[EM] constantly improving, serving the community - Re: minguo presidential poll

[Augustin]

Hello Michael Allan and all,


First of all, thanks to both Michaels: M. Allan for his 
constructive remarks, and to M. Ossipoff for his answers by 
which I stand. Before I reply to M. Allan, allow me to make 
2 general remarks.

The first one is that the site is in constant evolution. No 
such site is ever complete and finished. I have myself 
thousands of ideas of features that could be added and 
things that could be improved. I try to prioritise my 
limited development time according to what's more urgent or 
what's easier to implement. I am currently working hard on 
improving the back end which in turn will allow me to 
improve the overall organisation of the site.

The second remark is that although I have my own huge list 
of things I'd like to improve, I welcome user suggestions 
like Michael's. It gives me some insight on what users would 
like most. In that spirit, I just created a new poll where 
registered users can submit specific ideas and vote on them: 
http://minguo.info/usa/node/124 . Both Michaels are welcome 
to add their own ideas...


I reply now on the specific suggestions made:


On Friday, August 17, 2012 22:49:27 Michael Allan wrote:
>   * Display live counts and other signs of activity. 
> Otherwise newcomers will assume the site is dead or
> dying.

If one clicks on the 'Recent Posts' link, one can see that 
there has been a lost of activity recently:
http://minguo.info/usa/tracker
This tracker is especially useful for registered members as 
they can see which polls have been updated, which content 
has been created and which blogs have had comments added 
since their last visit.


The site has indeed been dormant for a while, but it is now 
very much alive. As I said, I am currently actively 
developing both the content and the software. We are also 
working on a major cooperation deal with Democracy 
Chronicles (  http://www.democracychronicles.com/ ) that 
should give a boost to both sites and, more importantly, to 
the democracy movement.

Having said that, I already have in my mind many ideas that 
I hope to implement sometime in the future that will help 
users to focus their attention on the type of activity they 
care the most about (see also below).


>   * Show the contribution of each participant.  Don't
> just take it and give nothing in return. (!)  Ideally
> show the contribution in a social context, because
> people vote for social reasons.

I can again reply in two parts: what already exists, and 
what I am currently working on. 

One can already visit the user profile of each active member 
and see both a link to their individual blogs on the site as 
well as a tracking page of all the discussion threads a user 
has been active.

I am also currently working on remodelling the back-end 
precisely so that individual user blogs become more 
prominent than they are right now.

In addition, I can think of dozens of small features I'd 
like to implement sometime which would more social features 
to active users. I must prioritise among all those things, 
but there is a plan to improve the site along the lines your 
are suggesting.

As to "giving something in return", the most important thing 
the site provides is a voice to the user. Registered users 
can use the existing, extensive polling feature of the site 
to create polls on any topic of their choice, add any new 
option or candidate to the majority of the currently running 
polls, and, obviously, cast their own vote.

What's more, we've just launched a Community Manifesto:
http://minguo.info/usa/manifesto
which will compile all the policy positions adopted by the 
active users (according to the results of each and every 
poll). We aim to provide a platform that users can use to 
express their collective opinion and work for change.

You can browse the manifesto and see the actively running 
polls which answer the following questions, among many 
others:

* "What would you like to use this site for?"
* "What can we do to improve our democracy?"
* "Which Election method do you like?"
* "How to use this realm to "Promote better voting 
systems"?"

The site is 100% free of advertising. I personally gain 
nothing from it (on the contrary, it costs me money to host 
and a *lot* of time to maintain and develop). It is a tool 
that I provide for the community to use as they wish, to 
promote their own policy agenda. Most importantly, it is a 
tool I am actively developing to promote better Election 
Methods and to further the cause of democracy. I hope this 
fulfils your demand (for me) to "give something in return".


>   * Restrict voting to real people.  Bots and sock
> puppets ruin the social context and render the results
> meaningless.


By definition, the polls on the site are internet polls. As 
such, they suffer all of the flaws of any internet poll 
anywhere on the web. They also suffer the flaws of any 
voting maching anywhere in the world. 

It is for a reason that I am personally a strong advocate 
for paper and pencil only elections. See the "pencil and 
paper criterion": http://minguo.info/node/70 

Having said that, I can assure you that I have taken 
necessary measures to prevent ballot-box stuffing as much as 
I can. I have implemented an algorithm that discards any 
ballot that appears suspicious (hacking attempts, ballot box 
stuffing attempts, etc.) I will not publicly discuss the 
details of the implementation. However, I am obviously 
dedicated to as much as possible ensure that the results are 
meaningful and representative of the people who were 
interested enough to take part in the polls.

On a related note, polls come in two general flavours:
- polls open to any person, registered or not. Among them, 
you have the 2012 presidential polls previously presented on 
this list.
- polls restricted to registered users: it is the results of 
these polls that are used to draft our Community Manifesto.


And now, in reply to Michael Ossipoff:


On Friday, August 17, 2012 23:15:48 Michael Ossipoff wrote:
> But yes, the website could announce each new ballot
> (without in any way identifying the voter). That would
> be of interest. We'll see if Augustin likes that idea.

Yes, I do. This is actually one of the thousands of ideas I 
have floating at the back of my mind. Generally speaking, 
I'd like to improve on the existing features, allowing users 
to precisely track and get notified of changes that are of 
interest to them: how many new ballots have been cast in 
which polls, which new options have been added in running 
polls, etc. It will take time to implement all of this, but 
yes, that's the direction I want to go.



Blessings,

Augustin.





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