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<td width="633" valign="top" height="545" bgcolor="#FFFF99">Gravity Thread<p>

GravityTech

The technical side of Gravity, bugs and all.

Computer Assisted Deliberation

No new messages. 10 total:

  1. Michael Bowen (boohab) 10/09/1998 at 08:42 PM

Computer Assisted Deliberation

this is my old idea and i’m finally going to do something

about it. i’d like to brainstorm the design and

implementation of a web-centric discussion forum which allows

for voting & resolution of issues.

as we speak i am putting together some pseudo-code and

thinking my way through some ideas.

[Msg #8231]

  1. Michael Bowen (boohab) 10/10/1998 at 04:21 PM

Identity: Sleeve, WeighIn, LitmusTest

The first question is that of identity.

you enter the portal to the zone and register as a Citizen.

non-registered persons are Nons. a Citizen will have a Sleeve

which is either rolled up or rolled down. one’s sleeve

reveals one’s positions on various LitmusTests

the Sleeve appears as a band of colors ranging from red to

blue on a range of Issues. newbies are identified by their

absense of hue. whenever you WeighIn on an Issue, the

intensity of the hue becomes deeper. Citizens can Cluster

based on Sleeve affinity or at random in the various Agoras.

[Msg #8232]

  1. Cuda Brown (bbebop) 10/10/1998 at 04:46 PM

Re: Identity: Sleeve, WeighIn, LitmusTest

more, more!

not sure i understand the sleeve concept from a usability

standpoint. i get the idea of affinity based on positions,

but affinity can be demonstrated or denoted in many ways.

thus the sleeve confusion.

but i’m listening.

cuda

[Msg #8233]

  1. Michael Bowen (boohab) 10/10/1998 at 07:38 PM

Re: Identity: Sleeve, WeighIn, LitmusTest

i’ll talk more about the various Agoras later…

but let’s say i’m in the PeanutGallery and somebody says

something i like - i click on their name and read their

Sleeve. maybe they agree with me on other topics. the

attraction of the Sleeve becomes a bit more clear because of

the way i’m thinking about caucuses. so you can work with

your sleeves rolled up, have your issues unknown…

[Msg #8234]

  1. Michael Bowen (boohab) 10/10/1998 at 10:20 PM

Policies, Issues, Arguments, Premises & Facts

This is the hierarchy of subject debated in the various

Agoras. maybe each Agora is dedicated to a level maybe not,

but Citizens should be able to debate policy at all levels.

the point here is that when a policy comes up for a vote, a

Citizen is eligible iff they have done Diligence which is

represented, necessarily by a WeighIn and consequently

registers on their Sleeve.

the beauty is that there are really two ways to modify your

Sleeve, that is by LitmusTest and the other by Deliberation,

which is what all the Agoras are about.

but back to the Issues. Policies are designed by Framers

(Citizens with Credibility). A Policy is designed to handle

one or more Issues. depending on the intent of the Framers,

it can be designed from the bottom up or from the top down.

LitmusTests are designed by Pollsters (InterestGroup

representatives). You can Vote or WeighIn (the distiction as

of this writing is unclear… should one have a VotingRecord

as well as a Sleeve? probably). then you go to the IssuePage.

an Issue is always displayed with its most significant

Arguments both Pro and Con. there is probably some room here

for TalkingPoints too, which are kind of ‘amicus briefs’

which are denote important consequences related to the Issue

which may be Pro or Con. rather than WeighingIn on the Issue

directly, a Citizen will indicate some level of agreement on

the significant Arguments attached to the Issue. it is

assumed that most of the time these things will become

obvious, but it allows for many colors, especially if we

allow ‘amicus briefs’.

Arguments attached to an issue are polished and owned by

Citizens. Credibility is established by the number of

Citizens who WeighIn positively on Arguments.

a WeighIn currently has the three dimensions. Agreement,

Reputation and Intensity.

Agreement has 7 degrees. (strongAgreement, Agreement,

Acceptance, Neutral, Dispute, Disagreement,

strongDisagreement).

Reputation (sounds redundant) is a calculated attribute of

acceptance of Premises and Facts, it may or may not be

entered directly on the Argument.

Intensity may be entered directly or derived from a

ValuesHierarchy.

[Msg #8235]

  1. Michael Bowen (boohab) 10/10/1998 at 11:33 PM

Re: Identity: Sleeve, WeighIn, LitmusTest

The idea of a LitmusTest with respect to Identity is to allow

newbies to give themselves a kind of MeyersBriggs shorthand

as they enter the space. however LitmusTests are by their

very nature, slanted. they are created by InterestGroups

(i’ve got to think of a catchier name) as devices to gain

membership and adherence.

but in opposition to this there should be a neutral

ValuesHierarchy - the difficulty will be in assigning some

reconciliation by ‘objective’ computation of the

self-selected valueHierarchy, and a fully

Deliberated/LitmusTested Sleeve. one of the ambitions of this

(yet unnamed space) is to provide Citizens with some

accounting of the values they claim and the Arguments they

find attractive in practice, therefore the Policies they

support as a consequence. if the space works well, then it

will achieve the ‘Fred Friendly Effect’ which makes the pain

of decision making so acute that one can only escape it by

thinking.

so I imagine a newbie Citizen walking into the first Agora

and taking a ValueHierarchy test and then taking several

LitmusTests, maybe becoming a Partisan (aha, that’s better

than InterestGroup member) and working in concert on

polishing an Argument.

in addition, we should be able create historically accurate

Citizens and their arguments into the space.

[Msg #8236]

  1. Michael Bowen (boohab) 10/11/1998 at 12:00 AM

Wonking in the Agoras

Framers Wonk and Polish.

i find it difficult to imagine being able to Wonk alone

although many might be drawn to it. since Credibility is

established by the Weight of Arguments, one would expect some

slick purveyor to be able to spin something nebulous into

getting lots of approval.

but the way the voting process works, things should be

weighted in favor of Partisans working in cooperation, thus

Wonking should favor those able to deliver votes and those

able to respond to disagreement with their Arguments. this

drama should play itself out in the Agoras.

the concepts that stick in my head are the PeanutGallery and

the YakPool. these are roughly equivalent - hell they are

equivalent i just can’t tell which name i like better. the

point is that they would be the equivalent of what all

webchat is today - unmoderated, free-for-all flame-baiting

masses of blather trying unsuccessfully to gain concensus.

however, it is often in the fray where provocation works

best. an original idea will stand out every once in a while

and people will say ‘hey - what he said’. so it is this grass

roots thrash (MoshPit - that’s the other name i had for it)

where consensus starts. WarpandWoof. OK how about if we have

several free-for-all Agoras (WarpAndWoof, MoshPit, YakPool,

PeanutGallery). There any thread may generate Gravity (yeah)

and Citizens, especially those unattached to any Partisan

group, can generate Facts & Premises, construct Arguments and

have them attached to Issues.

But in order to attach an Argument to an Issue there must be

some level of consensus. so let’s set an arbitrary threshold

of 5 for Attachment. i think that the threshold for

Attachment should be relatively low, or it should vary

depending on how many Arguments are already Attached to an

Issue -either Pro or Con. (let’s not forget

TalkingPoints/amicus briefs).

OK so Arguments generated from the GrassRoots (the collective

free-for-all Agoras) are Floated by individual Citizens. I’m

in the YakPool talking current events and the subject of

discussion is Clinton’s sexuality, I post something and an

option on my Reply Message Form is a checkbox to Float this

as an Argument/Premise/Fact. I can Float any previous comment

I own.

In come the Citizens who are a-Wonking. Thread by thread they

can take a quick survey of Floated comments. A comment floats

for a week. It can Fly or it can Sink. These are then

constructed and Attached to Issues. That’s (part of) Wonking.

[Msg #8237]

  1. Ward Bell (wtbell) 10/11/1998 at 10:01 PM

Re: Wonking in the Agoras

The idea of Computer Assisted Deliberation is a good one; the

question is, is there a large enough audience that will work

their way through the complexity that Mike offers in his

concept?

[Msg #8241]

  1. Michael Bowen (boohab) 10/11/1998 at 11:46 PM

Re: Wonking in the Agoras

that all depends on if i allow Citizens to shoot each other.

[Msg #8243]

  1. Michael Bowen (boohab) 10/11/1998 at 11:59 PM

Re: Wonking in the Agoras

but seriously, when i was hanging out in the fray at slate, i

was amazed at the debate that raged on about the ‘person of

the century’. there had to be at least 400 posts. it turned

out in the end that when 3 of us decided to organize a vote,

there were only about 33 ballots cast.

http://www.panix.com/~mbowen/poc

so this indicates to me that people will do some solo

wonking. i also think that given enough controversy, people

will eventually weigh in. furthermore if the spec is open

enough, i can attach it to webx and motet and popular places

will add it in. if you look at the volume at nyt and cnn,

it’s bound to get some activity.

but even without all that i’m also interested in the ability

to use it as knowledge representation system. this afternoon

i considered the idea of ‘obiter dicta’. Arguments not

generated in any of the Agoras can be Floated as ‘obiter

dicta’. surely there are some pedants out there whose fans

are just waiting to apply their famous words. i can imagine

the AynRand Partisans making a great fuss and show.

[Msg #8244]

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    Michael Bowen. </a><a href="http://radio.xmlstoragesystem.com/rcsPublic/mailto?usernum=0117456" title="Click here to send an email to the editor of this weblog."><img src="http://static.userland.com/shortcuts/images/qbullets/mailto.gif" width="14" height="10" border="0" alt="Click here to send an email to the editor of this weblog."></a><br>

    <font size="-1"><i>Last update: 4/12/2003; 7:15:24 PM.</i></font><br>

     

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