As noted here before, my non-profit by design restricts participants based on different democratic values than the individual right to essentially attack other participants, engage in name calling, avoid accountability by using an alias, etc. Of course we are doing this voluntarily as an expression of our right of assembly not as something required by government.
While our neighbors forums are hosted in a relatively free and safe democracy, I think lessons from our 60 page evaluation might be of interest to anyone wanting to -build- stronger community, engagement, democratic society local up, etc. beyond protest or after the revolution. Our pilot neighbors forums involved one Minneapolis neighborhood that is over half Somali refugee/immigrant and another with a plurality of Hmong residents. Access the evaluation here: http://blog.e-democracy.org/posts/1420 One of our biggest challenges is that those with extreme often racist or anti-immigrant views dominate online political speech on local newspapers online making any form of public online engagement suspect among diverse communities. We think our approach is a middle way between abused freedom and hyper control. I'd be interested to hear what other think? Having spoken some in places like Libya, Lebanon, Mongolia, etc. I am very interested in how extremely local online public spaces can be designed to influence both local officials (and keep them accountable) but also get local people to take collective actions or simply unleash neighbors helping neighbors. Steven Clift [email protected] - +1 612 234 7072 http://stevenclift.com - @democracy http://e-democracy.org - @edemo
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