Enabling technologies include:
- Zoom – for scheduling and implementing online transparent concurrent meetings of Australian People to share ideas and issues.
- Database – to sort and structure and store ideas/issues.
- Ideas Management System – to allow debate, discussion and voting on ideas/issues outcomes, resolutions and solutions. Initial implementation will use Tricider, a free online ideas/issues management system.
- Interfaces – to allow Australians to browse all current ideas/issues/outcomes/resolutions/solutions. One technology envisaged is Wordclouds using various measures, such as popularity, urgency, idea/issue grouping, Of course, many other interfaces can be used including tabular, graphic, multi-media and animation interfaces, These interfaces will allow Australians to quickly and effectively assess which issues and ideas they wish to contribute to and vote on. In our case, the wordclouds will in addition, have links to the associated issues and ideas.
A very exciting graphical data display technology is http://d3js.org
Click on the graphic at the top of the link page to see the live models and the code. We will use D3 to represent ideas and attributes and links to ideas in our Meritocracy Ideas Management System. The best interface that Technology has to offer. This will make our system extremely User Friendly and interesting. Our Users can get ‘lost’ in various visualizations of the data and then access the very data itself, so they can have ‘Their Say’.This post is sponsored by our partners Wigs
Another associated technology is https://vega.github.io/vega-lite/
This page holds notes to help developers sculpt the initial prototype.
Screen Layout
Should be based on the many social media platforms ‘out there’.
The design should attempt to show as much information about an idea as possible, ie. the initial idea, the # (hashtag) categories, likes, dislikes (see Facebook), comments, multi-media.
Ideas can be listed by # (hashtag), including synonyms, popularity, number of votes, likes.
A like of any kind is considered a ‘vote’ for the idea.
Thus ideas to be carried forward to implementation will have the greatest number of votes (see below).
Login and ID
Normal login social media security will apply.
If people want to take part in voting, they will need to supply appropriate id. eg. from a legal database, ie. passport, drivers license etc.
In this case, their ‘likes’ will be converted into ‘votes’.
Data Entry
Like Twitter # (hashtags) should be used by users to categorise their entries, at the time of entry and also when modifying entries.
Users will be offered a list of current # (hashtags) or idea categories to help them choose the correct categorization of ideas at the time of data entry and modification.
The system will hold a # (hashtag) synonym data base so that associated # (hashtags) are displayed in the same lists.
This map is the test eample of a peoples grassroots meritocracy, to develop a self-sustaining governance separate from the Parliament of the Commonwealth.
This map will function as a means of enabling individuals to vote democratically via means of the internet, connecting individuals and groups online.
There are a number of points to consider when using such a system. These are:
- An online democratic people’s governance system requires limitation access to people within jurisdiction of governance. This in turn requires geoblocking to prevent internet traffic from international sources. However, Geoblocking solves one problem by creating another two; Some members of Ausreal governance may use a Virtual Private Network (VPN) which does mean that a LAN or WAN will geoblock users on a VPN, preventing voting abilities; As well as this is individual members of the Ausreal governance will be unable to vote democratically when outside of Australia. Such systems can be overcome by enabling global access, and verification of users access to Ausreal democratic processes by means of 2FA, MAC address filtering (can vote from a limited number of registered devices albeit from anywhere globally) or manual verification.
- Limiting votes to one vote per member, per issue; A democratic voting system is nullified, and has no value when its system is undermined by allowing an individual to cast more than one vote. A fundamental democracy provides individuals the privelige of a vote worth the same as every other individual who is part of the democracy. To enable singular votes, such singular votes will require a point of data to clarify from historical entries, that no similar entries have been made. Such a method can be done either by MAC address filtering (a user can only cast one vote, per bill, per device), or alternatively, can vote once per username, email, IP address or user ID. There will be a number of singular data points which can be used to verify votes, although such systems all possess existing vulnerabilities which can be exploited. A complete working model is not ready prior to having penetration testing conducted on the system.
- Feedback from early adopters is highly valued; A simple, prototypical model may have all technical aspects considered, although a democracy requires fundamental data perhaps not considered at the time of a prototype development. Ausreal, as a democracy for the people, by the people, must consider all valuable datasets to possibly collect by all early adopters and stakeholders, and factor in considerable upgrading and changes to voting methodologies and user experience based on feedback from all stakeholders. The purpose of Ausreal is to provide an alternative for all individuals separate from the Parliament of the commonwealth, and should therefore be considered to be developed by all individuals using the Ausreal democratic process.
- The access and storage of the data; Whilst Ausreal is a system entirely separate and alternative to the Parliament of the Commonwealth, to access Ausreal is to access data and partake in democratic processes separate to the Commonwealth, by using infrastructure built and owned by organisations or government institutions owned and/or ran by the Commonwealth. Such a system is highly unlikely to be sustainable in the long term; and from project design, should be considered as a system that can easily, and quickly be migrated away from commonwealth-owned, or taxpaying-organisation owned to a self-hosted, wide area network accessible to all members of Ausreal.
- Incorporating access to all individuals participating in Ausreal governance; This includes mail submissions, in-person or phone verifications to cast votes on Ausreal bills. A website can be built with WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) Score AAA although this is in turn nullified if users without access to the internet cannot submit a vote.
- Voting discussion forums; To provide impartial moderation for healthy, critical and productive discussion around bills to be passed. Such discussion forums can be used as a valuable tool to provide information, insight and feedback to aid individuals with accessing information relevant to the bill, and providing individuals with information to assist them submitting their vote.
- Ease of voting; The purpose to provide an interactive map for Ausreal individuals to discover new bills and cast votes, is to provide an easily navigable, graphical user interface (GUI) which allows for quick access to bills locally to them, but also filterable by category regardless of geolocation.