Issue-Boundary

[Thomas von der Elbe]

For some reason I believed the procedural abstraction would be easier to 
implement, if we had an issue-less medium.
But I think, I was wrong. I missed something. The same problems will 
have to be solved, just at a different point.

Only one thing keeps me still thinking. It has to do with the procedure 
to "merge issues". That would not be necessary in an issue-less medium.

> The problem I foresee is ...
> Here two candidates are neck and neck.  There is dissensus.  But we
> only see the dissensus because we view the results in the context of
> an individual poll.  If we remove the poll boundary, then we might see
> 24K+ votes for one candidate and think that's an electoral consensus
> (false).  ... The alternatives are hidden from the voter.  Unable to see the rival
> candidates, she cannot make an informed decision for one or the other.

That would only happen, if we use the filter to narrow.
If we use it to wide, then drafts which are not related to our issue 
would also appear.

But used in the right way, we would find exactly all those drafts which 
are concerning the issue that interests us.
We would even find the rival candidates, that use a different name for 
the same issue. (Those which in the current version are hidden from the 
voter, because they first need to merge their issue with ours.)

For example: if we filter out all drafts tagged "Toronto" and "Municipal 
Code Bylaw 583-2009"
we will not just find the drafts with the headline "Greener Green 
Roofs-Issue" but also the ones with the headline "Green 
Roof-Amendment-Issue". Both are actually concerned with the same issue. 
And a technical "merging of issues" would not be necessary. We would see 
both, we could vote on both.

What now is the technically pretty important "Issue" would then just be 
a much less important "headline".
Since the people vote for the text and not for the headline, the 
headline could be easily changed without asking your voters.
And there would be a magnetic effect, which would naturally urge all 
participants to cluster around the draft with the most votes and use the 
same headline, because this way they are easier to find. And thats what 
they want: being easy to find by new voters.

To describe the same a bit more from your perspective:
Lets keep the Issue-Boundary, but why not allow every participant to 
easily take all his delegated votes and vote for another issue?

LOL, finally so easy put in one sentence.

Thomas