One thing I find absolutely tedious about watching youtubes of Occupy is the people's mike. It takes such a long time to say anything! This also echoes something I find tedious about municipal politics: live, in-person consultations where anyone gets to get up and talk. Again, it takes such a long time! Surely it would be faster, easier, and more convenient to have everyone submit their ideas in writing - reading is faster than talking, and the writing process tends to result a more organized deputation than extemporizing does.
But, at the same time, there's a certain democracy to everyone getting up and having their say in full that we don't necessarily want to lose. So how can we make the general process of public consultation faster and easier and less tedious without making it less democratic?
Here's what I've got so far:
We start with a whiteboard, which can be either literal, virtual, or metaphorical depending on what's needed. For a set and reasonable period of time, everyone writes on the whiteboard every factor they can think of that needs to be taken into consideration for the issue in question. Each factor only needs to appear on the whiteboard once, no matter how many people think it's important (we'll address the number of people who think it's important in a minute.) So even if every single person in the room thinks it's important for the new widgets to be backwards-compatible with existing widgets, only one person needs to stand up and say so or send in an email saying so for it to get written on the whiteboard.
This is also a question and answer time. Anyone can post or ask a question, and anyone can answer or expand on anyone else's answers. All questions asked and all answers given are recorded on another whiteboard for everyone's review.
After the period of time for contributing to the whiteboard is over, there's a voting period. During the voting period, everyone votes on each factor on two axes: Agree/Disagree and Important/Unimportant. You can cast a neutral vote by abstaining. Once all the votes have been tallied, you can see what the collective's priorities are. Then they can take action to implement everything that gets a high number of Agree and Important votes and avoid everything that gets a high number of Disagree and Important votes. Things voted Unimportant but with a clear Agree or Disagree consensus will be addressed if doing so doesn't interfere with the things voted Important. Things voted Important but without a clear consensus could be subject to further discussion/dissection, or looked at in terms of how they related to other Important factors with clearer consensus.
Whiteboard and voting will be made as accessible as possible. The whole thing could be online if everyone involved has internet access, but if that's difficult for anyone then in-person, telephone, write-in, and any other kind of input method people might require should be allowed.
The enormous advantage of this method would be that it eliminates duplication. Instead of having to hear (or even read) dozens of impassioned pleas on the importance of backwards-compatibility, only one person has to bring it up and the importance will be made clear in the voting phase. At the same time, if one lone maverick is insistent that the widgets should glow in the dark, it's right up there with all the other idea and will stand and fall on its own merits. If other people think it's a good idea, it could go through even though that one guy doesn't have very much reach.
This method of consensus-building is far from perfect, but I'm putting it out there as a starting point. Improvements welcome.
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