[MG] Hosting tools - was Global advisory parliament
Alexander Praetorius
alex at twister11.de
Sat May 28 07:48:48 EDT 2011
Where is the one-click-installer for joe-average to host his own server for his small community?
We always complain about the lack of active communities that use metagov tools. We need those communities to move forward.
I think the main problem I'm trying to address is that we do need software with an easy setup process which is also easy to use and guides you through everything.
If someone from a community with maybe 30 members, maybe all countrymen with only very basic computer skills, will come to this mailing list and asks for a solution. Maybe all of them have a similar specialization in farming and they are spread across the country, so they cannot meet face to face all the time. Maybe they tried to use a mailing list, but they stuck because discussions became confusing after some time. Maybe they all are affected by a new kind of law. What would you tell him?
There are many of these kinds of communities and it might be possible when we target these small communities and maybe by word-of-mouth it will spread to other communities, small clubs, associations, NGO's? Every time one of them hosts or uses metagov tools, they will be connected through the "metagov network" which consists of all communities using metagov tools.
Maybe in the beginning there is no connection between those small communities and they only do community-internal discussions, but as soon as multiple communities have joined which are affected by the same problems, it might happen, that these communities connect to each other.
--
alex
-----Original Message-----
From: start-bounces at metagovernment.org [mailto:start-bounces at metagovernment.org] On Behalf Of Michael Allan
Sent: Saturday, May 28, 2011 10:11 AM
To: start at metagovernment.org
Subject: Re: [MG] Hosting tools - was Global advisory parliament
I don't see the problem you are trying to address, Alex. A group of
any size (two or two million) that wishes to use the tools may start
today. There are no barriers in terms of installation or deployment.
I never meant to suggest that the tools would be hosted or
administered by a city or state government (heaven forbid), but rather
by the citizens. Although we have only two active citizens to date,
already we show many examples of this on the main page of the
pollwiki: http://u.zelea.com/w/
Any group may be formalized as a polling division if necessary. It
may also be sub-divided into any number of divisions according to any
number of divisional schemes. http://u.zelea.com/w/Property:Division
But nobody needs to worry about that in order to get started.
Please be specific about the problem, I don't see it.
Mike
Alexander Praetorius wrote:
> " 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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