Introduction Problem The-site Appendix/Ref         Introduction Business Plan Issues structure

The-book > The-site > Issues structure

For each such issue of importance the site will:

• Summarize the issue, and update the status and news about the issue.

  This will probably be done by the Site staff, after an Issue is determined to be of Importance by a vote of the Users.
  

• Have various special interest sites present their positions on the issue.

  About 5 special interest sties will be chosen, by the users to represent the opinions on an issue. These sites will prepare a short paragraph representing their position and point to a section of their site that goes into their discussion in more detail.
  

• Host discussion groups on the issue

  There will be a threaded, probably moderated discussion group that allows users to interact with eath other trying to clarify the issue, develop consensious positions, etc.
  

• Develop a set of consensus positions, both pro and con, and then take polls on these consensus positions,

  After sufficient discussion, the most representative positions will be placed on a Ballot so that the Users, and possibly Bystanders can vote on the positions -- The votes will be available to the Government Representatives as well as the people, both raw, and as carfully adjusted as possible so that the votes are more representative than the raw votes. The adjustments will be done based on user profiles so that if, for example, we get twice as many Democrats and Republicans voting, we would multiply the Republican votes by 2 to more accuratly represent the US popuation.

  Note: Included in the polls will be places for comments so that a User can also add to the discussion while voting, and the comments will be available to expand on the raw and adjusted votes.
  

• Inform the representatives about the results of the polls and discussions.

At appropriate times, the results of the polls would be sent, as a petition to the Goverment representatives who are making decisions on the issues. This allows our users to express their consensious positions in addition to individual


• Maintain records of the representatives actions and candidates positions.

As the issue gets acted on, there will be a record of the actions and positions of the Governmanet representatives so that both the Users and Bystanders can determine which representatives and candidates are supporting or opposing the issue when election time comes around.


• Provide a more extensive set of links to sites interested in the issue.

  The entire procedure is based on a managable number of Special Interest sites. On the other hand, in many cases there are many more sites that may contibute to the discussion, and we expect to maintain a growing list of these as the interest in the issue develops.