Votorola and the World of Gooie Interfaces

[Alex Rollin]

On Sun, Aug 8, 2010 at 1:25 PM, Michael Allan <mike at zelea.com> wrote:
> (Sorry JAnne, I was off on a tangent, chasing a different problem!)
> You're right, Votorola will need lots of GUI work.  It's still only a
> prototype, so there's huge room for improvement in the UI.
>
> You just helped me to see something new.  I think this is interesting.
> It has to do with our Babble discussion on participatory democracy:
>
>  a) On the technical side, we practitioners are always discussing
>     *solutions* - project X is developing this, project Y is
>     developing that.  We're always promoting our solutions and
>     arguing over them (all of us).  But nobody ever says, "We were
>     doing a little bit of participatory democracy over there, and we
>     ran into this *problem*..."
On the technical side technicians are often faced with activities like
"doing" something so that something else can happen.  Creating
"Function X" so "User Billy" can get "Output Statement Zed" from
"Function X" in a way that matches with "User Billy's" expectations
and doesn't sabotage the large collection of systems of within which
"Function X" operates.

Technicians can easily be cornered by such an approach.
>
>  b) Meanwhile, on the political side, we grassroots tend to
>     participate only by discussing the *problems* - the government
>     did this, a corporation did that, and this or that is wrong.
>     Almost never do we discuss the possible *solutions*.

As has been mentioned elsewhere on the web  groups of folks graduate
over time through groups are concerned with noticing problems to
groups that do advocacy for awareness to groups that are offering
solutions to groups that are participating in solutions to groups that
are providing solutions and even on up to groups that are providing
frameworks for other groups to use along the chain of evolution.
>
> What we're proposing in Babble (actually *do* participatory democracy
> in a small way) seems to be the key.  What's interesting now, is to
> see the "lock" that it fits.

Most groups "do" this in some way shape or form.  Needs, wants, help
requested, and "My Tasks" are a few of the way that individuals
broadcast such things, though these are often only valuable within
small-world networks.
>
> BTW - Should we call the key "guerrilla gardening"?
> http://www.publicspace.ca/gardeners.htm
>
> More soon,
> M
>
> Anne Moreland wrote:
>> I'm with you.You're right. Please don't worry about the gooie
>> stuff. It will probably take me years to master the gooie
>> programming stuff for linux/unix.
>
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