[democracyLab dev] More blogging about DemocracyLab

[kirby urner]

So we were sitting around the board room table @ Linus Pauling House
(LPH) on Hawthorne yesterday, having one of our free ranging
conversations, the flavor of which I only partially capture in my blog
post of the time (written in vitro, with some links added after):

http://worldgame.blogspot.com/2008/12/wanderers-2008123.html

Mark Frischmuth showed up at LPH one fine morning, me coming in late,
which is how I first learned of this project.  I'm impressed by the
state of the art thinking, and Mark's strong grip on the basics, i.e.
needing to keep values, principles, front and center, such that
DemocracyLab functions almost like a mirror, a consistency check, also
a reality check, thanks *not* to Artificial Intelligence (AI), even if
bots or bees play a role, but to other politically savvy writers on
board, sharing the same sandbox, pointing out discrepancies,
convergences or whatever, engaging in the give and take, none
interfering with software-enforced rules of the road, designed to
promote civil freedoms.

What the above blog post alludes to are some recent conversations
along a fence between two projects, one open and one closed.  Oft
times, a semi-secretive company (like ConocoPhillips) will share out
to the public some source code of intrinsic in-house value, in hopes
that outside geeks while capitalize thereon, per open source practice,
and add their various spins i.e. magic, i.e. will value add and make
it better.  True, the original owner has put cards on the table,
revealing some of its hand, but hey, many silos are wasting cycles
duplicating what others are doing more intelligently, so if "best of
breed" is what you're after, then it makes sense to compare notes,
plus no one is talking about spilling out everything.  So yes, you'll
find lots of private sector companies coming forward with copyleft
projects, or sponsoring already existing ones, because they want half
baked ideas to become fully baked, debugged, well documented.

I mention ConocoPhillips in particular it's an actual instance in the
literature, per this blog post:
http://controlroom.blogspot.com/2007/07/python-in-control-room.html

Anyway, a basic metaphor to think of is restaurant food, highly
diverse, highly ethnic, such as we value in Portland (all walks of
life, all representations, persuasions).  When you write something,
you spice it up with various flavors, think of a spice rack, with
DemocracyLab providing the spices, but not dictating how they're
applied.  If you drag and drop an "I Heart Guns" icon on your
paragraph, maybe you're flagging your membership in a gun club, not
immediately clear, but you've just changed the XML under the hood, so
when you hit "Submit", the back end will have more info than AI bots
might discern (even smart ones -- not a sensitive to flavors as
humans, even biased ones scoring their own work).

Just a metaphor I realize, but a good one, let's keep the spices.  The
last thing we need is for DemocracyLab to turn out bland and drab,
only bureaucratic language, nothing colorful (does this mean a rating
system?).  The interface should invite a more wild and carefree
attitude, as we've all come to enjoy on Facebook, other tools.
There's a casualness to the GUI that doesn't mean thoughtless or
clueless, but rather open and encouraging of freewheeling debate.

At least that'd be my two cents.

I'm also interested in internationalization per previous posts, i.e.
in these days of Unicode, the ability to "re-skin" such that a Chinese
or Lao speaker gets a usable tool, would be a reassuring move by any
engine advertising civic-minded inclusiveness.

Given MVC architecture, i.e. keeping the Models, Views, Controllers
compartmentalized and only talked to one another over a few easily
understood channels, means a development team could work on a
Vietnamese front end without having to tightly coordinate with those
managing the back end SQL engine, plus translations could be made
asynchronously, as time and skills permit.

Just the interface itself, the GUI, could support drop downs and icons
in the appropriate language, such that an ethnic minority could get
started on inputting, don't have to wait for someone to hand-hold or
explain, all pretty intuitive, just like for English speakers or
whatever.

Welcome aboard Dr. DiNucci, another Wanderer, who expressed a strong
interest in his contributing his thinking to our little coffee clutch
here (beerhaus?  sake bar?).

Kirby Urner