Re: [Ag Meinungsfindungstool] [MG] List of primary voting projects

[Roger Eaton <rogerweaton AT gmail.com>]

Hi Mike, 

Thanks for the hint about text vs html messages.  I will discuss with Flemming and we will see what we can do.  Perhaps we should have a choice up front whether the new participant prefers text or html.  Or perhaps we should adopt your idea of always sending both.  

Group membership is not a vote.  Rather every message can be rated for approval (-3 to +3) and for interest (0 to +4).  The system calculates the "value" of each message as its average approval times its average interest, so the value can run from -12 to +12.  

There is a facility built into InterMix which can be used as a voting mechanism.  The basics are that individuals join groups and groups join open-ended discussions and discussions may have "decision periods".  It is in the decision periods that something like primary voting occurs.  However InterMix is not a yes or no voting system, so perhaps it doesn't qualify.  

For instance, each of the mailing lists in this email could be a group.  Then the groups could join together in a discussion on "Primary Voting".  Within that discussion, there might be a "Decision Period" on the topic "Should we implement Vote Mirroring?".  Within the decision period, each participant can enter one candidate message and there is free-form discussion by replying to eachothers messages.  At the end of the decision period, the candidate message with the highest value wins.  The elected message is not necessarily going to say yes or no to Vote Mirroring.  Someone might say, first we have to have preliminary analysis.  That message could be elected and so in that case, we do not get a yes or no answer.  

I'm not sure what you mean by micro-decision.  The discussion might be about nuclear disarmament and the decision period might be on the question of adopting a nuclear convention.  Theoretically there is no limit to the number of people who can participate.  Not exactly a micro issue, but clearly InterMix is not a yes-no voting system.  It is more a way of creating a consensus building collective stream of consciousness. 

So if you think InterMix not suitable for inclusion, no problem.  

thanks for responding,

-- 
Roger Eaton
+1 415 933 0153
intermix.org

On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 6:38 AM, Michael Allan <mike AT zelea.com> wrote:

Hi Roger,

Thanks for answering my questions.

> Good idea.  I would be happy to join with you in the Vote Mirroring
> proposal.  Is there anything I need to do at this point beyond
> sending you this information?:
>
> InterMix Voices of Humanity Software <http://intermix.org>.  Giving
> collective voices to groups, and to the genders and ages of
> humanity.  Contact Roger Eaton +1 415 933-0153 - intermix.org.

I've wanted to invite InterMix, and there's still time.  But first I
need to understand the voting facility.  Free-range voting only
applies to primary votes, you see.  And as I mentioned earlier, I had
the impression that InterMix was more for micro-decisions, sort of
like Vilfredo.  So, back to our other thread:

> Thanks, for logging in Mike.  Wasn't your password emailed to you in
> the message that had the confirmation link?
>
> I will forward your message to the programmer.  If you had a
> problem, then there is a problem.

Yes, now I see it.  That explains the problem.  The confirmation
message was sent in HTML only, but I have a plain text mail client:
http://www.mutt.org/

(Hi Flemming: When mailing HTML, which is somewhat non-standard, it's
recommend to send multi-part HTML and text.  Not HTML alone.)

> InterMix messages have two rating settings on the upper right border of
> each message, for interest and for approval.  Average interest times
> average approval is calculated as the "value" of the message.

But the message might be something more than "eggs big-end up", ofc.
It might be something like, "We should impose a ban on whaling," or
"The UN should move its headquarters to Antarctica."  Right?

And to my question:
> > ...  Is it my membership in the big-endian group, for example,

> > which means a vote for big end up?

You seem to be answering, "No.  Approvals (primary votes) for messages
such as "big-end up", "UN to Antarctica" and so forth are
independent of group membership.  Membership is not a vote.

> At the group level, we are going to implement automatic tweeting and
> facebook posting of the messages with the highest  value on an ongoing
> basis.  This we call the "voice" of the group.
>
> Groups join discussions and discussions can have "decision periods".
> There can be multiple groups in the same discussion.  Currently both
> discussions and decision periods are set by the admin, but down the
> road we want to have a bottom-up mechanism to do that.

May I withdraw my approval after having second thoughts?  Or extend my
approval to a message that I'd earlier disapproved of, or ignored?

Mike

> Within a decision period there are two phases, again controlled by the
> admin at this point.  In the first, the default sort for the forum shows
> only messages not yet rated by the user from the decision period in date
> order, newest first.  In the second phase, the default sort still shows
> only unrated messages, but now they are in descending value order (with
> appropriate regression to the mean for messages that have fewer ratings).
>
> The above setup is meant to be a rough workaround of the problem that there
> are too many messages for everyone to read them all.  We are not trying to
> be scientific, just to find an agreeable collective _expression_ for the
> members of all the groups together in the discussion.  The method just has
> to be reasonable so it is not too burdensome, yet the group members feel
> the process is fair.
>
> At the end of each decision period, the "results" of the decision are
> listed on the "results" page, with an overall winner and also a winner for
> each group and for each of the voices of humanity: women, men, youth,
> middle-age (voice of experience) and seniors (voice of wisdom).
>
> There is a lot more - we think we can allow groups and networks to choose
> their place in a bottom-up hierarchy without anyone being offended or
> feeling misused.  Likewise we might - just might - be able to put together
> a bottom-up hierarchy of subjects.
>
> The larger idea is to bring in NGOs generally and then by mixing their
> memberships together, create a global village where the nations and
> religions each have a voice, and the six voices of humanity, including the
> voice of humanity as one, create a global collective consciousness.  I
> believe a collective global consciousness is the starting point for any
> kind of effective global action.  The nation-state system is not working
> well enough and needs to be supplemented by a global system.
>
> Anyways, thanks, for taking a look!  I think we will have to consider the
> possibility of the user specifying a password at signup instead of having
> one assigned automatically, just to reduce confusion.  I bet you will find
> the password on the email we sent, but you didn't notice it.  And if you
> didn't notice it, others will also not see it.
>
> For anyone who would like to take a look - just go to intermix.org and read
> the first paragraph - it explains how to join up the alpha testing we are
> doing.
>
> I am copying InterMix programmer Flemming Funch.
>
> atb,
>
> -- Roger Eaton
> USA 415 933 0153
> intermix.org
>
> On Sun, Mar 24, 2013 at 8:58 AM, Michael Allan <mike AT zelea.com> wrote:
>
> > Hi Roger,
> >
> > I was thinking InterMix was more for micro-decisions like Vilfredo.
> > The UN scenario does sound like an example of primary voting, but what
> > form does a vote take?  Is it my membership in the big-endian group,
> > for example, which means a vote for big end up?
> >
> > I like the whimsical atmosphere of InterMix.  E-democracy often takes
> > itself too seriously. :^)
> >
> > I don't have much time to participate, but I wanted to have a look.
> > The sign up process took my email address and mailed me a challenge
> > URL (HTML only, should also be a text part) which I visited.  But it
> > had no apparent effect.  Also, I see that I'm "logged in" even though
> > I did not set a password.  I could set one now, I suppose, but it's
> > asking me for the old one.
> >
> > Mike

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