Gov2.0 Federation in Pursuit of Crowd Wisdom - 01/13/2013

7/30/2019 Gov2.0 Federation in Pursuit of Crowd Wisdom - 01/13/2013

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http://www.everyvote.org/gov20http://www.everyvote.org/gov20http://www.everyvote.org/gov20http://www.everyvote.org/gov20http://www.everyvote.org/gov20http://www.everyvote.org/gov20http://www.everyvote.org/gov20http://www.everyvote.org/http://www.everyvote.org/http://www.everyvote.org/http://www.everyvote.org/http://www.everyvote.org/mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]://www.twitter.com/everyvoteorghttp://www.twitter.com/everyvoteorghttp://www.twitter.com/everyvoteorghttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributed_social_networkhttps://docs.google.com/document/d/1OevYMLtvnoJt33ac_GGb_0-ZFPTBi9UVesIE6qQGp4c/edithttps://docs.google.com/document/d/1OevYMLtvnoJt33ac_GGb_0-ZFPTBi9UVesIE6qQGp4c/edithttps://docs.google.com/document/d/1OevYMLtvnoJt33ac_GGb_0-ZFPTBi9UVesIE6qQGp4c/edithttps://docs.google.com/document/d/1OevYMLtvnoJt33ac_GGb_0-ZFPTBi9UVesIE6qQGp4c/edithttps://docs.google.com/document/d/1OevYMLtvnoJt33ac_GGb_0-ZFPTBi9UVesIE6qQGp4c/edithttps://docs.google.com/document/d/1OevYMLtvnoJt33ac_GGb_0-ZFPTBi9UVesIE6qQGp4c/edithttps://docs.google.com/document/d/1OevYMLtvnoJt33ac_GGb_0-ZFPTBi9UVesIE6qQGp4c/edithttps://docs.google.com/document/d/1OevYMLtvnoJt33ac_GGb_0-ZFPTBi9UVesIE6qQGp4c/edithttps://docs.google.com/document/d/1OevYMLtvnoJt33ac_GGb_0-ZFPTBi9UVesIE6qQGp4c/edithttps://docs.google.com/document/d/1OevYMLtvnoJt33ac_GGb_0-ZFPTBi9UVesIE6qQGp4c/edithttps://docs.google.com/document/d/1OevYMLtvnoJt33ac_GGb_0-ZFPTBi9UVesIE6qQGp4c/edithttps://docs.google.com/document/d/1OevYMLtvnoJt33ac_GGb_0-ZFPTBi9UVesIE6qQGp4c/edithttps://docs.google.com/document/d/1OevYMLtvnoJt33ac_GGb_0-ZFPTBi9UVesIE6qQGp4c/edithttps://docs.google.com/document/d/1OevYMLtvnoJt33ac_GGb_0-ZFPTBi9UVesIE6qQGp4c/edithttps://docs.google.com/document/d/1OevYMLtvnoJt33ac_GGb_0-ZFPTBi9UVesIE6qQGp4c/edithttps://docs.google.com/document/d/1OevYMLtvnoJt33ac_GGb_0-ZFPTBi9UVesIE6qQGp4c/edithttps://docs.google.com/document/d/1OevYMLtvnoJt33ac_GGb_0-ZFPTBi9UVesIE6qQGp4c/edit


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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate_elections,_2012http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_of_Representatives_elections,_2012http://www.opensecrets.org/bigpicture/reelect.phphttp://theenergyharbinger.com/2012/07/26/global-energy-consumption-trends/http://theenergyharbinger.com/2012/07/26/global-energy-consumption-trends/http://theenergyharbinger.com/2012/07/26/global-energy-consumption-trends/http://theenergyharbinger.com/2012/07/26/global-energy-consumption-trends/http://theenergyharbinger.com/2012/07/26/global-energy-consumption-trends/http://theenergyharbinger.com/2012/07/26/global-energy-consumption-trends/http://theenergyharbinger.com/2012/07/26/global-energy-consumption-trends/http://www.businessinsider.com/americas-prison-system-is-out-of-control-2012-4?op=1http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_populationhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_populationhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_populationhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_populationhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_populationhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_populationhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_populationhttp://www.cnn.com/2012/07/16/us/us-drought/index.htmlhttp://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-11-28/u-s-heads-for-warmest-year-recorded-in-lower-48-states-un-says.htmlhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:2008_Top1percentUSA.pnghttp://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=z1ebjpgk2654c1_&met_y=unemployment_rate&idim=country:US&fdim_y=seasonality:S&dl=en&hl=en&q=unemployment+rate+united+stateshttp://www.unicef.org/media/media_62521.htmlhttp://www.unicef.org/media/media_62521.htmlhttp://www.unicef.org/media/media_62521.htmlhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:USDebt.pnghttp://www.usdebtclock.org/http://www.usdebtclock.org/


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Gov2.0 is a broad term that describes internet-based tools designed to improve the efficiency,

efficacy, and integrity of government. Gov2.0 technologies make it easier for citizens to learn

about and participate in their government, and enables governments to draw on the wisdom of

its citizens to address issues.

Gov2.0 technologies are being used to help with: Crisis management

Ushahidi

Crisis Commons

Non-crisis management

311 Service Tracker

Adopt-a-Hydrant

Citizen sourcing of government policies

Finland

San Francisco

Government data tracking

OpenCongress

POPVOX

MapLight

Election information sharing

ISideWith

LoveGov

And many other issues...

[another example?]

This essay focuses on a particular type of Gov2.0 technology: opinion sharing platforms

(OSPs), which include sites like OpenCongress, POPVOX, ISideWith, and LoveGov. Basically,a Gov2.0 OSP is any site that allows users to declare support, disapproval, and/or another

position on a government entity or issue. Government entities include officials, candidates,

legislation, committees, organizations, and constituents themselves.

Votes vs Stances

There are 2 basic types of opinions that OSPs track: votes and stances.

Votes only allow Yes orNo responses, although the user may select the strength of their vote

(e.g. Yes +5, Yes +2, No -5, etc.). In general, votes are used when sharing an opinion on agovernment entity. Some situations where vote responses would be appropriate include:

Would you vote fororagainst this legislation?

Do you support oroppose this candidate running for office?

Do you want to upvote ordownvote this users comment?

Stances are used in instances where a range of qualitatively different responses is permitted,

which may include Yes orNo, but could also include Yesin the cases of..., No in the
http://www.ushahidi.com/http://crisiscommons.org/http://servicetracker.cityofchicago.org/http://adoptahydrant.org/http://singularityhub.com/2012/10/24/finlands-next-laws-to-emerge-from-online-crowdsourced-proposals/http://gov20.govfresh.com/san-francisco-citizensourcing-open-innovation/http://www.opencongress.org/http://www.popvox.com/http://www.maplight.org/http://www.isidewith.com/http://www.lovegov.com/http://www.lovegov.com/http://www.isidewith.com/http://www.maplight.org/http://www.popvox.com/http://www.opencongress.org/http://gov20.govfresh.com/san-francisco-citizensourcing-open-innovation/http://gov20.govfresh.com/san-francisco-citizensourcing-open-innovation/http://gov20.govfresh.com/san-francisco-citizensourcing-open-innovation/http://singularityhub.com/2012/10/24/finlands-next-laws-to-emerge-from-online-crowdsourced-proposals/http://adoptahydrant.org/http://adoptahydrant.org/http://adoptahydrant.org/http://adoptahydrant.org/http://adoptahydrant.org/http://servicetracker.cityofchicago.org/http://servicetracker.cityofchicago.org/http://servicetracker.cityofchicago.org/http://servicetracker.cityofchicago.org/http://crisiscommons.org/http://crisiscommons.org/http://crisiscommons.org/http://www.ushahidi.com/


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cases of..., or any other answer. Whereas votes provide opinions on government entities,

stances provide opinions on more abstract government issues. Some examples where stance

responses would be appropriate include:

Should the United States end the war with Afghanistan?

Yes

NoYes and only approve future wars through Congress

No and send more troops

What is your stance on abortion?

Pro-life

Pro-choice

Pro-life including in the cases ofrape or danger to mothers health

Pro-choice unless beyond the first trimester

Let each state decide abortion policy itself2

Existing OSPsThe Gov2.0 and government transparency movement is rapidly growing in the US, but there are

only a handful of major OSPs that exist today. They include:

OpenCongress.orgpossibly the longest running, most used (until ISideWith debuted last year),

and most comprehensive OSP. OpenCongress allows users to track and vote (Yes and No) on

US federal-level Congressional legislation and Congressmen, and facilitates communications

between constituents and Congressmen. Non-profit; open-source (Affero General Public

License version 3)

OpenStates.orgonly partially functional, but when it is finished it will be nearly identical toOpenCongress (they are both created by the Sunlight Foundation), except OpenStates focuses

on US state-level data. Non-profit; open-source (Affero General Public License version 3)

POPVOX.com allows users to track and vote (YesorNo) on US federal-level Congressional

legislation, and facilitates communications between constituents and federal-level

Congressmen. POPVOX also allows organizations to share their opinion on legislation. For-

profit; may have advertisements (but the creators of POPVOX receive no pay for their work); is

not open-source.

LoveGov.com debuted in Summer 2012, and allows users to share stances on government

issues, and automatically compares your stance profile against the profiles of US Presidentialand federal Congressional candidates, displaying the result as a % match. LoveGov also allows

you to vote to Support a candidate, but does notgive you the option to Disapprove a candidate.

The stance questions are created by LoveGov, and the assessments of candidates stances are

performed by LoveGov. The website also allows users to share news, questions, discussions,

and petitions with other users. For-profit; may have advertisements; promises to never sell

2 These examples of stance questions were taken from the 2012 Presidential Quiz on ISideWith.com.
http://www.opencongress.org/http://openstates.org/http://sunlightfoundation.com/http://www.popvox.com/http://www.lovegov.com/http://www.lovegov.com/http://www.lovegov.com/http://www.lovegov.com/http://www.lovegov.com/http://www.popvox.com/http://www.popvox.com/http://www.popvox.com/http://sunlightfoundation.com/http://sunlightfoundation.com/http://sunlightfoundation.com/http://openstates.org/http://openstates.org/http://openstates.org/http://www.opencongress.org/http://www.opencongress.org/http://www.opencongress.org/


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information; is not open-source.

ISideWith.com debuted in Spring 2012 and is probably the most used Gov2.0 OSP to date,

with the site claiming 5.8 million voters have used ISideWith to find their candidate as of 11/

06/2012. ISideWith allows users to share stances on government issues, and automatically

compares your stance profile against the profiles of US Presidential candidates, displaying theresult as a % match. The stance questions are created by ISideWith, and the stance evaluations

of candidates are performed by ISideWith. For-profit; may have advertisements; may sell user

information (?); is not open-source.

reddit and Digg are 2 OSPs that seem outside of the Gov2.0 domain, but as all American

students learn in US History class, the free press is the 4th branch of the US government. Both

sites are social news sharing platforms that allow users to submit links (news), and users vote

for which links will receive the most attention, with the most popular links appearing on the

sites home page. Whereas Digg only allows users to vote Yes on links (Digg them), reddit

allows users to vote Yes orNo on links (upvote ordownvote). Also, reddit allows users to

submit and vote on comments, but Digg does not. reddit = for-profit, has advertisements, may

sell user information (?), and is open-source. Digg = for-profit, as of this yearno longer has

advertisements, may sell user information (?), and is not open-source.

[Another currently functional OSP?]

We should also note the data providers that make some of the aforementioned OSPs possible.

Each of these sites offers their data free-of-charge to any site that wants to use it.

VoteSmart.org supplies candidate data for US federal and state elections.

GovTrack.us supplies US federal legislation data.

SunlightLabs.org supplies US federal and state legislation, Congressional data, and campaign

finance data.

FollowtheMoney.org supplies US federal and state campaign finance data.

MapLight.org supplies US federal and some state campaign finance data.

OpenSecrets.org supplies US federal campaign finance data.

[Another data supplier?]

While each of these previously mentioned OSPs and data suppliers have their own strengths

and limitations, what is true of all of them is that too small a fraction of the US population is

using them. According to the OpenCongressAbout page, the site has grown to become the

most-visited government transparency website in the United States, with approximately one
http://www.isidewith.com/http://www.reddit.com/http://www.digg.com/http://www.votesmart.org/http://www.govtrack.us/http://www.sunlight.org/http://www.followthemoney.org/http://www.maplight.org/http://www.opensecrets.org/http://www.opencongress.org/abouthttp://www.opencongress.org/abouthttp://www.opencongress.org/abouthttp://www.opensecrets.org/http://www.opensecrets.org/http://www.opensecrets.org/http://www.maplight.org/http://www.maplight.org/http://www.maplight.org/http://www.followthemoney.org/http://www.followthemoney.org/http://www.followthemoney.org/http://www.sunlight.org/http://www.sunlight.org/http://www.sunlight.org/http://www.govtrack.us/http://www.govtrack.us/http://www.govtrack.us/http://www.votesmart.org/http://www.votesmart.org/http://www.votesmart.org/http://www.digg.com/http://www.digg.com/http://www.reddit.com/http://www.reddit.com/http://www.isidewith.com/http://www.isidewith.com/http://www.isidewith.com/http://www.isidewith.com/


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million visits per month and a user community of more than 150,000 members. OpenCongress

is a cutting-edge, insightful resource, but 150,000 members = 0.07% of the adult US population.

ISideWith had great success attracting users in advance of the November 2012 US elections.

If we assume that the 5.8 millions users who used ISideWith were all different US adults, then

2.5% of the adult US population used ISideWith to learn about their presidential candidates.

In order to reach a larger percentage of the US population, OSPs will need to offer people

more incentive to use their services. These next two sections will discuss two ways we can

give people more incentive to use OSPs: by creating a public, comprehensive US candidate

database, and establishing an open, federated OSP network. I will then argue in favor of

establishing an open, federated OSP network to support wise crowd conditions, and in the last

section Ill provide an introduction to EveryVote.org and a tour of its current design diagrams.

3) Building an Open, Comprehensive Candidate

DatabaseOne of the greatest services we can offer American voters today is the ability to learn about

and connect with every candidate in every election they are eligible to vote in---federal, state,

county, and local---all through a single, easy-to-use webpage. As of Dec 2012, Gov2.0 OSPs

provide data for federal and state level elections, but have no data on county or local level

elections. In order for you to see all of your candidates on a single page, someone will have to

make a comprehensive candidate database. This database must be freely available for anyone

to incorporate into their own website, so no one site holds a monopoly on this data and how it is

presented.

There are at least three ways an open, comprehensive candidate database can be achieved: (1)through a government initiative, (2) manually by non-profit organizations, or (3) voluntarily by the

candidates themselves.

Government initiative - The US government assembles the database itself and makes it

openly available to the public. This would require passing legislation that ensures the data

is accurate, comprehensive, and timely. While this could be a viable method of creating the

database, one has to wonder, are US legislators willing to advocate for a program that would

improve the visibility of all candidates, even their rivals? And even if US legislators do support

legislation for establishing the database, how long would it take for it to be completed and

available to the public? Would it be ready in time for our next election? How many US electionswould pass by before the database is available? And if it was made, would it be available for

any site to use, or would only privileged sites be allowed access?

Manually - Non-governmental organizations assemble the database and make it openly

available to the public. This is exactly what VoteSmart.org does for federal and state-level

elections, but does not yet have comprehensive county and local-level candidate data.

Unfortunately, it is hard to imagine VoteSmart.org assembling a comprehensive candidate


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database anytime soon, because candidate data becomes exponentially more difficult to collect

at the county and local levels. While there are only 50 states to track, there are 3,130 counties,

and over 25,000 cities in America, each with their own respective elections. With enough

funding and manpower, non-governmental organizations could achieve a comprehensive

candidate database, but it would be an arduous task, and would require much more funding

than these organizations currently have available.

Voluntarily - Candidates add themselves to the comprehensive candidate database. This is

the best possible method for establishing a comprehensive candidate database. It would cost

radically less money than lobbying for legislators to implement a government initiative or hiring

workers to manually enter the data. Whats more, no-one would be excluded from the process,

since everyone would have equal opportunity to add themselves to the database. This would

still require a non-governmental organization or collection of non-governmental organizations

to host the database and facilitate the process of candidates adding themselves to it, so the

hosting organizations would need to make their operations as transparent as possible to protect

against bias and other bad practices.

4) Open OSP Federation for Freedom, Convenience,

and Innovation

Today, if you vote on bills on OpenCongress, you need to manually re-submit your votes on

those same bills if you later use POPVOX. If you told LoveGov you are pro-life, and in favor of

decreasing military spending, you would need to manually resubmit those same stances if you

later used ISideWith. Wouldnt it be great if the voting decisions you made on OpenCongress

could be easily transferred to POPVOX? If the stances you submit to LoveGov could be easilytransferred to ISideWith? If those sites participated in the same federated OSP network, you

could.

In a federated network (also known as a distributed network), each participating website is able

to compatibly share its data with any other website in the network, so the votes and stances

you cast on one site can be easily transferred to or synced with another site of your choosing.

Federation liberates users from becoming locked-in to a single site that hoards data, spares

users from having to resubmit the same data across multiple sites, and encourages users to

experiment with different sites connect with the network.

Examples of existing federated systems:

Facebook Connect -

OpenID -

OAuth -

Disaspora-

Friendica-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributed_social_networkhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook_Platform#Facebook_Connecthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenIDhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OAuthhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaspora_(social_network)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friendicahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friendicahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaspora_(social_network)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OAuthhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenIDhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook_Platform#Facebook_Connecthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook_Platform#Facebook_Connecthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook_Platform#Facebook_Connecthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributed_social_networkhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributed_social_networkhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributed_social_network


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A federated OSP network would allow users to create their personal civic profile, which includes

a list of all of their formed opinions (in the forms of votes and stances) on government entities

and issues, and any other number of data fields related to civic engagement and beyond.

Potentially, a federated OSP network could incorporate all the interactions of any other social

network, such as messaging, status updates, profile data, and friending.

Elements of your locally-based, federation compatible civic profile can include:

Your name

Your email address

Your voting districts

Your political party/ies

Your votes on:

Government officials

Candidates

Legislation

Committees

Groups

Other people

News (links)

Any other type of entity

Your stances on:

Government issues

Any other type of question

Your friends

Your religious affiliation

Your education historyYour relationship status

Your status updates

Your direct messages to other profiles

Your other profile data

Hometown

Inspirational figures

Favorite quotes

Favorite books/music/movies/TV/sports/etc.

etc. etc. etc.

OSP Open Standards - How We Achieve OSP Federation

In order to create a federated OSP network, aspiring and existing OSP platforms must begin

collaborating to create and coordinating to use the same OSP open standards. Open

standards allow a platform to communicate with any other platform that uses the same

open standards. They would ensure that your vote on a government entity on Site A could

be accurately understood by Site B. Another term for this compatible transfer of data is


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interoperability. Sites that use the same set of open standards basically agree to speak the

same language so that their code can be interoperable. Without open standards, each site

would speak a language of its own creation, incomprehensible to any other.

A good way for non-technical people to understand computing open standards and what

they mean to the OSP industry is to compare them with the standardization of a much oldertechnology: the screw.

In the 1860s, William Sellers3 embarked on a campaign to get America to adopt a standardized

screw (which happened to be of his own design). Before the standardized screw, every

American screw had to be handmade by a craftsman. This arrangement worked well for

the craftsmen, because only they had the proper tools to repair what they made, and thus

customers were locked-in to long-term relationships with their original craftsman. The flip-side

of this arrangement was that it worked terribly for the customers and the US economy overall.

Sellers knew that if screws became standardized, customers would have more freedom to

choose their craftsmen, would save money, and industrial mass production in the US would

become possible.

Sellers challenge was not only to create a good design for his standard, but to motivate

craftsmen ---the same people who traditionally make money from the lack of standardization---

to adopt his standard. Sellers believed connections and influence shape peoples decisions, so

Sellers targeted influential customers like the Pennsylvania Railroad and US Navy. Every major

new customer attracted a wave of new customers, and within a decade, his design became the

US standard.

Sellers was convinced standardization of the screw would boost the US economy and speed-

up innovation. Likewise, OSP open standards can potentially help our economy and speed-up innovation by enabling constituents to have a more active and informed role in their

government.

Sellers biggest obstacle to screw standardization was the craftsmen themselves, because

historically they profited most from the ability to lock-in their customers. OSPs that do not

participate in federation also lock-in their customers. Unlike the screw industry though, OSPs

today tend to be driven by civically motivated individuals pursuing the common good more

so than profits, so perhaps OSP open standards today will be easier to achieve than screw

standardization. Still, universal open standard adoption is notoriously difficult to achieve (see

below), and theres still the question, do existing and will future OSP providers see federation as

an advantage or disadvantage to their bottom line?4

3 This account of the standardization of the screw has been adapted from Surowieckis Wisdom of

Crowds.4 More on this in a few paragraphs, but I think OSP federation today would attract more visitors to all sites

participating in the network.


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xkcd.com/927

Sellers believed that screw standardization was inevitable, and so raced to have his design

adopted first, but OSP open standard adoption is not inevitable. OSPs are a type of social

network, and social networks have a natural tendency to form monopolies, and to form them

rapidly. This happens because of the network effect, which is the phenomenon of somethings

value depending on how many people use it. If most of your friends are on Facebook, and

fewer are on Google+ or MySpace, then you are more likely to start or continue using Facebook

instead of Google+ or MySpace. The fact that Google invested approx. $585 million in Google+,

and is recently making gains in active users, but has 10% the active users as Facebook5,

illustrates how powerful the network effect can be. OSPs are also influenced by the network

effect, so we should note that if an OSP or several attract a majority of users, but decide not touse a common open standard, the site may hold back successful OSP federation.

Ways You Can Help OSP Federation Succeed

If you want the ability to participate in a federated OSP network, whether youre a developer

or not, you can help the development and adoption of open standards by introducing the

concept of online federation to people. You can tell them that federation allows you to choose

to share your data between websites, so you would only have to make your profile one time,

and your profile could be transferred to any site you want in the network. Also, federation can

allow you to communicate with people who do not use the same website as you but use a site

that participates in the same distributed OSP network. Federation can even allow you to post

a status update to one website, and have it simultaneously posted on any number of other

websites of your choosing. Ultimately, a healthy federated network offers freedom, convenience,

and connectivity for internet users. To support the candidate database, you can mention it would

be nice for there to be websites that offered info on every candidate in every election youre

5 Google+ = 135 million active users / Facebook = 1 billion active users
http://www.xkcd.com/927http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_effecthttp://www.forbes.com/sites/bruceupbin/2011/06/30/google-cost-585-million-to-build-or-what-rupert-paid-for-myspace/http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/google-more-closely-mirroring-facebook-145746http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/google-more-closely-mirroring-facebook-145746http://www.forbes.com/sites/bruceupbin/2011/06/30/google-cost-585-million-to-build-or-what-rupert-paid-for-myspace/http://www.forbes.com/sites/bruceupbin/2011/06/30/google-cost-585-million-to-build-or-what-rupert-paid-for-myspace/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_effecthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_effecthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_effecthttp://www.xkcd.com/927http://www.xkcd.com/927http://www.xkcd.com/927http://www.xkcd.com/927


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eligible to vote in on a single page.

If you are a developer, you can help by designing with federation in mind, and participating

in public discussions about establishing OSP open standards. You can start by visiting

EveryVote.org and clicking the Federation tab and posting to the forums, helping develop

the OSP Federation wiki (mirrorable), and helping develop the Gov2.0 wiki (mirrorable). Emaillistservs focusing on developing and using OSP open standards would also help, [option A?],

[option B?], [option etc?].

OSPs Are Uniquely Suited for Federation

While attempts at social network federation like Diaspora and Friendica have so far been unable

to attract widespread user participation, there are at least 4 ways in which OSP federation is

better suited for success:

1) Personal civic data is very sensitive information. People are more concerned about

who they share their civic data with than standard social network data. So, users wouldappreciate the fact a distributed OSP network would allow them the freedom to decide

which OSPs have a Terms of Use policy appropriate for them.

2) Most people dont like politics that much. The existing Gov2.0 platforms are not

attracting enough users to support robust, in-depth debates and information exchanges.

Federation would remove barriers to participation on these sites, and potentially increase

participation on each of them.

3) Civic engagement can be a time-consuming process. Users would appreciate the

ability to make a voting selection one time, knowing that the time they invested intomaking that decision cant be wasted, even if they decide to use a different OSP later.

And since civic engagement is not everyones favorite activity, it would be good for users

to experiment with multiple different OSPs to avoid boredom.

4) No OSP today has a monopoly on users, so the door is open for OSP federation.

This is true today, but it may not be true tomorrow. If you like the idea, you should start

advocating for its development today, before a dominant OSP may make successful

federation more difficult tomorrow.

5) Open OSP Federation to Support Wise CrowdConditions

Situations exist where crowds tend to be wiser than the wisest individuals within them. Crowd

wisdom, also known as collective intelligence, is an experimentally verifiable phenomenon,

observed in situations like the following:


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When a crowd of people is asked to guess the weight of an ox or the number of

marbles in a jar, the average of all of the crowds guesses is almost exactly correct,

most of the time.

On the TV game show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, contestants are given at least3 lifelines to assist the user in determining the correct answer. One lifeline is the 50/

50, which removes 2 of the 4 possible answer choices, giving the contestant at least a

50% chance of selecting the correct answer. Another lifeline is Phone a Friend, which

lets the contestant call their smartest friend for help with the question. 65% of the time

the contestants expert friend selects the correct answer. The last lifeline is Ask the

Audience, which allows the contestant to ask every member in the live studio audience

to submit their guess, and then displays the totals of their guesses to the contestant.

This lifeline is by far the most accurate, with the crowd selecting the correct answer 91%

of the time.

Google revolutionized the search engine industry, quickly becoming the most used

search engine in the world by implementing a method of tapping into crowd wisdom.

When you submit a search to Google, the order of the search results you see are

determined by how often a site is linked to from other sites relevant to your search.

According to Google, their search engine interprets a link from page A to page B as

a vote, by page A, for page B. The pages that receive the most votes are considered

the most important, and rise to the top of your search results. In addition, votes cast

by pages that are themselves important weigh more heavily and help make other

pages important, so although Google derives its strength from tapping into crowd

wisdom, it is actually a democratic republic rather than a pure democracy.

While striking examples of crowd wisdom exist, democratically turning over decision making

or guessing to the crowd does not necessarily result in improved decision making, and can

sometimes reduce the quality of decision making. Surowiecki theorizes that 4 requirements

must be present for a crowds decision to be wise ---diversity of opinion, independence,

decentralization, and aggregation--- and that there are 5 challenges that threaten wise crowd

decisions ---homogeneity, centralization, division, imitation, and emotionality.

Before exploring Surowieckis conditions for wise crowd decisions as they relate to a distributed

OSP network, it must be noted that it may be impossible to scientifically prove wise crowd

decisions were present in a democratic or democratic-republic government. If the goal of a

democratic government is to promote the common good, the definition of common good is

subjective, so different people may have radically different interpretations of what common

good means. Also, for something to be scientific, it needs to be repeatable via experimentation,

but an experimenter can never truly recreate the historical moment a government is situated in.

Still, its intriguing just how much OSP federation would support Surowieckis requirements of

crowd wisdom, and Gov2.0 developers should keep theories of crowd psychology in mind when


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designing their platforms. Most importantly, without federation, the public will be less able to

even experiment with new OSP features, because dominant, disconnected OSPs would make it

difficult for the new ones to attract enough users to sample the different features.

Surowieckis 4 Requirements for Crowd Wisdom and OSP Federation

Diversity of opinion - Opinions must be gathered from as large and diverse a sample of

people as possible. This helps ensure that many possibilities are considered, and so protects

the crowd from being blind-sided by an outcome that no-one foresaw. The presence of diverse

opinions also makes it more comfortable for people to honestly share their views, which

benefits Surowieckis next requirement of independence. Federation would offer people more

incentive to share their votes/opinions because they would know every vote they cast

now can be transferred to a different site they may prefer later.

Independence - People in a group must be able to think for themselves and honestly express

what they think. As Surowiecki says, diversity and independence are important becausethe best collective decisions are the product of disagreement and contest, not consensus

or compromise. If the members of a crowd are too dependent on each other (for example,

they all work for the same company), then it is less likely that they will express as diverse a

range of opinions as possible, because they dont want to be labeled a bad team player for

giving their honest opinion. Crowd members also must not be coerced to have an opinion by

authoritarian leadership or a hostile crowd. Federation would offer users the highest level

of independence, freeing them to try any OSP they want with no time wasted or strings

attached.

Decentralization - Members of the crowd do not receive their information from all the

same sources, and can exercise their own autonomy on a problem, while still able to add tocontribute to the final crowd opinion (e.g. casting a vote). Federation, is by definition, the

decentralization of a larger entity.

Aggregation - A method must exist for combining the groups knowledge into a collective

decision or guess. For example, taking the average of the crowds marble number guesses or

collecting a vote to determine consensus are each methods of aggregation. With regards to

OSP federation, what OSP can truthfully say they offer the best political aggregation methods?

None can, so we should create an environment that is conducive to developers experimenting

with as many aggregation methods as possible. Federation would make it easier for

developers to attract users to test new and different aggregation methods.

Surowieckis 5 Challenges to Crowd Wisdom and OSP Federation

Homogeneity - Group members are all too much alike, which results in a lack of diversity

of opinion. Without diversity of opinion, groups are more susceptible to being blind-sided by

possibilities that too few in the crowd considered. Federation would open participation to as


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large and diverse a crowd as possible, and thus reduce homogeneity.

Centralization - Members of the crowd receive their information from all the same sources,

and only a small number of crowd members are allowed to vote or contribute their opinion.

Federation is, by definition, the decentralization of a larger entity.

Division - If crowd members are unable to share their information with each other, they

cannot fully benefit from the crowds collective wisdom. However, paradoxically, too much

communication can make the group as a whole less intelligent, because members may start

following the herd rather than independently evaluating their information. Federation would

allow users the ability to connect and share information with other OSPs in the network,

but would not require them to.

Imitation - The natural human tendency to imitate others to speed-up decision making. Too

much imitation by members of a crowd results in uncritical group think. Federation would

encourage robust OSP interactions and experimentation with designs meant to minimize

uncritical imitation.

Emotionality - The natural human tendency for emotions to override our rational faculties and

affect decision making. Federation would encourage experimentation with OSP designs

meant to de-escalate emotionally charged discussions and facilitate civil discourse.

Cheating - Not explicitly one of Surowieckis challenges of the wise crowd, but definitely an

obstacle to OSP quality. Cheating in OSPs tends to occur by users creating fake accounts

in order to inflate the number of votes an entity receives, or to negatively misrepresent the

opposing side on an issue. Federation would help users leave an OSP they believe is

vulnerable to or engaged in cheating, and to join an OSP they believe is more reliable.

6) Introduction to EveryVote.org

EveryVote.orgs goals are (1) to help develop and participate in an open, federated OSP

network, (2) to help develop an accurate, comprehensive US candidate database that is freely

available for any website to use, and (3) to develop free-to-use, open source tools designed to

make civic engagement easier and more constructive. Furthermore, EveryVote.org is committed

to providing these services as ethically as possible.

EveryVote.org Principles

Open source -Affero General Public License version 3

Will seek non-profit status

Financially transparent

No advertisements

Will seek donations and grants to pay expenses
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.htmlhttp://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.htmlhttp://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.htmlhttp://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.htmlhttp://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.htmlhttp://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.htmlhttp://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.htmlhttp://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.htmlhttp://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.htmlhttp://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.htmlhttp://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.html


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Will not sell or share private user data with 3rd parties

EveryVote.org itself will not declare opinions on government entities

Will participate in an open, federated opinion sharing platform network

Supports developing a publicly available, comprehensive US candidate database

Open source - All EveryVote.org software will be provided under the Affero General PublicLicense version 3. This license allows anyone to use, download, and modify EveryVote.org

software, as long as they agree to let others download their modifications of the software. The

reason for selecting the AGPLv3 open source license instead of the MIT License, an open

source license which would not require developers to make their modifications available to the

public, is to support a culture of sharing and mutual benefit.

Non-profit status seeking - EveryVote.org is a non-commercial organization, and will be

seeking 501(c) non-profit status. (To be honest, Im not real sure how this stuff works yet. If you

have any advice as to how EveryVote.org should go about establishing non-profit status, wed

appreciate your input.)

Funding - Will seek donations and grant-funding to pay organizational expenses.

Financially transparent - All spending by EveryVote.org will be available to the public. All

donations and donor names made to EveryVote.org will either be available to the public, or will

be anonymous to the public andEveryVote.org the organization.This committment to financial

transparency is intended to prevent EveryVote.org from giving candidates or anyone else

preferential treatment for donating to EveryVote.org.

No advertisements - EveryVote.org will never sell advertising space, will never give

advantages to candidates who donate to EveryVote.org, and will never give preferentialtreatment to candidates for any reason.

Privacy - EveryVote.org will never sell or share private user data with 3rd parties, unless

required to by law.

Unbiased - EveryVote.org the organization will never declare opinions on government entities

(officials, candidates, legislation, constituents, groups/organizations) or political issues.

Open federation - EveryVote.org is dedicated to helping establish and participating in an

open, federated opinion sharing platform network. EveryVote.org may prompt users with brief

descriptions of the Terms of Use of each site prior to letting the user autorize the transfer or

sync of their data, but ultimately allows users to transfer their data wherever they want.

Comprehensive US candidate database - EveryVote.org is committed to helping develop a

comprehensive US candidate database that is publicly available for any website to use. The

goal of this database is to give users organized access to factual information about every

candidate in every election they are eligible to vote in.


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Documents

Gov2.0 Federation in Pursuit of Crowd Wisdom - 01/13/2013