yourcelf
commented
11 years ago Thanks for writing, I really appreciate your taking the time to think deeply about these tools. You might join the design mailing list (http://lists.byconsens.us/mailman/listinfo/design/ ) to gnash further about this.
Closing this as an "Issue", as it's too broad in scope for a bug tracker (this seems like about design philosophy than specific features/bugs), but please do join us on the design mailing list to discuss if you feel inclined (I hope you do!). You can also contact me directly at charlie@intertwinkles.org.
All of the design decisions are there not just for the hell of it, but because of feedback and issues I've had working with real world groups, while iterating these tools over the last 2 years. Tool integration, searchability, lowered barriers to access, ease of sharing documents privately with a group, similarity to existing real-world processes, etc. are all very important.
I'd be especially interested to hear more about how this is geared towards affluent white geeky men. It does require recent web browsers, which limits it to smart phones and computers from the last few years, so I understand the "affluent" criticism. But what about it makes it less accessible to different genders, people of color, and people who are less geeky? The demographics of the current users track roughly with the demographics of the cooperative housing world (since that's whom we're targeting), which are definitely skewed white, young (20s to 30s), though not particularly male or geeky. Are you just commenting on the choice of the web as a medium in general, or do you see specific exclusive design decisions in the tools?
Specific responses to your questions:
Twinklepad is there because other etherpad providers don't allow you to make pads both private to a group and searchable, and groups I work with want that.
Dotstorm: Have you really seen similar things elsewhere? Please point me to them! I wrote it after looking for something that does what it does and finding nothing adequate.
Points of Unity: I've used this (and an earlier version of it called "Ten Points") to great success with groups. An example: A newer activist group set out the principles around which they are organized, and everyone came to consensus on them. Then, when new people join the group, they asked the new members to review the principles and see if they agree to all of them -- if they don't, they can change them with agreement from everyone else, or decide not to participate in the group. In my experience (and that of my heros/mentors), explicitly stated shared community agreements are critical to the success of a group, especially if the group is consensus-oriented. (It's not ranked voting -- though that's another potential tool which isn't here yet.)
Why people can take actions without signing in: because login systems are a barrier to accessibility, and at the end of the day, groups have just gotta get stuff done and not futz around if they can't remember a password. Groups can choose to make their documents public, private, or somewhere in between. Also, the ability to take actions on behalf of other members of your group means that not everyone needs a screen/computer for it to be useful. For example: if I'm working all day in a job where I don't have a computer, and I can't see a proposal to vote on, another group member could call me or talk to me in person and record my opinion by proxy.
You're right, you could DDoS me, as you could any etherpad provider, any drupal site, or any other small fish on the 'net. Authentication doesn't remove that danger.
Facebook auth: This is super divisive; it's hard to get right. Adding more auth options adds confusion (this is well documented in design studies); many people don't or refuse to use facebook. We could add additional auth mechanisms if users call for it. Real name requirements are a no-go for security concerns; and my target users are small groups that know each other anyway, so pseudonyms are adequate. I'm simply not designing for large, anonymous groups -- Occupy GA's, for example, are not my target users. I'm designing for groups between 5 and 30 people who know each other well, have existing in-person meetings and trust each other already. Any other group type is what I consider mission creep. :)
PSTN: Would be awesome. My friends over at vojo are doing great stuff with this. But you have to start somewhere; and I decided to start with web browsers. You're right that this limits accessibility to less affluent people. SMS-based interaction would be a fundamentally different approach/project from what this one is; one that would be awesome, but a different project.
jart
Thank you for setting your sights on researching the very important problem of finding ways for human beings to come together and make decisions in a more collective manner.
I like to offer some quick criticism because I've thought long and hard about exactly what you're doing. I hope you will take this the right way, and there will probably be more to come once I take a closer look at things.
First of all, I'm amazed by how much code you've written so quickly. But there seems to be a lot of mission creep. A lot of the features on your website seem to exist "just cuz". What's the point of Twinklepad? Etherpad is already hosted on a million websites so you're just creating sysadmin overhead for yourself. You should also understand that normal people don't like Etherpad because Google Docs is free enough and a million times better. The same criticism applies to dotstorm. You're not coming up with any new ideas you're just doing system administration.
I don't like the Points of Unity thing. Well to be honest, it's mostly the name I don't like because points of unity are silly. Trust me, you don't need to go encouraging radical kids to sit around in meetings for months arguing about their ideologies and who's a bigger manarchist. But I do like that you used the logo from my website :+1: But what's the real goal here? Is it a ranked voting system?
I really like the progressive clock. I think this is something that actually can be useful for people right away.
Resolve could potentially be something promising. Honestly you should just have those tools be it and get rid of the other stuff so it's not so complicated. You're never going to be able to explain to people what this is otherwise.
Firestarter is something very similar to what I wanted to build once. I'd like to see where you go with this.
One thing you definitely gotta do is don't let people post content and stuff if they don't have an account. I could probably ddos you without even trying. I imagine the anonymous user thing makes your code horribly complicated too. I would recommend using Facebook authentication because that's where people already go to organize their political protests. It also allows you to have a real names policy so people are more likely to behave like human beings when they use your service and it allows you to spam their feed to get more users. Spread the democracy!
I also recommend integrating with the PSTN so you can send text messages so this thing works on mobile and crosses the digital divide. Your software should be written to benefit everyone, because right now it seems very targeted towards affluent white geeky men.