Voting System - Establishing a Forum General Assembly

Meetings
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I think you’re hitting some key points here @stevecoffman . I was told that the site is in connection with RFK Jr.'s transition team, and was originally created for a small group of policy contributors to communicate directly with the current administration (at least from my understanding) and it blew up for an understable reason.

The point of the conversation was highlighting the need for change, and how this system could solve the problem. Refine posts → create a system of clear communication through voting → get support from the constituents that are in contact with the transition team. The step we are all excited bout taking can’t happen until the forum functions in a near-perfect fashion. Understandably, no member of Congress would endorse a disfunctional site.

Thus the first step being education and clarification of the road map intended for policy proposals, and the proper format for a policy to advance.

I did mention, if the site where to be used for communication in a public and direct manner with government, that user verification might need to become a priority. I’m not program savy, but am still weary of bots stacking votes, and manipulating the system. I stressed how easily I could make several accounts with different emails and support my own posts for personal prestige.

To my knowledge you can click on the badge section and see which people have awarded the ‘Regular’ badge, most of which are mods and policy contributors. I already tagged everyone who is part of the conversation ^ ‘JayMudholker’

Lots of the issues you point out (monied politics through lobbying and organized political pacs) are issues that need solved through direct organization of the People in their communities. This site can be used for communication and the spread of ideas, but like you said, the use of this for direct influence of policy is a little idealistic as of right now.

But we have a goal. A could be, that seems within grasp. Even RFK Jr. had a portion of his site dedicated to petition signatures, why couldn’t this site use a petition function to get these proposals into legislation? State categories would help that a lot with the seperation and organization of proposals, which was a suggestion from moderation. Than it’s a marketing game to get the word out.

At this point, they’ve heard us. We should be patient and continue to refine our idea. Helping them by creating a thread for suggesting text formats for different types of all policy proposals (general legislation, executive order, amendment, petition) would really help them out.

I can also say that I directly referenced you and your mentioning of the ‘me/mine’ mentality of the forum, and how this system of proposal advancement and requirement for collaboration/formating can lead to a greater mentality of ‘we’.

I honestly wish I had a transcript of the convo, because there were some important details about the centralized and decentralized approach that they were wanting to take that I can’t quite remember. But again, most of this is idealistic conjecture.

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This was a phone conversation?

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With regard to this in particular, I’ve been wrapping my head around some of the constraints with this forum - one being the character limits to a policy proposal, and two, being the feedback from others about proposals being “too long” or “too complex.” For example, I offered to help produce a policy proposal based on another’s feedback on PATA, where they raised the issue of the Insurance industry also being problematic, so I produced IATA, and the critique again was about length. So, there’s a disconnect between what the general public will like for policy proposals and what is actionable proposal-wise to move toward actual bill creation. I’m inclined to build them for the latter, not the former. So, I’ve thought beyond keeping the comprehensive approach in only one policy proposal and using the comments section to link to the content, but organizing it instead, to have a naming convention of the primary policy proposal which links to numerous detailed contributions as part of a larger series. So, for PATA, I would pair the outline down, and then link each section out to its own standalone policy proposal which in and of itself, links out to a number of key observations that go into the reasoning or evidence behind each policy segment without cluttering the main policy text. As discussions evolve or new insights are gained, I can update the main proposal, or the linked documents with a clear changelog or version number in the document title which keeps the content current and shows a commitment to refining the policy based on feedback and new information. By employing these strategies, we can effectively manage the limitations of the forum while enhancing the organization, readability, and impact of our policy proposals. The goal is to facilitate understanding and engagement, making it easier for stakeholders to grasp and support the interconnected issues under one umbrella policy.

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Here’s the direction moderation wants to take things after our conversation involving the delevopment of posts-to-policy type contributions.

I see the benefits of your strategy, utilizing a mix of sourcing other policies and ‘decentralized-policy-construction’ yet I can’t help but think that catering to, and I hate to say it, lazy feedback-it’s too long; didn’t read-just feeds into the laxadezecal involvement our citizens have in their government.

Your suggestion could be a key component in the development from observation → detailed contribution-that being the ‘decentralized construction’ of policy proposals. You should post your reply in this announcements thread.