Stuff to do

[Michael Allan]

Here's an outline of my work plans (tentative) and some open questions
(further below) about the placement of the architectural docs:

   T  Priority  Task details, reasons
   -  --------  ------------------------------------------------------

 | A  1       * Read the philosophy.  Puzzle out and start documenting
 |    part-     the broader social underpinnings and ramifications of
 |    time      the theory.
 |            * These are unknowns and therefore risks.  But I'm not
 |              quite competent at this level of theory, so the best
 |              hope is maybe just to open it up for academics and
 |              other scholars to run with.
 |    
 | B  1       * Redact the narrower technical and political theory
 |              into a publishable, academic form.
 |            * A and C depend on this reformatting.
 |    
 | C  1       * Complete and redact the documentation of the archi-
 |    hard      tecture and practical techniques.
 |            * Otherwise we're confused about what the nuts and bolts
                are, and what's involved in the practice.

   D  2       * Design and implement free-range drafting.
              * It's a core freedom and therefore a risk of voter
                splits and technical forks.  The prototype is unstable
                and incomplete without it.

   E  3       * Design and implement a marquee UI such as crossforum
      hard      theatre.
              * Without at least one marquee the tools are unusable by
                ordinary humans.  Even technicians are quick to judge
                (and dismiss) the technology as hopelessly ugly.

   -------------------------------------------------------------------
    Priorities may shift as needed, of course.

E is the lowest priority at the moment because crossforum theatre is
technically difficult.  I hope we can eventually attract another
senior engineer to help with it, or maybe a gung-ho intermediate
programmer.  Still holding out for that.

A, B and C are lumped together as one, big documentation mess.  I
guess most of my time will be spent on C because it's the messiest.

What to call the architecture (C)?  It's a neutral design, separate
from Votorola and compatible in principle with all tools/techniques
not only the "communicative" ones.  For this reason, I no longer like
either of these names:

  (coco-d) Architecture for communicative and communicable democracy

   ACCoRD  Architecture for communicable and communicatively
           rational democracy

Also the word "democracy" feels wrong.  It's hopelessly vague, vaguely
ideological and inappropriate for some of the non-political
applications.  Maybe just pick a name that's meaningless, but friendly
sounding?

Where to document the architecture?  I think it belongs in a dedicated
area of our pollwiki.  Pollwikis are core to the design, and wiki-type
collaboration seems to be appropriate for technical docs, at least at
this level.

Comments are welcome, ofc.  (Sorry to post so many thoughts lately.  I
 hope to focus mostly on the grunt work, now.)

-- 
Michael Allan

Toronto, +1 647-436-4521
http://zelea.com/

In "Communicative System", I wrote:
> I guess there are currently 3 aspects of the technology to complete.
> Each is roughly near to completion already.  A good push (four or five
> man-months of work) would put it over the top.
> 
>   --------------------------------------------------------------------
>   Aspect to complete   Why complete it?
>   -------------------  -----------------------------------------------
>   Theory               To open discussions with theoretical social
>                        scientists, philosophers and other theorists.
>                        To learn why we're developing this technology,
>                        what purposes it may serve.
> 
>   Technical document-  To open discussions with engineers and other
>   ation                technicians.  To expand the effort of design,
>                        implementation and deployment.
> 
>   Design and imp-      To open discussions with users and empirical
>   lementation          social scientists.  To refine the design,
>                        expand the deployment, and start delivering on
>                        the purposes of the technology.
>   --------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Which to work on first?  Two patterns seem to jump out:
> 
>   --------------------------------------------------------------------
>   Pattern                 What does this mean?
>   ----------------------  --------------------------------------------
>   Opening of discussions  We should work wherever a viable discussion
>   is central to the rat-  is easiest to effect, or already effected.
>   ionale of development.  We should go where the going's good.
> 
>   The purpose of the      Before going too far in developing the
>   technology is unknown.  tools, we ought to learn what purposes they
>                           could serve.
>   --------------------------------------------------------------------