[MG] Hosting tools - was Global advisory parliament

[Alexander Praetorius]

" But still it  makes  sense to deploy the setup in a divisioned concept, rather than each  small group  deploying its own instance."

What is the difference between a "small group" and a "division"? Each "small group" could be a division, right?
The "small group" doesn?t need an expensive infrastructure if it's small, right?


> Maybe it might be possible to create a 
> "firefox plugin" of the metagov tools? ..each update would be deployed 
> automatically. Or maybe its an option to use sourceforge? I don't 
> know, I guess there are many alternatives :)
" Not sure what you mean here, but our code still runs on the server  side."

Hosting a Server and all software that is needed for others to participate in consensus-making efforts within a community must be simple. If the community is small, setting up a server with all the metagov tools needed should be a very transparent and simple process and this is vital!
Many communities do not trust authorities, if they would, they would not be interested in direct democracy or liquid democracy or whatever. Many communities also do not know people who have IT Skills and the best person they can come up with might be someone who is able to start a browser, knows how to use google or youtube and maybe knows how to check his emails.
Running a Server for a community should be simple enough for such a person to host a server for their community, because its all about trust when it comes to digital technology which should support democratic processes.
If people will need an IT Expert or need a megagov provider to register an account, that could be a barrier which might prevent people from using it.


" In my impression, during the last half year, most requests to deploy or  support the software came from admins, who know how to run servers and  support our infrastructure. I don't think there is any problem."

Guess what :) I think most communities that might profit from metagov tools did not even hear of our existence, because we cannot offer something that suits the needs of most existing communities.


" Content is king after all... What do you think? Maybe we can arrange a  bit  of (small) work, to fill Metagoverment's wiki and a central vote server  with popular political positions and content to demonstrate its  capabilities?"

No, I don't think content is king. Content will only be of any interest if produced by an active community itself. In my opinion simplicity and easy usability is king, because members of a community should easily understand how the software works and what it can do for them so they build the trust that is needed to make them use the software tools.


@Crossforum Theater
If this is not done in p2p style, it might be easy to do some censorship by not showing certain kinds of discussion.
I'm unsure what the current architecture looks like or what the best architecture would be, but it might not be a bad thing if communities are able to run their own crossforum theater which might be registered at other crossforum theater hosters so that they know each other and they could propagate their activities. By default, any crossforum theater server could be registered at crossforum theater server that?s run by metagovernment.
This way, communities can decide if they want to use it for their private purposes or if they want to participate transparently in a global community that will slowly start to grow bigger and bigger.


--
Alex

-----Original Message-----
From: conseo [mailto:4consensus at web.de] 
Sent: Saturday, May 28, 2011 1:25 AM
To: alex at twister11.de; Metagovernment Project
Subject: Re: [MG] Hosting tools - was Global advisory parliament

 On Fri, 27 May 2011 15:33:16 +0200, Alexander Praetorius wrote:
>> The design allows any group/community to host its own pollwiki and
>> cluster of attendant servers, but we're looking here at cities, 
>> states
>> and large organizations.  It's not clear why any small group of 
>> folks
>> would need their own hardware.  Let them use the hosted services of
>> their parent group/community.
>
> Yes, but how will you convince cities or states to use these tools? I 
> don't
> expect it any time soon.
> They might start considering such things if the software already has 
> a good
> reputation and even then, they might come up with their own 
> developers and
> start building something tailored to their needs... its politicians 
> that
> might be afraid of getting replaced by a software.
> Small Groups need it, because it would make them more effective and 
> would
> help them to coordinate actions without the need of central 
> "managers". As
> soon as a group has more than maybe 15 or 20 members, some people 
> will
> become communication-hubs. Sometimes they have a formal and sometimes 
> an
> informal executive position. They can influence the communication and
> dominate other opinions by using their power. If there is no trust in 
> people
> which show authoritative behavior those groups generally cannot move 
> on with
> their discussion because of community-internal organization problems. 
> A
> software would help.

 I am sceptical here, too, and I think Mike is as well. But still it 
 makes
 sense to deploy the setup in a divisioned concept, rather than each 
 small group
 deploying its own instance. So the idea is that the local group will 
 find
 the resources to support an instance for its division if necessary. But 
 it
 doesn't make a lot of sense to run a voteserver on your own, since you 
 want
 to maximize votes from other groups in the same division. Note: 
 Divisions
 can be any partition of social reality, being it geographical or by 
 social
 means. It makes sense to be able to fork in case of conflict or 
 different
 needs, e.g. integration of the servers in your own infrastructure.

>
> And I think anyone should be able to host services for any other 
> group or
> community. Its not a good idea to make small groups wait until their 
> parent
> group... a city??? ....uses the software tools they need.
> A small community could use the metagov tools to attract more people 
> and
> eventually becomes a parent group for other new groups.

 It is the other way around. Small groups create the division in one of 
 the
 master servers (which has a superset of the division already running, 
 e.g.
 the top division of all: Global) and then more and more local groups 
 let
 the division and the instance become more and more official.
 The first master server already exists and so breaking it down/creating 
 a
 division is always possible (in the worst case by a necessary fork of 
 the
 division in a new local vote server+pollwiki). There is no need for the
 officials to introduce or support the infrastructure.

>
>
>> That's the design.  The current implementation isn't something 
>> anyone
>> wants to run except a developer.  It's only a prototype and it's in
>> constant flux.  (Not to mention only 5 people in the universe 
>> actually
>> understand what we're working on, and most of them are here in this
>> list.)
>
> Granted! That's a big problem. Maybe it might be possible to create a
> "firefox plugin" of the metagov tools? ..each update would be 
> deployed
> automatically. Or maybe its an option to use sourceforge? I don't 
> know, I
> guess there are many alternatives :)

 Not sure what you mean here, but our code still runs on the server 
 side.
 Crossforum can be deployed from almost anywhere technically (being it
 inside a web service like facebook or the homepage of Greenpeace), but 
 it
 still needs administrative know-how. I don't think this is easily 
 solvable
 in a "P2P"-way, since this would mean we can deal with all problems
 automatically. This is very unlikely since the requirements of 
 consensus
 building will be very different in each community. I think P2P is over-
 rated in the wrong way, but this is a different topic. Basically P2P
 means that you don't need a third instance when you connect parts of 
 the
 technology together (over the internet). We meet this requirement for
 independence, while not trying to move everything in one bloated client
 P2P app. Also vote-servers talk to each other directly and the code is
 open source, so they are in the best sense P2P. If you mean by P2P a 
 client
 which can be run without a server than I don't see why this is a 
 priority.
 In my impression, during the last half year, most requests to deploy or
 support the software came from admins, who know how to run servers and
 support our infrastructure. I don't think there is any problem. You can
 run a voteserver on a really low cost server in your basement, or get a
 cheap virtual server for sth. like 10?/$ a month. We will also simplify 
 the
 setup in the future once we know what the users/admins need.
 The problem is imo atm. filling crossforum and our concepts with real 
 data.
 While I do think that the bridging effort is technically the next step
 as pointed out by Mike, I'd propose to also bring some political issues
 into Metagovernment and its Crossforum to increase visibility and 
 create an
 official agenda to spread Metagoverments goals of consensus building by
 examples.
 Content is king after all... What do you think? Maybe we can arrange a 
 bit
 of (small) work, to fill Metagoverment's wiki and a central vote server
 with popular political positions and content to demonstrate its 
 capabilities?
 Then we would see first hand what we miss at least. We can limit our 
 political
 involvement to a point where we recommend to the respective groups to 
 continue
 from our setup.

 conseo

 P.S.: We can draft this process in the Wiki as well, to organize the 
 effort.

>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: start-bounces at metagovernment.org
> [mailto:start-bounces at metagovernment.org] On Behalf Of Michael Allan
> Sent: Friday, May 27, 2011 11:56 AM
> To: start at metagovernment.org
> Subject: [MG] Hosting tools - was Global advisory parliament
>
> Alexander Praetorius wrote:
>> That's why I think it needs a scalable system, where a small
>> community could host its own service for themselves ..or one could
>> host it as a service for other people who are willing to create
>> accounts.
>
> The design allows any group/community to host its own pollwiki and
> cluster of attendant servers, but we're looking here at cities, 
> states
> and large organizations.  It's not clear why any small group of folks
> would need their own hardware.  Let them use the hosted services of
> their parent group/community.
>
> That's the design.  The current implementation isn't something anyone
> wants to run except a developer.  It's only a prototype and it's in
> constant flux.  (Not to mention only 5 people in the universe 
> actually
> understand what we're working on, and most of them are here in this
> list.)
>
> --
> Michael Allan
>
> Toronto, +1 416-699-9528
> http://zelea.com/
>
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