As we gather signatures, I suggest that we create two lists.
One list -- the one we have now -- includes credentials -- which can be
academic or anything relevant (including just having an interest in election
methods).
The second list would not list credentials and instead would just have the
person's name and location -- by nation and possibly province/state, with a
city name being optional. Each signature would be added to the appropriate
list based on what information they supply in their signature.
It has been suggested that we need to streamline the process of letting
people add their signature.
It wouldn't be too hard to create a web form where people submit their own
name and location and it automatically gets added to the page. But then you
have to mess with moderation and/or profanity and spam filters. And you
also have to worry about ballot stuffing.
One way around this, in general, is to make people use a Facebook account.
But lots of people still don't have Facebook accounts or don't like to use
them, so that's not a perfect solution.
At our startup, AskForIt.com, we originally supported only Facebook login,
but eventually we added the option for people to create an account without
using Facebook. Should we try to host the declaration on AskForIt.com?
It's probably not the perfect platform right now, but I can get
functionality added pretty quickly if we need it (and it's okay with the
other founders). Another option is a competing site, PetitionSpot.com.
Or we could create our own Facebook app to let people sign on.
Or we could just try to use the Facebook like button as the join
mechanism. Tell people to like the page if they want to join the
petition. Then we can use the Facebook social plugins to show faces (and
first names) of people who've joined. It will even automatically emphasize
the friends of whoever is viewing the page.
But I'm guessing a Facebook-only solution is probably not acceptable. I
don't even like it very much myself, but it is the easiest way to (mostly)
make sure that each user is a distinct person.
After the wording is finalized and I find the time, I may create a Facebook
page to expose the Declaration to young people (who are the ones who will
push hardest for election-method reform) and hopefully to collect signatures
(or at least friend support) from frustrated voters. (The suggestion of
using Facebook came from a door-to-door political-petition signature
gatherer.) That copy would be the one I would want to take the time to
format more nicely than the temporary copy I've created at VoteFair.org.
If we put a Facebook like button on the declaration page and tell people to
like if they want to join, then it can actually be linked to a Facebook
page so that liking one is the same as liking the other.
Andy
I think it's time to turn the Declaration over to the world. They need it.
Now.
Richard Fobes
On 10/18/2011 7:16 AM, Jameson Quinn wrote:
I am still contacting high profile people who we'd like to sign it.
Personally, I'd avoid calling it done quite yet so that we can make
minor changes if these people request it. But if people feel otherwise,
I'd be willing to freeze it in its current state.
Here's the status of my efforts
* I'm pursuing an introduction to Kenneth Arrow through a mutual
friend. This should bear fruit in a couple of months (due to
travel). Personally, I think it's worth the wait.
* I don't have a contact for Maurice Duverger. Any help there would
be good. He's 94 but apparently still going strong; he had an
editorial in Le Monde just a year ago.
* I could contact James Buchanan, but first I'd like to see if
anyone here has some connection, so that he'd be more inclined to
view us favorably.
* I've written to Tony Downs. He's a second-tier name, but if he is
interested, he would be a good person to introduce us to Buchanan.
* I've talked with Steven Brams, Michel Balinski, and Rida Laraki.
They all wish us luck, but refuse to sign because of some (in my
view minor) issue they have with one of the systems we support.
Brams has not definitively shut the door on signing.
* Markus Schulze hasn't signed because we support too many systems,
which in his view weakens the impact.
* I have recently emailed James Green-Armytage, who is probably
reading this mail here. No response yet.
* I haven't contacted Nicholas Tideman. He may be reading this too,
but if he's not, I would like to get as many high-powered names
such as those above to sign on before we talk to him.
* If we had a big-name author, I have a contact with the editor of
/Science/, so we might be able to get an editorial published.
* As you can see on the declaration, Warren Smith has already signed.
Meanwhile, I agree that a good css stylesheet would dramatically improve
the look of the
