Diane,
> I'm doing some summer research at Berkman on election software.
> Care to lend a hand? I'm collecting a list of programs, reviewing
> their features and security issues and attempting to select the top
> 3-5 for cost assessment.
>
Certainly - I'm very interested in software designed to accept
public input to *define the questions* - something along the lines of
'Enquire Within' <http://www.EnquireWithin.co.nz > with a webbed
front end might work - as that is where all the ifs, ands, and buts
show up. Not only would ones 'top-level' vote then be an arithmetic
sum of ones 2,3,...n-level decisions, but 'election day' could be tied
to the *rate at which new decision branches were added rather than
a calendar date which imposes some rather arbitrary constraints
on participation.
> How would at-large do outreach for enrollment? The cooperation of
> the registrars would be the single best source of potential
> members, IMHO. There is a need to attract lots of interested
> parties without excluding anyone but also to avoid an imbalance
> that might come from only posting at organizational sites. What
> associations claim lots of interested netizens among their
> membership base? The .edus have huge enrollments, but perhaps not
> many who will be interested in names & numbers. Any suggestions?
>
I think its important to recognize that there are lots of
*potentially interested netizens who have yet to even hear about
ICANN or net-governance or online anything else -- and every
recourse to an existing institution as a recruitment route will
inevitably be seen as a 'top-down' imposition of structure.
Rather than bodies, think eyeballs. Talk to portals and software
folks, not administrators. Build a screensaver, or a MP3 track
which records Y and N keystrokes, or whatever - who knows, even
a mailing list (or hyperlinked series of lists) which didnt swamp
every germ of idea in a megabyte of rabid froth might work. The
message is simple enough -- Something Is Going On -- is it
beyond the capabilities of the Berkman Centre to get it out?
kerry
