[pp.int.general] [AG Liquid Democracy] Anybody checked out placeavote.com?

Tue Jun 3 00:59:15 CEST 2014

Thanks Muriel,
I believe blockchain based is something was floating around on reddit in
this respect as well. I bet they are just forking this!
It looks very promising and somebody spent even some time on documenting
the api :)
I am signed!
Gracies
Martin

On Tue, Jun 3, 2014 at 12:07 AM, Muriel Rovira Esteva <muriel at pirata.cat>
wrote:

> Dear Jacob and Martin,
>
> I am no expert, so I am not 100% sure of the terms, bus AFAIK Agora Voting
> allows traceability and anonymity simultaneously:
>
> https://blog.agoravoting.com/index.php/2013/11/28/a-bitcoin-based-completely-distributed-voting-system/
>
> I also allows for delegation. And I think it allows for the delegates to
> have a public vote while still letting non delegates to cast a secret vote.
> But you can also choose to have everything public if you prefer.
>
> Greetings,
>
>            Muriel
>
>
> 2014-06-02 23:53 GMT+02:00 Martin Stolze <pirate.martin at stolze.cc>:
>
>> Hello Friend,
>> Thanks for taking the time to elaborate on the details. I agree that
>> this got a bit out of hand on the different mailing list and it’s also my
>> last comment.
>>
>> As for the “big problems”. I am admittedly quite smug in that I only see
>> them as technicalities somebody smarter than I will solve. I tend to favor
>> pragmatic approaches.
>> I don't want to discourage anybody and I have the utmost respect for
>> everybody who is putting time and effort into any of the mentioned projects.
>>
>> As far as I understand it placetovote uses a pragmatic approach of
>> identifying people via social security details with a bit of private-public
>> key encryption probably at a too high expense of anonymity for our emacs
>> fraction.
>> Delegation, again another technicality. One can probably easily hack
>> around it like you can today via postal ballot. It’s just not done more
>> widely because elections are just too rare and unspecific.
>>
>> They are aiming at the primaries in the US, I don't see why they couldn't
>> take some of us on board and branch it off to Europe, Canada, the local
>> tennis club, … with different specs.
>>
>> My intention was really to find somebody who is hooked on the guys in the
>> states. I am under no illusion that they will probably fail and drop it.
>> However, I believe they are better in execution. I personally put an
>> extreme high premium on execution.
>> You'll hate me for it but I do believe that a solution that originates in
>> the US has a much higher chance of being recognized, supported and
>> accepted, unfortunately nothing trumps the immense concentration of capital
>> and talent that is available there.
>> I mean this project is just a sidekick of 59daysofcode.com and I
>> do belive buying those kids would be better investmetn then, let's say,
>> sending out another round of paper inviations to the GA, damn, our
>> pirate-party-micky-mouse-club-membership-cards were probably more expensive
>> :)
>> - It was more than 590 days ago when I looked into the Liquid Feedback
>> last time and I didn't notice a difference since.
>>
>> In fact, back in 2012 part of me thought that any pirate politian will
>> just abuse his mandate to make it a 4 year coding assignment and
>> disfranchise every possible resource to catapult the movement into a
>> semi-operational beta status. -Wrong judgment on my end.
>> My issue is that I can’t see much traction for anything that is currently
>> being developed indigenously. It mesmerizes me that pirates of all people
>> actually do such work on a local level that is so clearly something that
>> should be developed internationally.
>>
>> If you hear social network you think Facebook, if you hear video playback
>> you think “VLC” if you hear digital democracy you think ...?
>> let me know. I would appreciate a pointer if you come across something
>> that has a serious chance.
>>
>> Best wishes
>> Martin
>>
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Jun 2, 2014 at 6:37 PM, Jacob Kanev <j_kanev at arcor.de> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> Dear Martin,
>>>
>>> regarding voting systems there are currently some big problems that
>>> still have to be solved.
>>>
>>> (1) Traceability vs. Anonymity.
>>> In normal elections you can vote anonymously (i.e. no-one knows who it
>>> actually was that ticked that box) and the election is traceable, at least
>>> to the point that tampering of the system would get noticed by the human
>>> observers.
>>> In an online system this is not possible. You have an either-or
>>> relation. Either the system is traceable, but then it must be traceble back
>>> to the actual persons who did the voting. Or it allows for anonymous
>>> voting, but then traceability flies out the window and you end up with a
>>> system that is prone to manipulation.
>>> I don't know what placeavote.com have done in this respect and I enrole
>>> to find out, so I cannot judge here.
>>>
>>> (2) Delegations
>>> One single person cannot vote on all little minor special issues that
>>> arise in a democracy. Hence the idea of being able to delegate single votes
>>> to single persons (there are also many different ideas and ways of doing
>>> this). I quite like the idea, but to my suprise there are many people who
>>> don't. I guess a system without delegations won't work, and a system with
>>> delegations might have difficulty taking off, cause so quite a few people
>>> are opposed to it. This question first has to be solved to everybody's
>>> agreement.
>>>
>>> But I guess you know this already.
>>>
>>> As for qKonsens, it tries to tackle the easy-vs.-complex problem you
>>> mention. You can have different views on each question (depending on
>>> whether you just want to spend a first glance or read into it a bit), and
>>> the voting system is simple -- you click a "++", "+", "0", "-" or "--"
>>> button, much like having "like" and "dislike" buttons. This is much like
>>> your onion idea.
>>>
>>> That said, I don't see a nation-wide implementation of any of these yet.
>>> Placeavote is a nice try, but I dought they will gain much momentum. Would
>>> be interesing to see how they solved (1) and (2) from above. The other
>>> tools are intra-German-Pirate-party tools used for research and testing.
>>> qKonsens is in its proof of concept phase (aka we're still implementing),
>>> noddr is a one-person project without much resonance otherwise. Even the
>>> German pirate's party-wide LQFB implementation is not accepted by the
>>> majority of the party members (delegations may be the main problem here).
>>>
>>> So, I think best you can do is listen in on the liquid-democracy and the
>>> meinungsfindungs-tool teams and possibly join their discussions. The
>>> meinungsfindungstool people have quite a lively email discussion, also
>>> discussing implementations and ideas by other people.
>>>
>>> Hope I could help,
>>> lots of regards, Jacob.
>>>
>>> P.S.: Sorry for doing cross-list posts. This was my last one, and I
>>> apologize.
>>>
>>>
>>> On Monday 02 June 2014 11:46:43 Martin Stolze wrote:
>>> > Hey Jacob,
>>> > Thanks a lot that is one exciting idea! I try to look at approaches
>>> mostly
>>> > under the aspect of whether they can work and create traction. There
>>> are a
>>> > few criteria that I found significant. Simplicity, is the most
>>> important of
>>> > them. Think about limesurvey, the only tool producing any meaningful
>>> > feedback as of now.
>>> > Anything "Meinungsfindungstool" is like 10 Degrees more complex and for
>>> > that it seems to be not implementable right now. - And who speaks
>>> German
>>> > anyway? ;)
>>> >
>>> > I like to think of it like layers of an onion. The first layer must be
>>> very
>>> > simple, not even as complex as “yes” or “no”. Just a simple "like/+1"
>>> may
>>> > suffice. This and a focus on seamless integration to wherever people
>>> spend
>>> > their time must be the priority. Once somebody is hooked we can go
>>> down the
>>> > rabbit whole and do all the “Meinungsfindung”.
>>> > - It’s what I like about Silicon Valley and placeavote.com, they keep
>>> it
>>> > simple and deliver something appealing, the rest is iteration. In
>>> contrast,
>>> > udeci.de seems to take the opposite approach.
>>> >
>>> > Best Regards
>>> > Martin
>>> >
>>> >
>>> >
>>> > On Mon, Jun 2, 2014 at 11:04 AM, Jacob Kanev <j_kanev at arcor.de> wrote:
>>> >
>>> > >
>>> > > Hi Martin,
>>> > >
>>> > > you might also want to connect with the people from our "AG
>>> > > Meinungsfindungstool" [1]. They're busy implementing something called
>>> > > qKonsens, an online system that combines voting and discussing.
>>> > >
>>> > > I'm not sure how far it is, I haven't followed the discussion in
>>> detail,
>>> > > but as far as I can see some good ideas have met some programmers.
>>> > >
>>> > > Lots of regards, Jacob.
>>> > >
>>> > > [1]
>>> > > ag-meinungsfindungstool at lists.piratenpartei.de
>>> > >
>>> > > On Sunday 01 June 2014 20:49:39 Martin Stolze wrote:
>>> > > > 
>>> > > > Hi Together,
>>> > > > I keep arguing that a lack of infrastructure is actually our
>>> biggest
>>> > > > challenge. I guess, by now, it is safe to say that we don't
>>> actually have
>>> > > > the capacity to build something ample ourselves (Liquid Feedback,
>>> shitty
>>> > > > mailing lists, limesurvey you name it). The way I see it is that we
>>> > > simply
>>> > > > don't manage to activate the talent that would be necessary to
>>> develop
>>> > > > something pioneering. All the good ideas and innovations coupled
>>> with our
>>> > > > lofty idealism is worth nothing if nobody is pouring them into
>>> Java or
>>> > > PHP.
>>> > > >
>>> > > > The guys at placeavote.com have been gone through the news as
>>> they try
>>> > > to
>>> > > > shoehorn direct democracy into any form of electoral system by
>>> means of
>>> > > > levering it out and replacing politicians with proxies that only
>>> relay
>>> > > > decisions made by the corresponding constituency.
>>> > > >
>>> > > > Of course implementation, especially in the US, is highly unlikely.
>>> > > However
>>> > > > using it at least internally to a certain degree or forking it a
>>> little
>>> > > can
>>> > > > be a chance for us to move out of the technological middle ages
>>> that we
>>> > > are
>>> > > > stuck in.
>>> > > >
>>> > > > It also seems not to be open source (yet?) but I am thinking more
>>> along
>>> > > the
>>> > > > lines of sweet-talking the guys behind it into working for us as
>>> some
>>> > > kind
>>> > > > of software consultants, maybe we can flatter them with a bit of
>>> the cash
>>> > > > that should come our way in form of election refunds?
>>> > > >  :)
>>> > > >
>>> > > >
>>> > > > What do you think?
>>> > >
>>> > > --
>>> > >    ____________________________
>>> > >    Pungenday, 7th of Confusion, 3180.
>>> > >    jacob kanev
>>> > >      twitter: @j_kanev
>>> > >      jabber: jkanev at jabber.ccc.de
>>> > >
>>> > >
>>>
>>> --
>>>    ____________________________
>>>    Pungenday, 7th of Confusion, 3180.
>>>    jacob kanev
>>>      twitter: @j_kanev
>>>      jabber: jkanev at jabber.ccc.de
>>>
>>>
>>
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