Abstract	Introduction	Problem	Solution	Appendix/Ref
Design
	Site Organization	Similar Sites	Software

WeMatter.com > the_book > Solution design

Solution design

WeMatter.com, the site is being designed to be a Political Hub site that will help in connecting the people to their Government.

Previously (see: problems) the major problems that many of the Internet sites that deal with political issues seem to suffer from were identified. These are re-listed below, with a discussion of how WeMatter.com is designed to solve them. (T.B.D.)

The site will consist of the following sets of pages, An example of which can be "Jumped" to by clicking on the : (Eyeglass) icon.

Home Page -- This will contain a discussion of the site, the News and Important issues of the day, and in the future the personal "Issues" for user. It is assumed that this is the location that a user will enter to find out what is going on, and then go off to a news item, or issue that they are interested in.

Issue set -- Based on the user's combined interests, a set of issues will be defined, each with their own issue set page. These pages will contain a description of the issues in the set and links to each issue, and to sites that discuss or are sources of information for the issue set

Issue -- The main area of the site is the set of pages on each issue. The initial page will contain a description of the issue and a short summary of the primary positions on the issue. Then the other pages associated with the issue will be pointed to from these pages so that the use can read about an issue, discuss it, vote on it, and see how his representatives stand on the issue.

Issue Position{s} -- The main positions on the issue are summarized on the "Issue" page, on the other hand, the details of the positions will be discussed by the sites that are specifically interested in the issue rather than the WeMatter.com site. Thus the user can go to the various sites that are interested in the issue and get their "arguments" for their position.

Discussion -- Once a user has some thoughts to contribute with respect to an issue, they can go to a discussion group on the issue. The discussion group will be designed so that users can express their opinions in a standard threaded way, but will be organized so that, as much as possible the discussions will lead to some consensus positions rather than just flames (I don't know how to do this yet???)

Vote -- Once some consensus position are developed, it will be possible for the users to express their vote on them. These votes will be available, both as raw votes, and adjusted based on the user's characterististics. Thus an attempt will be made to measure not only the users who vote on an issue, but also to reflect the position of voting groups.

Record -- A page will be generated that shows how the representatives stand on the issue by taking their statements, and their votes on bills that are related to the issues.

User Profile -- It is important that a user provide a profile to the site that allows:

• Vote Adjustment -- His vote to be adjusted so that representatives seeing a vote summary know that it represents the US voting population rather than just the people who voted on this issue. Note: This will also insure that we follow the practice of one user one vote.
• Targeted E-mail so that when an issue that a user is interested in has some news he can get an E-mail about the issue.
• Weighted histories -- The user will be able to define the importance he puts on various issues and the position that he takes and the stands of the representatives, and candidates will be reported back to the user based on his weightings.

 

Of course the profile information will be kept in confidence and not be available for any purpose other than the user specifies, Any changes in this will be on an opt-in basis, and the information will be destroyed if the site is dissolved, sold, or otherwise changes status.

 

The site will be a Corporation, probably a Not-for Profit 801.c, as discussed in "the business plan"

Other "similar" sites:

• Capitol Advantage connects citizens to their elected officials, and helps organizations realize legislative goals though grassroots activism.
• MegaVote - Sign up now! -- Track your senators' and representative's votes by e-mail! -- Each week (that Congress is in session) you will receive:

  • Key votes by your two Senators and U.S. Representative.
  • Links to send e-mail to your members of Congress using pre-addressed forms.
  • Upcoming votes for your review and links to offer e-mail input before they vote.

Software -- There is a set of software curently available for building "cooperative" sites.

• Opensource CMS -- the opportunity to "try out" some of the best php/mysql based free and open source software systems in the world. e.g.

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