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Implementation Working Group

Public Group active 2 years, 8 months ago

Online Discussion Groups (3 posts)

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  • Avatar Image Scott Trimble said 2 years, 8 months ago:

    In addition to using constituent/voter ID in reference to direct communications with elected officials, I think we ought to work toward the creation of localized (precinct-based) civic discussion groups. This could be done currently through a social networking tool like Facebook by just creating groups for precincts, but without the voter ID system, anybody could join (and I’m not sure if Facebook would allow groups to be limited, so that might not be viable). Further, whether through Facebook or some other medium, to make the groups meaningful forums that can advise elected officials of aggregated public opinion rather than individual opinion (which could be much more useful to those officials), we would need to find a way to get a large percentage of citizens within a precinct (and preferably in every precinct within a district) involved, and try to insure that the groups are accurate representative samples of the precincts across every demographic.

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  • Avatar Image Lucas Cioffi said 2 years, 8 months ago:

    Hi Scott,

    NewGov.us is aiming to do something exactly like that– creating precinct-based civic discussion groups– with Drupal open source software. I’m assisting Britt Blaser who is the creator of the project, and if this is something that interests you or anyone else on this list, please feel free to get in touch with me and we’ll see how we can collaborate.

    Ideally if you’re working on a civic project that would benefit from something like that, we should definitely connect.

    Lucas

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  • Avatar Image Wayne said 2 years, 8 months ago:

    In addition, while I’m not an expert on local use of these things, Steven Clift with http://forums.e-democracy.org/ does something similar as well.

    My take on this is that local efforts really need to be developed locally. The technology is not nearly as important as developing something that is appropriate for the citizens that you’re hoping to engage.

    Just so you know, Facebook does allow you to limit group membership, both by invitation/requiring people to request access and by network. Network restriction may give just the ability you’re searching for.

    If you’re not familiar, you should also look into CityCamp, the Open311 projects, and Localocracy (who is part of this community as well: @conor).

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