User:OneKarma/Forum/Functions

To form a more perfect mode of human governance, there must be established a forum to which all persons may apply for announcements, reviews, proposals, discussions, and voting. The author of this first-draft believes that, for any individual within a horizontal democracy to be capable of accurate assessment of an issue, one must have access to a public, organized log of all relevant information. The current iteration of the General Assembly does not - and more importantly cannot - provide this information in an efficient manner. The only vehicle capable of presenting this mass of information efficiently is a computer, and the only efficient fuel is a network. We can use a simple wiki to determine many potential structures of a cyclical, online GA, and determine whatever are most within our abilities.

This proposal presents only a suggestion of some core ingredients. I am probably missing a good number of points, so at this time I ask that criticisms and friendly amendments be proposed via the Discussion tab (top left). Thank you for reading.

Premise

On the Transparency document, the Facilitators Working Group states that:

The Facilitator's Working Group is dedicated to protecting the collective thinking and consensus decision-making process to ensure maximum inclusivity in all OccupyBoston decisions. Our work may include facilitating meetings, assessing and improving the consensus process and the conduct of meetings, documenting the processes being used by Occupy Boston, training of facilitators ,and making proposals to the General Assembly of Occupy Boston regarding improved processing of proposal and decision making.

If the FWG intends to 'ensure maximum inclusivity in all OB decisions', there should be a move to host the GA online, where a much larger population has access. In an age of social technology, why should physical attendance be required of anyone? Until there is a properly defined and logged process that is fully knowable by all individuals, there cannot be any true consensus.

There are a few rather immediate consequences of passing a proposal like this. The largest impact, though, will probably be due to the GA being therefore obligated to demand that network access be made a human right. There is a difficult task of determining the required technological infrastructure in response to that demand, but the proposal here to create the forum is concerned more-so with establishing equality as inalienable to every step of the process.

Forum Requirements

We must create a forum maximizing the ease of participation. This will involve:

1. 'Citizenship' for security purposes (no voting twice, nor voting in place of another, etc)
2. Continuous GA cycles to avoid time restraints (addresses individual schedule and/or transportation issues)
   
   • Proposals can be 'hung,' discussed, edited, 're-hung,' and voted upon
     
   • Establishment of quorum only when minimum percentage (to be determined) of possible votes are cast
3. Full transparency and documentation
   • Short-form summaries of discussions/events, supported by long-form documentation

(Weekly?) Cycle

1. Day 1 (Sunday?), 00:00 am - GA Opens
2. Results of last voting are posted
   • PASSED proposals implemented immediately
   • DENIED proposals are recorded
   • UNDECIDED proposals placed under Review
3. Proposals from previous week are posted in vote-space
   
   • An individual vote may be updated at any time within the cycle
     
4. New proposals may be hung for discussion
   • Discussion is open for duration of week
5. Blocks are discussed and voted upon
   • Positive - Block is justified (Needs 10% of potential)
     
   • Negative - Block is not justified (proposal returns to quorum to be re-voted upon, with particular block negated)

Voting

Vote choices may be determined per proposal, but the general guidelines are:

1. Positive - vote to Ratify as-is (needs 90% of potential)
   
2. Negative - vote to Deny
   
   • Un-Clarified negative
     
   • Needs minor changes (changes required involve no more than language/clarity - suggest changes?)
     
   • Needs major changes (changes required involve functional aspects of the proposal - suggest changes?)
     
   • Block - the proposal is not sound/does not support the common good
     
3. Neutral
   
   • Null - prefer not to choose
     
   • Absent - vote not cast (default)

Case Results

Case percentages may be altered per individual proposal (maybe per level of proposal: global, regional, working group, etc), but the general guidelines are:

PASS Cases

Proposal accepted as-is; to be implemented at the start of the next GA cycle

• [less than 0.5% votes Block] AND [at least 99.0% votes Positive] (maximum Blocks: 5 in 1,000)
• [ZERO Blocks] AND [at least 90.0% votes Positive] (max Blocks: zero)

DENY Cases

Prop cannot be edited; must be hung entirely anew if it is to be presented again. (Other consequences?)

• [at least 2.0% votes Block] (max Positive: 98.0%) - needs edit, blocks must be justified(?)
• [at least 35.0% votes Neutral] (max Positive: 65.0%)
• [at least 30.0% votes Negative] (max Positive: 70.0%)

UNDECIDED Cases

Prop can be presented again but must be amended

• [more than 0.5% votes Block] AND [less than 2.0% votes Block]
• [else]

Review Process

1. Review and vote on Blocks:
   • Any Block receiving at least 10.0% votes Supportive leads to denial of prop.
     
2. Review Undecided cases

Structure of the Forum

It is likely that the most user-friendly forum will be hosted via wiki. If this is the case, there must be established a general structure of pages that makes efficient use of all contributions. This will include:

1. Main page structure
   • Page naming (OBIT???)
   • General description
   • Premises
   • Proposal
2. Discussion structure [needs more than minor tlc]
   • The main page shall serve as the 'current' iteration of the proposal.
     • The author of a proposal shall have exclusive rights to edit (and to permit others to edit) the proposal on the main page.
   • The discussion page connected to the main page shall serve as a conglomeration of all issues.
     • The discussion page shall be an evolving work. If little discussion is necessary, discussion may remain on this page. If it becomes large, it must be organized into general sections, the summaries of which are posted on the main discussion page, and perhaps external, live-updating documents will host further discussions.
     • Issues shall have a general summary and a link to the particular discussion.
     • Discussion of specific issues (as noted by main discussion page) shall be hosted externally on a live-updating doc host (such as Google Docs).
     • Every issue shall have a distinct discussion page.
3. Voting Structure [in voting section?]

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Based on: Prop - Host GA Online at wikispaces