Profile for a program, which would make possible the intense participation of a very large number of citizens in a process of developing solutions in a political, social or other context.

 

To be used for:

Design and development of political programs and statutes. Design of proposals for constitutions, for instance of the EU, and referenda of any kind.

 

description

1. It should be possible to give ones own suggestion to any topic with only one command by mouse or keyboard. This could happen through modifying an existing article; the result has to be published in a moment.
2. Among all published suggestions the registered users should vote for the one they consider to be most probably solving the certain problem which is the topic of the text. Citizens need to identify themselves to become registered users.
3. Every user has one vote on a certain topic, for instance “health care concepts”. Everybody may only register for one account and all measures have to be taken to avoid abuse.
4. Every user may change his vote on a certain topic to another suggestion that he considers more recent and better.
5. Suggestions that get the major part of the votes at a certain moment are considered to be the proposal to a party assembly or to another organisation they are dealing with. If a political party accepts this concepts it will treat the results as regular proposals to the main assembly.
6. The structure of the whole text, which could be a proposal for a parties’ program or statutes, should be determined by the total number of the registered users which means that to add new topics or to reject existing ones needs the majority of their votes. To divide existing topics into two or more or vice versa to sum up two or more topics into one the users active in those topics decide.
7. As active users we define those who have voted within a period which has to be fixed in the rules of the program, for example within the recent 10 days. It is only meant as a sign of activity is possible to only confirm the already taken decision to restart the prescribed period. This distinction is necessary for the voting process on certain topics, users will only be asked to give their vote on questions covering topics they are active on. Users are allowed to be active on as many topics they want to be.
8. Any suggestion could be rejected by the author themselves at any time. The author may attach any kind of comment to their text but the most outstanding reasons should be in the suggestion itself. In opposition to the proposal itself the comment could be reedited by the author without making it a new article which would automatically start with no votes on it.
9. Also for every subject there should be a forum to discuss the given suggestions, problems of the topic or the structure of the whole text.
10. Registered users shall have the possibility to give personal information on their own site. They should be able to seal their contributions with the aim to distinguish them, suggestions can always be made anonymously.
11. It has to be possible to sort all articles (suggestions) according to the following criteria: number of votes (standard), date of contribution, author, topic, …etc. There shall be a search function and a function to suppress articles like: show only articles by a certain author, only those marked by registered authors, only anonymous authors, to a certain topic, from certain time period, with a certain number of votes, all articles I’m voting for (if logged in and registered user) …etc.
12. Suggestions that do not get a single vote will be deleted after a time period fixed by the rules of the program. Suggestions that don’t get a single vote but are marked by at least three registered users as being either not serious and constructive or violating law are deleted in an instant. Suggestions that get at least one vote will be deleted if marked by the majority of the active users to be a non-constructive contribution.
13. Users whose suggestions were deleted for three times according to the described rules shall be banned and thus lose their right to vote and their personal site for a time period that has to be decided on in the rules of the program.
14. One day it may be possible to rule with the help such a programme a whole country. Today it might be possible to support not only the developing of solutions but also concrete and complex referenda if it would be possible to print out the proposals one votes for and let them send it by ordinary mail together with confirmation to be member of the certain organisation.
15. The whole system has to be shielded against all kind of contribution by robots to be safe from sabotage.
16. This program should itself be improved in the same permanent process of discussion and voting as lined out above.

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Eric Manneschmidt, 24 of January 2006, Bochum, Germany