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01234: My Priorities for WDDM

From: "Mark Antell, editor CitizenPowerMagazine.net" <citizenp(at)citizenpowermagazine.net>
Date: Sat, 09 Jun 2007 10:48:02 -0400
Subject: My Priorities for WDDM

Just for the heck of it, I figured I’d weigh in with my priorities for
WDDM. They are:

1. Providing a testing ground for technology-enabled direct democracy.
No kidding. I really believe in this stuff. Representative democracy
was the best system ... prior to modern communication technology. Or to
put it more positively, modern communications technology allows for
fundamental improvements in the average person’s participation in
discourse and decision.
The problem is, we haven’t figured out how technology-enabled democracy
is supposed to work. Our ‘physical-gathering’ rules for democracy have
a ‘Roberts Rules’ focus on the current speaker and the current topic.
Technology-enabled democracy by contrast allows for parallel
(asynchronous) discussions on many topics and many voices at the same
time. But we haven’t figured out how to run good discourse and
decision in the technology-enhanced communication environment.

Creating processes and rules for direct democracy in the age of modern
comunications – That is my central priority for WDDM. I see WDDM not
only as a place to talk and strategize about DD; but also as a place
where we can create modern direct democracy.

I’ve liked plans and activities of a few WDDM members working in this
direction including:
Dan Rosen’s ‘Vote Direct’ which presents a maybe workable path from
republic to democracy.
Nico Durand’s ‘Enitiatives ’ which allow experimentation on discourse
and decision in the modern communications environment.
Our own Miroslav Kolar’s patience in encouraging and enabling discourse
and decision making in his role as WDDM webmaster. George Kokkas’s real
experience with direct democracy forums provide significant information
on what direct democracy must look like.
Additionally, our charter’s requirement that executive board decisions
be validated by vote is another cutting-edge experiment. Interesting,
six votes have been cast in the current (closes 6/29) referendum on an
executive board decision (concerning executive board communications).
Five of six votes to date sustain the executive board decision.

2. Improving the WDDM forum including:
2A. A policy for dealing with aggressive overposting (although just
now I do not see anything that I’d consider an actionable problem).
2B. Better segregation of issues on the forums. May I ask that youall
have a look at the Forum my civic association maintains
(www.northrosslyn.org)? I like it. Our website somewhat segregates
discussion by topic so that we don't have postings on rat control in the
same place as postings on traffic safety. As long as you’re on the
site, you might have a look at our film, “Save Wilson School.” Modern
communication doesn’t have to be limited to text. This film has
significantly altered discourse on saving a park in my neighborhood.
Before the film, the bureaucrats had their way in the press and at all
public meetings. Since the film, people have been listening to us.

3. Democracy means both discourse and decision. We're great on the
discourse side, but discouse without decision is not very useful. How
do we encourage members to propose motions for vote?

4. We should define the responsibilities of the webmaster and elections
authority. Mirek has done a wonderful job. Mirek is doing a wonderful
job. I’d like to formally describe and authorize what he’s doing.
I learned about the concept of electoral tribunal in Costa Rica. It
seems to me that it is a very attractive institution.

5. Developing relations with other DD groups.

6. The phrase ‘true democracy’ totally doesn’t work for me. Google up
direct democracy and the name of any populist demagogue. Every one of
them claims their regime is ‘true democracy.’ Hell, Google up direct
democracy and Stalin, or Hitler. Yeup. Goebbels said the Nazi state
was true democracy. So did Stalin of the Soviet State. Yike.
I feel comfortable with the phrases ‘more democracy’ and ‘direct
democracy.’ End of lecture from ‘Curmudgeon Mark’.

Thoughts on other people’s priorities:

1. The proposed WDDM mission statement didn't pass. I’m not much
bothered, but several people do find the absence troubling.

2. Good luck on a DD glossary. It maybe could be done via the Wikipedia
process (thanks to Filia and Nico for that suggestion). But.... it may
be difficult to get agreement on all definitions. We might have to
accept that some words may have several definitions (just as words in a
dictionary may have more than one meaning).

Best,
Mark Antell, member
WDDM Executive Board

PS. Hope we're all having fun.


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