[Air-l] epetitions

[Wainer Lusoli]

Thanks Matthias, a few people on the list will be rehearsing their
arguments...
Sorry I need to go now :)

Wainer

--------------------------------------------
Wainer Lusoli
w.lusoli at chester.ac.uk
http://www.lusoli.info
http://del.icio.us/lusoli


> -----Original Message-----
> From: air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org 
> [mailto:air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of Matthias Trenel
> Sent: 21 November 2006 19:15
> To: air-l at listserv.aoir.org
> Cc: tom at mysociety.org
> Subject: [Air-l] Fwd: [Consult] ePetitions at No Ten, 
> Bundestag,and elsewhere
> 
> Tom Steinberg aksked me to crosspost his response to AIR-L. 
> -- Matthias
> 
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Tom Steinberg <dowire at tomsteinberg.co.uk>
> Date: Nov 21, 2006 7:36 PM
> Subject: Re: [Consult] ePetitions at No Ten, Bundestag, and elsewhere
> To: consult at groups.dowire.org
> 
> 
> Hello Matthias,
> 
> Thanks for moving this debate to this list. Unfortunately nobody seems
> to be around to approve my membership request to AIR-L so that I can
> put mySociety's side of this: clearly the inability to debate issues
> online in the way we want is today's hot topic!
> 
> I suppose my overall reaction to reading the thread is that such a
> bright group of people seem to have missed something our ordinary
> users have understood in droves: the site is a beta and if you want
> features added you have to ask for them. I'm afraid that complaining
> about them on a list we don't even know about doesn't actually count
> as constructive. Our other more common garden users have realised they
> need to actually send us their feedback, and we've made a slew of
> changes in response:
> 
> http://www.mysociety.org/2006/11/17/this-is-what-beta-means-th
e-first-48-hours-of-petitions/
> 
> Now onto the issue itself - the lack of forums. Our design philosophy
> as an organisation has always been clear: pick a simple task that
> benefits the public and solve it as well as you possibly can before
> launching. Then as soon as it is out in the wild, respond to your
> users demands as fast as you can (within the constraints of your
> resources). In our case this meant building a massively load-capable
> petition signing system that had transparency engineered in from the
> start, and then changing it really fast in response to user requests.
> 
> For everyone on this and the AIR-L list who would like to see forums,
> I have just one question:
> 
> * Do you consider it possible to design deliberative discussion system
> on a site as sensitive as No10 which will generate debate sufficiently
> mature as to merit the sizeable public spending on moderation that
> would be required? If so, how?
> 
> Personally, I'm sceptical that the No10 site can ever host good
> discussions, and running HearFromYourMP.com and TheyWorkForYou.com I
> think mySociety can claim to have some experience in this field. But
> I'm just one citizen, and if you are British it is your democractic
> system too: if you want forums you should ask for them and express
> your support for whatever hiring of civil servants or building of
> technology would be required.
> 
> Lastly, please note that for those of you who think I'm ignoring the
> fact that there ARE discussion forums on other petition sites, please
> just absorb the following scale difference:
> 
> * Total petitions submitted on and offline to Scottish Parliament in
> first 7 years : 964
> 
> * Total petitions submitted online to No10 site in first 6 days: 925
> 
> I look forward to your feedback on this issue very much.
> 
> best,
> 
> Tom Steinberg
> 
> Director, mySociety.org
> 
> 
> Member profile for Tom Steinberg:
> http://groups.dowire.org/main/contacts/tomsteinberg
> 
> 
> -----------------------------------------
> 
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