Re: [apsa_itp] community law-making, a system based on recombinant text

[Michael Allan <mike@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, Aug 13, 2007 at 05:13:47AM -0400, David Bray wrote:
> Good thoughts. I'm enclosing two articles re: the biases present in
> digg.com and slashdot.com; to include "astroturfing"
> 
> Growing Censorship Concerns at Digg - it explains how a few users control
> Digg, and that it's not really the 'Democracy' that they claim it to be. 
> http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/04/20/1538256
> 
> Users on Slashdot Commenting on the Community's Bias - the comments
> themselves may obviously be biased
> http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=63164&threshold=1&commentsort=0&mode=thread&pid=5906746#5906939

I think community law-making would be immune from "astroturfing"
etc. It's not so much like Digg or Slashdot. More like an ordinary
political election.  Each citizen would have a single vote, and could
attach it to a single candidate.  The main differences would be:

  1) A separate 'election' for every legislative bill.
  2) Candidates would not be people, but variant drafts of the bill.
  3) The election would not be a single event, but on-going.
  4) Voters could shift their votes at any time, during the process.

But these differences do not open the system to astroturfing.

With Digg and Slashdot, the "ballot box" is easy to stuff.  They are
virtual communities, and have no way to enforce the electoral rule:
one vote per real citizen.  Also, it's not clear (to me) how their
votes translate to ratings; there may be arbitrary power in there
somewhere.

> ... in the end, both of these represent distributed problem-solving
> networks as information systems that involve humans; the technology may
> not be biased but humans will retain their cognitive and social biases.
> The question then is how to construct the interfaces and processes such
> that (to paraphrase The Federalist No. 51) "...Ambition must be made to
> counteract ambition..." of the human participants. 

In community law-making, the motivation to resolve social differences
is bound up in the desire to attract votes.  No draft bill could
become law until it attracted sufficient votes, And votes would bring
political power, prestige and financial reward to drafters -- perhaps
equal to that enjoyed by professional legislators.  One way to attract
the desired votes would be to broker a consensus.  If a drafter were
to reconcile two opposing camps, for example, by accommodating the
concerns of both within a single draft of the bill, then she might
gain votes from both camps.

Citizens in both camps would be tempted to shift their votes toward
the consensus draft, even at the cost of compromise. They would know
that their support could easily move the entire bill closer to law,
because, as the consensus draft gained backing, it would attract the
attention of higher drafters. They in turn would try to implement the
same consensus in their drafts, in order to attract the lower
drafter's vote (and with it, the votes of her growing number of
backers). So each consensus would work its way up toward the top
drafts, carrying its votes along with it. Eventually, either a single
top draft would reflect the will of the community; or multiple top
drafts would document their inability to reach a consensus.

Regardless, during that process "cognitive and social biases" in the
community would get aired. Those without foundation, or otherwise
weak, would be tested and perhaps abandonded by their holders.

> [ http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=962283 ]How
> Information Systems Research Can Inform Current and Emerging Government
> Institutions: Two Views
> 
> Hope this helps! 

Yes thanks. And that paper gives me an idea for the executive branch
of government. Probably nothing new... I will post it separately.

-- 
Michael Allan

http://zelea.com/

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