<div dir="ltr">Super nice, Jeremy et all. <div><br></div><div>For a different/similar purposes, I was researching some online tools for deliberative democracy with colleagues and this is the list of tools we came up with: <a href="https://antivigilancia.wiki.br/brmeeting/ferramentas">https://antivigilancia.wiki.br/brmeeting/ferramentas</a> (descriptions in Portuguese but the list is understandable). And its a wiki, so anyone can add references to more tools. </div>
<div><br></div><div>Will be happy to explore Liquid Democracy and to discuss usage of this and other tools to improve our processes.</div><div><br></div><div>best</div><div><br></div><div>joana </div><div><br></div><div>
<br>
</div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Fri, Aug 15, 2014 at 5:56 PM, Jeremy Malcolm <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:jmalcolm@eff.org" target="_blank">jmalcolm@eff.org</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
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I am starting a separate thread to highlight a current initiative
that was buried in a previous thread last month - that there is a
new fluid working group experimenting with the use of
"LiquidFeedback" software at <a href="http://bestbits.net/lf" target="_blank">http://bestbits.net/lf</a> to
develop a rough consensus definition of multi-stakeholder Internet
governance, and which could potentially be used in advocacy as a
"quality standard" of multi-stakeholder processes.<br>
<br>
So far the only proposal posted for discussion is one based on the
NETmundial principles. But anyone can create a proposal for others
to discuss and express support for. The software is currently
configured so that inputs are shown as anonymous to non-registered
users, which should help people feel that they can express
themselves freely, whilst still maintaining transparency.<br>
<br>
It is a technical requirement of the LiquidFeedback software that
participants receive an invite code before they can register. Until
now only a few members who affirmatively expressed interest received
an invite code, but anyone else who wishes to participate should
contact me and I will send you one. You can then simply click
"Registration" at <a href="http://bestbits.net/lf" target="_blank">http://bestbits.net/lf</a> to create
your account.<br>
<br>
There will be a 10 minute reporting back from this working group at
our meeting in Istanbul, so if you wish to contribute, now is the
time to do so. <br>
<br>
Below is a more detailed primer about how to use the software,
partly copied and pasted from an online document <a href="http://karl.aegee.org/lf/dummyguide.html" target="_blank">here</a>.<br>
<h2>What is Liquid Democracy?<br>
</h2>
Liquid Democracy is a democratic system for grass-root participation
in the creation of, refining of and public voting on proposals.
Although similar to a direct referendum, it allows votes to be
delegated by topic or area, and for those delegations to be revoked
at any time. Liquid Democracy is sometimes referred to as Delegated
or Proxy Voting.<br>
<h2>What is LiquidFeedback?</h2>
LiquidFeedback is a formal on-line decision support system that is
the first user-friendly Web-based implementation of the Liquid
Democracy concept, which has been used by the German Pirate Party
amongst others. There is not much you can do in LiquidFeedback: You
may create a proposal, express your support, make a suggestion and
vote. That's essentially it.
<h2>Quickstart - what to do first</h2>
For now, you will require an "invite code" to use LiquidFeedback.
Later we can hook it into a Best Bits membership database (which
does not yet exist). If you did not receive an invite code and would
like one, please let me know.<br>
<p> </p>
<ul>
<li><b>Quickstart for participation in the multi-stakeholderism
definition:</b>
<ul>
<li>Click on the <b><a href="http://bestbits.net/lf/unit/show/1.html" target="_blank">unit Best
Bits</a></b> and enter the <b><a href="http://bestbits.net/lf/area/show/2.html" target="_blank">area
Multi-stakeholderism</a></b></li>
<li><b><a href="http://bestbits.net/lf/initiative/new.html?area_id=2" target="_blank">Create
an issue</a></b> for a new proposal or motion, or look
at existing issues in the list of <i>Open issues</i> <br>
</li>
<li>Important: Add your <b>support</b> to all those issues
that you agree with</li>
<li>Create a <b>suggestion</b> for an issue to make it
better, or rate an existing suggestion as <i>should, should
not, must, must not</i> be implemented</li>
<li>Click on your name on the top right and go to <b><a href="http://bestbits.net/lf/member/edit_images.html" target="_blank">upload
avatar/photo</a></b> for making things a bit more
colourful for everyone.</li>
<li>If you completely dislike an initiative, then simply do
nothing and wait for the voting, or create a competing
proposal, an <i>alternative</i>.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<p> </p>
<li>Come back to LiquidFeedback and vote once the voting phase has
started. When establishing your account, you can specify that
you want to be notified of this by email.<br>
</li>
<li>Optionally, go to "Members" and add those persons as Contact
that you might to delegate your vote to. Then go to "Areas" and
maybe click "Set Area delegation", or go into an issue and do
"Set Issue delegation" </li>
</ul>
<p> Important: During the discussion phase (in the states <i>New</i>
and <i>Discussion</i>) you should support all initiatives that
you can agree with (generally, or under certain conditions), and
make suggestions for improvements (you can find details on the
initiative page). Hereby you give the initiators the chance to
improve the draft. This early feedback makes for vital feedback
and changes the graphical "approval bars" in green and grey that
you see in front of each listing of initiatives. </p>
<h2>Keywords explained</h2>
An "initiative" is a proposal or motion. "Alternative initiatives"
are counter-proposals.<br>
"Areas" sort issues into groups, and each issue contains one or more
initiatives. Issues are numbered and have neither titles nor names.<br>
The user can create "suggestions" and label them as either "should"
and "must", or do so with suggestions created by other users. This
is analog to a request for a (friendly) amendment:<br>
<ul>
<li>A "should" suggestion is a an amendment that will not lead to
a vote against the proposal if not accepted. </li>
<li>A "must" suggestion is an amendment that needs to be fulfilled
or else the user indicates to disagree with the proposal. </li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<h2>Phases</h2>
In Liquid Feedback a proposal, which is called an "initiative",
moves through 5 different phases:
<p> * <b>New:</b> A freshly submitted initiative. An "issue" groups
initiatives for the same topic, which constitute the competing
choices.<br>
Every user can create both a new issue or a new initiative within
an existing issue.</p>
<p> * <b>Discussion:</b> A initiative has received sufficient
support to enter into the public discussion phase.<br>
In LF typically a quorum of 10% of supporters is required for the
discussion to start. Declare your support by clicking on "Support
this initiative". Apart from voicing support you can suggest
changes (with SHOULD or MUST) or create an alternative initative.<br>
The proposer of the initiative can modify its text during the
discussion to adjust to the feedback.</p>
<p> * <b>Verification/Frozen:</b> The proposed text cannot neither
be modified anymore.<br>
So this is the time when to discuss how to vote on this initiative
in, for example, a local board meeting.<br>
Note that it is still possible to propose alternative initiatives,
i.e. to create counter proposals.</p>
<p> * <b>Voting:</b> The users begin to vote - the results are only
shown after the voting period has ended.<br>
Competing initiatives can be rankend and voted for or against, and
a priority of the proposals can be established by the user.<br>
LiquidFeedback will afterwards sort out this "mess" and announce
the winner.</p>
<p> * <b>Finished:</b> Either the voting phase was completed (and a
result determined), or one of the potential quorums wasn't
reached, and the corresponding initiative was stopped early.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Procedures</h2>
You can become a "participant" of an entire area or a specific
issue, and by that add your count to the quorum and therefore say:
"I want to take part in the decision." <br>
You can become a "supporter" or a "potential supporter" of an
initiative to<br>
<ul>
<li>a) help a new issue to move to the discussion phase, and <br>
</li>
<li>b) during the discussion phase give an indication to the
creator of the initiative what his odds are to be successful.<br>
</li>
</ul>
Different draft versions of the initiative (older and newer) can be
easily compared line-by-line so that you can see what exactly was
changed.<br>
You can create an alternative initiative if your suggestions are not
heard and not integrated into the proposal text by the inititator.<br>
Finally you can vote, or delegate your vote to another user you
trusts to take the right decision. Delegation is also known as proxy
voting and ensures that your vote is not lost if you do not have
sufficient time or knowledge to dive into a specific issue are a
certain area.
<p> </p>
<h3>If you completely disapprove an initiative</h3>
In case you disapprove an initiative fundamentally, then you should
not submit any suggestion in order to avoid becoming a supporter.
Either wait for the voting phase, or use informal channels (mailing
list, direct contact with the author) to express your disagreement.
There is no "Dislike" button. LiquidFeedback is a formal
decision-making system, is not moderated, it is designed to foster
constructive input, and it makes an effort to prevent a potentially
negative atmosphere. Next to the above options, you should support
those alternative initiative(s) that you are positive about, or you
may start your own initiative related to this issue. Finally, if you
are not already a member of the area, you can increase the
population of the necessary support quorum by becoming a member of
the area, or by adding your interest to the issue.
<p> </p>
<h2>Schedules</h2>
So called "policies" determine the duration of each phase and any
quorum that might be involved along the way.<br>
Some policies may skip certain phases, while others might not
require any quorum.<br>
The quorums are, if set, essentially a SPAM protection mechanism.<br>
<br>
For example, for the multi-stakeholderism discussion, the schedule
is for 14 days of discussion, followed by 8 days for verification
and 15 days of voting... but these are arbitrary and can be
changed. More of the settings of the default policy are found <b><a href="http://bestbits.net/lf/issue/show/1.html" target="_blank">here</a></b>.<br>
<p>If you have any questions, please let me know.</p><span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888">
<br>
<pre cols="72">--
Jeremy Malcolm
Senior Global Policy Analyst
Electronic Frontier Foundation
<a href="https://eff.org" target="_blank">https://eff.org</a>
<a href="mailto:jmalcolm@eff.org" target="_blank">jmalcolm@eff.org</a>
Tel: <a href="tel:415.436.9333%20ext%20161" value="+14154369333" target="_blank">415.436.9333 ext 161</a>
:: Defending Your Rights in the Digital World ::</pre>
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