Digital Democracy Non-Profit

Greetings again SEADUG,

Sorry again on not being able to stay for the duration of the last meeting. I will better introduce myself. I became a Drupal user about 1.5 years ago in Minneapolis and worked with several others in the initial creation of Twin Cities Open Circuit, http://www.tcopencircuit.org/ which operates as a tech skill share collective with a heavy focus on Drupal use. My career is much more involved in marketing, particularly SEO and viral marketing. I operated TCSEM back in MN: www.twincitiessem.com

The non-profit I am looking to start will act as an online clearinghouse for the creation of city, county, and state legislation. The web site will allow users to caucus together for the purpose of creating ballot initiatives as well as organize signature gathering campaigns. The site will feature a social network (twitter and FB API integration), multi-user blog, a module that enables users to create their own legislation, a system featuring the google map API that enables users to coordinate signature gathering campaigns, Ubercart for membership dues, and CiviCRM for fundraising and communications capabilities.

My first concern is that someone at the meeting mentioned that a group of people were considering this business plan last year. Has anyone heard anything about this? I emailed the guy Richard Leeds from Neon Gecko and he didn't respond.

Some basic workflow issues regarding the legislative system I can imagine without meditating too deeply seem similar to the phpcollab project management software I've used.

How I imagine the process going is something like this. Some user writes a blog post that resonates with the community. Several people 'rec' the Communique (our brand for blog post(we're going for slightly subversive)) and it is raised to the Rec'd list which is prominently featured on the home page. From here, a good deal of discussion would commence on the post and users would begin to offer legislative solutions for the perceived problem. From here, should a good number of users (an arbitrary number I can determine later) draft a site-wide poll, in which a majority agree that a bill should be created remedy said societal ill, and a Caucus (our brand for groups) is created. Users are forced into 2 caucuses when they register for the web site, which are comprised of their county and city. These smaller caucuses are mostly left to the users in those areas to manage and should be decentralized. Caucusing on a state level can only occur when an issue is polled and passed by a majority (allowing 24 hours until cloture).

From the creation of the state-wide issue caucus, the only users allowed to join the caucus are the users who voted in favor of it, removing any roadblocks from the final bill's passage in the spirit of its original intent. So now we come to the document drafting process. Each issue caucus' chairpersonship is initially offered to the individual who first proposed it, although they can deffer this responsibility to whichever user they choose. Ideally I think I would like to see a system whereby the caucus chair writes the initial legislation and users can offer amendments to it and vote accordingly. When all of the editions have been voted on, then the bill is reviewed by a legislative analyst who will either approve the language as viable or not. If not, the decision goes back to the caucus to either remove the language and pass the bill as is, or quash it. If approved by the analyst, the initiative is complete and is added to the final list of approved bills. This same process would be used to write our org's bylaws.

Our agenda is a time sensitive one. We work mostly in 2 year cycles following the electoral schedule. For example, after November 2008 we would mostly focus on creating legislation. When we reach the same time the following year, we would then utilize an Instant Runoff Poll whereby users would pick their top 3 choices of bills from the list of approved bills. The entire community would determine by this vote which 3 approved bills would comprise our statewide agenda for the following year's election. Only members claiming membership longer than 6 months would be permitted to vote in this one to prevent last-minute malfeasance. These three bills are presented to all state organizations that might wish to endorse and/or participate in the political committee which is required to be established for the organizing and fund-raising required to pass the bill. From here, all community members are required to collect signatures for the 3 bills that passed, regardless of their initial preference.

Each user's home page, similar to Facebook, will have a link for, "my petitions", which link to PDF docs of the signature petition specific to the county the user registered in.

Other potential features of the site could include:

-Q&A similar to the Match system used by OKCupid. This system allows users to create questions which are moderated and included in a list which users can choose to answer or not. When a user runs into people via people search, a %age of how similar the users are is included in the results. A part of me thinks this would increase socialization on the site, which is good, but again, I don't want to encourage people to be negative to someone because they have a low %ago of agreeability.

-Daily Polling is similar to the above module. Users suggest poll questions which are moderated and added to a queue which releases a new poll every day.

-A js chat module similar to FB.

-Events management where users suggest events. A moderator then either confirms or denies the legitimacy of the event and assigns the event a number of members who can volunteer to fill the holes.

I will not be allowing any ideological or partisan caucusing, as this is an experiment in anti-partisanship (vs non or post). Users must also agree to a code of conduct when they join which expressly forbids the use of ideological arguments and rude comments. Any abuse of community rules results in a forfeiture of membership and membership dues.

Currently I am having the logo drawn up by a designer in Yelm. I'm not even considering the front end yet. Right now my priority is the back end, but I'm hesitant to incorporate until I know nobody else is doing this.

I am more than capable of doing all the data entry and monotonous crap work. That said, I will likely need someone to do the PHP and basic layout. My wife is a usability analyst so we will likely conduct usability testing with our friends in the Search marketing community. When I get the logo back I will do some focus groups amongst my Facebook friends to get a sense of how they related to the image. Given that some of this will require original programming, I am confident I can find people in this group that I can assist with advice as well as paid labor.

My other imperative is keeping it local. This is to be Washington made and hosted. If anyone knows of a green host in the area, I would love to know of it.

But I first want to open this up to get your ideas on the project's scope as well as potential criticism for the ideas I've presented. I know every idiot out there believes in their own cause, and I don't want to delude myself so be honest. I can take it, promise.

Again, thanks for your feedback and if anything I will see you at next month's meeting,

Bretton Jones