The Social Policy Experiment/Distributed Planning
Contents
Project Name
Who?
- Umair, Saliha, Obed(tentative) and hopefully several researchers politicians, statisticians, public policy analysts or people who just want to know what the next step in the evolution of democracy might be! :)
Why?
- I believe that Consensus Polls has more potential than we have limited its use to. Inspired by the 'utility', this portal is basically an experiment involving about 15-20 people (hopefully more!) who will review, edit, revise and/or refine existing social policies using Consensus Poll. The purpose of the experiment is two-fold:-
- See whether a small (and preferably random) group can agree on and devise social/political policies through Collaboration and discussion
- Test the ideal notion that a group can collectively come to a social decision that affects them and everyone and be content with it (as opposed to having policy makers devise them and then vote on the preferred ones)
- The experiment will currently hold sections on Health Care, Education and Trade. Although there will be an option for participants to create more sections, the immediate target is to create new policies and consensus polls within the three sections and redesign them.
What is the Bigger picture? (i.e. what will it achieve)
The idea is to make AboutUs more attractive by encouraging people to experiment with the website, innovate and express themselves. In other words, the project will promote BeABuilder, EfficientlyExpressedSuggestions, UserDriven, EncourageFreeSpeech, Inclusiveness, LawOfTwoFeet and several other Wiki values. It is perceived that this will happen through the following: -
Social interaction
- In discussing social policies and changes in a forum that encourages free participation and policy revisions, people will be able to create a circle of intellects that will excel in a rather bizarre paradox: carry different values and beliefs, have the same goals and visions
- Furthermore, because the experiment has been designed to find the Common Good rather than the majoritarian good, varying individuals will be better able to understand and respect others' views and perspectives on controversial issues, while still managing to come up with a unanimous decision (assuming, of course, that Consensus Poll and its value of Dynamic Document is upheld by everyone)
Our innate desire to express
- Among many other things, human beings love to speak, laugh and express themselves! We do these things simply because we like to feel important and be noticed! The purpose of this platform is to not only get people to express themselves, but talk about things that are important to them. While education, health and trade policies may seem trivial to some, for those who know both the obvious and subtle impacts these policies have on our lives would be interested to know if it would somehow be possible to formulate that perfect, utopic policy.
The Smaller Picture
- All in all, this would create more registered users, even more non-registered ones and generally more traffic.
Task Summary
- Make an attractive portal
- Come up with the initial, warm-up topics of discussion within the three existing sections
- Start inviting people to participate
Step by Step Task
To be decided ...
What next?
- Patrolling
- Facilitating
- Content Management
- Advertising for participation
- Feedback for improvements and enhancements
- Welcome and Help
