in any way identifying the voter). That would > be of interest. We'll see if Augustin likes that idea. Yes, I do. This is actually one of the thousands of ideas I have floating at the back of my mind. Generally speaking, I'd like to improve on the existing features, allowing users to precisely track and get notified of changes that are of interest to them: how many new ballots have been cast in which polls, which new options have been added in running polls, etc. It will take time to implement all of this, but yes, that's the direction I want to go. Blessings, Augustin. > > Friends: http://www.reuniting.info/ > > My projects: > > http://astralcity.org/ http://lesenjeux.fr/ > > http://linux.overshoot.tv/ > > http://overshoot.tv/ http://charityware.info/ > > http://masquilier.org/ > > http://openteacher.info/ http://minguo.info/ > > http://jacqueslemaire.fr/ > > http://www.wechange.org/ http://searching911.info/ ---- Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
