[Campaignforrealdemocracy] Request: Your thoughts on the website

[Mark Barrett]

 Dear Democracy Campaigners

About www.peoplesassemblies.org

Below are the helpful comments from Lucio just sent regarding the URL above
- can everyone please reply with any thoughts on how we might best proceed?

I do think this is an absolutely key issues, how to make the site itself
into an Assembly. The site itself - and the actions that flow from it -
needs to become a form of popular, common property that is of real practical
use and a source of inspiration to everyone involved. For this IMO we need a
clear, agreed (political) narrative, and a means to popularise it, and
indeed franchise it around the countries we inhabit aswell as ones
we don't and the website, in order to fulfil its potential needs to play a
starring role in this.

Thoughts?  Would be great to factor in before the London meeting tomorrow

And thanks again to Lucio for sending the ideas through - really helpful !

Cheers

Mark

   ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Lucio Versaggi
>


>  Date: 6 May 2011 10:36
> Subject: thoughts on the website
> To: marknbarrett at googlemail.com
>
>
> HI Mark,
>
> Unfortunately I will not be able to make it to the meeting due to some
> personal reasons, however I have been thinking about some issues around the
> functionality of the website.
>
> I've noticed that its development is already on the agenda, so there's a
> good chance that you've already had a thought around the same issues, I'd
> really appreciate it if you could let me know what you think, and what will
> come out of tomorrow's meeting. I've tried to put together my thoughts, and
> it would be really nice if you could consider them during the meeting.
> Please feel free to circulate the email if you think it would be
> appropriate.
>
> As the People's Assemblies tries to promote a more participative model of
> social organisation I think it is essential to consider the ways in which
> technology can facilitate this. Transporting the decision making process
> onto a virtual platform will save time and make participation much more
> accessible and therefore tangible. That's why I think the website should
> increasingly serve as a tool of internal communications and decision making,
> as it could facilitate all the procedures of the meetings and make the
> organisational process much leaner and more inclusive.
>
>
> The way this platform would work is obviously to be debated, but I think it
> could easily reflect the proceedings of a standard meeting, with someone
> making a motion, which would have to gather a certain amount of support
> within a period of time in order to be then opened up to debate, in an area
> in which everyone can make a contribution to the issue, where it stays for
> sometime before being put to the votes.
>
>
> I would imagine it a lot like Facebook, where a “like” would replace our
> shake of hands in the air... there could be room for arguments and comments
> but more generally I think it should provide the tools for the dissemination
> of information and ideas and the analysis of consensus, which I guess it's
> what Facebook does, only for the city and their goons.
>
> But if we could make it work as a platform for our internal debate and
> organisational procedures, I think it would make a big contribution towards
> a more participatory model of organisation.
>
> I am not a technical person and I'm not sure what this would entail
> exactly, but I really think that such options should be explored, as it
> seems to me that it is only by creating efficient platforms for public
> contributions to the debate around the relevant organisational issues, but
> most importantly to their decisions, that a wide participation can really be
> achieved.
>
> In general, I think that a direct access to the decision making process can
> serve as a stimulus to participation, connecting more closely the citizens
> with the structures of society, enabling them to see more clearly the links
> between political life and the world around them.
>
>
> In my daydream this kind of open system ends up being slowly implemented by
> the councils and other public bodies, so the public would have unprecedented
> access to the running and the development of the social, political and
> economic structures that regulate their lives.
>
> I believe that the current bureaucratic systems make it difficult for a
> citizen to make a meaningful contribution to the decision making process at
> most levels of society, facilitating a culture of apathy and political
> delegation instead of involvement. Their structure as it is, with
> responsibilities and accountabilities removed as far as possible from the
> people, alienate citizens from the political process reducing us to mere
> consumers.
>
> But I do believe that people are keen to share information and ideas and
> get involved with what they feel close to them, and this becomes quite
> evident evident within the realm of social media. Browsing through Facebook
> shows people posting about issues that matter to them, and posting comments,
> and creating pages and events and building up momentum for issues that would
> otherwise remain obscure under the old media system.
>
>
> On Facebook this is however often sterile, as it is a commercial
> organisation that makes its money by monitoring content to provide accurate
> market research for advertisers. This promotes the establishment of a
> platform that does to a certain extent stimulate dissemination of
> information and promotion of debates, however information and debates are
> constrained by a site structure that leads them to be brief and schematic,
> reducing ideas to soundbites and thus slowing down the development of an
> organic and comprehensive understanding of the matters in question. The
> primary objective of Facebook is to label and classify people's thoughts for
> marketing purposes, and that's all there is to it. Most of the passing of
> information and ideas has very little consequence on people's lives, doing
> very little to ultimately empower the users while offering incredible
> monitoring tools to corporate power.
>
>
> But if we think that this technology could be used to serve not the logic
> of profit but the democratic process and social progress then I think we
> should seriously consider investing time and resources into such a project,
> maybe researching other similar systems of organisation and maybe seeking
> collaboration and advise.
>
>
> I hope I haven't bored you too much, had I been able to attend, my
> intervention would have been much briefer but I thought I should try to
> articulate my thoughts more organically. I'm not sure whether you'd like to
> summarise the points to the group or circulate this text at or prior to the
> meeting, but either way I would be really grateful if you could at least try
> to test the room with these ideas, when you'll be discussing the “website
> development” item on the agenda.
>
>
> Hope you have a good meeting
>
>
> thanks a lot
>
>
> Lucio
>
>
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