Meritocratic Direct Democracy Forum Architecture

CONTENTS

• Introduction
• The Philosophy
• The Way Forward
• The Computer Forum Sections
• Political Philosophy ^[Pubic]
• The Active Minarchist ^{[Active Members Only]}
• Central Government ^{[Registered & Interested Members Only]}
• Your Local Community ^{[Registered Members by Postcode/SOA]}
• UK Communities ^[Public]
• Implementation.
• Summary.
• Founders Recommendations.
• Links

Introduction

This paper introduces the framework of a currently unpublished and archived Internet Forum.

The forum is designed be used as the secondary method of interfacing the general public’s views with those of the Executive/UK State Government.

This is a discussion of the possible implication, structure & implementation of a Direct iDemocracy Computer Forum within the UK.

This Computer Forum is technically only a tool to facilitate the gathering of public opinion the paper moves swiftly on to detail the Forums Section structure

Click to enlarge

 

The Philosophy

Minarchistic, Libertarian, Meritocratic, Democratic
General Aims considered during design

• Accountable Political Representation
• Small Central Government
• Small Local Government
• Influential Citizen participation
• Community Based Focus
• Transparency
• Ease of implementation

The population at large consists of a mixture of politically aware & politically indifferent people, but there are strengths and weaknesses within all of us. A politically unaware person may well have a valuable opinion or idea when it comes to certain aspects of, say transport or pensions, yet have little to say on political ideologies.
It makes perfect sense to leverage this untapped potential by providing a method whereby a citizen can participate in operational decision making on a Ad-Hoc Basis as and when their will dictates.
The Polling & Layered Osmotic filtering approach will hopefully lead to well thought out formatted legislative requests being passed to professional public lobbyists entirely financed by existing corporate driven lobbying activities.
The current national elections exist much as it does today.

The Way Forward

Effectiveness can only be leveraged with enough members, the framework of the forum is designed so that membership would grow organically via the use and promotion of Local Community Forums, and Member Self Distribution Flyers.
Consider a simplified local community issue :-

• Boy x is terrorizing the street and threatening physical violence,
• Registered Local Forum Member posts an alert for discussion
• Member downloads Pre-Formatted Templates for distribution and makes a personal leaflet drop in the neighbourhood.

• Interested community members join him in discussion at the forums website
• Twenty Local Residents present a well formed petition to local police presenting possible solutions to the challenge they face.
• Boy x ceases to terrorize the local community.

Should the petition prove ineffective

• A template for possible legal further action is downloaded by members.

Registered members can access forum posts by other members in the Local Community Section (Postcode/SOA area)
Again Member numbers is a key issue and it is hoped that during registration prospective members chooses one or two UK National Issue discussion forums of interest to him either professionally or personally. Hopefully bringing together interested members in informed discussion of National UK .gov Cabinet Initiatives and possibly promote well formatted and pre discussed potential direct democracy Initiatives.
A series of Polls are promoted through the separate layers of the central .gov cabinet forum framework, Successful polls generate a well formed petition along with pre approved edits of previous discussion posts. Active Members then Lobby and promote these articles to .gov
Consider a simplified National issue :-

• Mr. x Registered during a local community dispute, during registration he chose Transport and Environment Cabinet as he is a transport manager at the local firm and has a profound interest in environmental issues.
• Mr. x joined the Transport section at layer 12 which meant that 13 layers of discussion groups, each consisting of 50 Members (13x50 = 1,650 Members) had already registered for discussion before him in this area.
• Mr. x Posts an initiative to improve UK Transport by getting .gov to promote a central haulage back load database website.
• A Poll is created and moderated at level 12 – “Should .gov provide a central haulage backload database”
• At [Layer12] 15 votes were in favour and one against and so the poll was presented to the layer above [Layer 11]
• At [Layer11] discussion was held and the Poll reached 13 in favour 1 against and was presented to [Layer10] above and so on………………
• At the [Top Layer Forum - TLF] the poll was assigned to an active member lobbyist who formatted the new initiative/petition.
• The format was agreed and an active member lobbyist was assigned to communicate the initiative to .gov
• Mr. x. got his .gov central haulage backload database which saved his company £thousands in it’s second year and reduced UK Co2 emissions by 3%
• Mr. x received so much positive Karma from his [Layer12] Forum members for his initiative that he ascended to [Layer11….TLF] and has registered as an Active Member Lobbyist.

The Forum Sections

This is a standard implementation of forum software utilizing freely available open source forum template software, current product is provided by SMF (simple machines forums).

The Forum is divided into Main Sections and Sub-Sections as shown in the Tree Diagram #1 and is outlined in more detail below.

Manifesto - Political Philosophy ^[Pubic]

a) The Lounge - General Discussions on Political Philosophy, Discuss …. here
b) - Public Active Initiatives
c) - How to make improvements to the Direct Democracy Framework

Executive Members ^{[Active Members Only]}

Executive Members Directed by one Leader and one Deputy.
Their Mandate is to progress the recommendations provided by the Top Layer Forum, although they can individually contribute towards discussions at their registered Forum Layer they can not initiate or progress any recommendations which have not arrived via the TLF Layer.


Administration & Development Branch Members Directed by one Leader and a Deputy.
Their Mandate is to supervise the UK Minarchist Organization to ensure that actions are not taken that is outside of the Manifesto, They have far reaching powers over the Political Branch. Again Branch Members individually contribute towards topics, Polls & Discussions


There is currently one Executive Leader & his Deputy.
They have one single Mandate which is to protect the movement and to publish approved Statements.

a) Branch Member Area -
a. Non Public initiatives
b. The Lobbyist
b) Administration & Development Member Area -
a. Internal structures
b. IT Systems
c. Finance
c) The Executive
c. Statements by the Executive / Founder Member

Central Government ^{[Registered & Interested Members Only]}

Each current .gov Cabinet Forum/Folder is individually layered (TLF Top-Level, 1LF First Layer, 2LF Second Layer etc..) and only able to accept a certain number of Members (currently 50), when that user limit has been reached a new Layer is automatically created and subsequent members are only registered in the next available Layer.



Members can graduate to a higher level if they have reached the required number of Karma Points awarded by same level members.

Each Layer has an individual Forum Leader and Deputy Leader; these are chosen by Forum members and act as Moderators & Poll administrators for that particular discussion group Layer.

Any member can propose a Poll/Resolution about any subject relevant to that discussion group and within bounds of the Constitution, Poll Administrators have the final say as to whether to action the Poll.

Polls/Resolutions which have proven particularly successful are automatically presented to a higher level forum for discussion; if the discussions prove successful then that topic/thread is itself initiated as a Poll and potentially presented to a higher level..

Members at the higher level have automatic access to lower layer forum posts for research.
When successful Polls/Resolutions have reached the TLF they are ordered into priority by TLF forum members and then presented as Articles for promotion.

Lobbyist Members will then Petition & Lobby the relevant .gov ministers to try and implement the recommendations. They may also contact like minded lobbyists with equal agendas and offer assistance.

a) The Prime Minister
b) Transport
c) Defence
d) Work & Pensions
e) ………………etc

The Presentation of resolutions to .gov will take advantage of New Government legislation that directs Local Government to respond to Local Community Initiatives. These Laws that could possibly be redirected with great effect towards the central state (what’s good for the goose is good for the gander)

Your Local Community ^{[Registered Members by Postcode/SOA]}

When a new Member registers they are required to identify themselves

When they enter the forum is automatically filtered to only show statistics and threads posted within the members same Local community Area.

Localized .gov Bar Charts, Stats and graphs may be made available automatically via The current Office of National Statistics Data Stream


This section would hopefully draw the general public onto the site members will have access to Leaflets which they can distribute, making leaflet drops in their local area encouraging neighbours to sign up.

a) Local Council
b) Transport
c) Crime
d) Local Events

UK Communities ^[Public]

This section will be available to all & contain guidance on how to approach Local Authorities, Community Initiatives that have proven successful etc……..
a) UK Community Initiatives
d. Recruit Members
e. Success Stories

Implementation

As previously stated the above site is currently functional but still under development
It is hoped that once development finishes and full functionality has been user tested the site could be utilized by a Non-Commercial Non-Governmental Libertarian Organization.

An Organization that is agreeable with the founders core beliefs and capable of promoting a working and effective framework of Minarchistic, Meritocratic Direct Democracy.

Summary

If the current working forum framework is correctly implemented & promoted by an NGO it could gain enough members to radically shake the future of .gov, how it governs us in order to serve us.

This may sound ambitious, but given a few good TV adverts and Blog recommendations anything is possible in the new digital age.

Our individual lives should only be effected by Laws agreed after a thoughtful and well informed public debate by interested members of the general public.

This initiative promotes a system of democracy where each registered member has a say and a vote
.
It allows for a the fact that some members of the public are simply not interested. Thus they simply do not vote.

It relies on self moderation to minimize the effect of hidden agendas.

Founders Recommendations

• Funding of Democracy framework should be Non-Profit & accounts held within the public domain.
• The site should remain entirely commercial free and would be moderated to ensure as such
• The current Plethora of Legislation should be greatly reduced/re-debated

Links