Slashdot Mirror
Lawmakers Game The System
Thanks to Wired News for its article discussing government officials and massively multiplayer game designers sharing ideas on the best ways to deal with community feedback. Neil Eisner of the Department Of Transportation explains: "We're both dealing with large populations, and (like with the public-comment process for legislation) the public helps them design the rules for the game, or petitions them to change the rules to have things happen." Raph Koster of Sony Online adds that it "was startling to me... that (the federal comment process) is identical to how we build our patches and patch notes", although since the government has "a legal obligation to protect the privacy of people submitting comments on legislation", this means some disadvantages compared to MMO feedback, as Koster explains: "We get to know the people who are good testers, who are good at catching bugs. The federal government is legally not allowed to do that."
If they want feedback, they should just create slash.gov and post proposed laws there so every could post feedback. At least that would be better than some anonymous e-mail comments that never get acknowledged. But wait, we can't have democracy, we need "democracy"
The legal system the MMORPG 'A Tale in the Desert' formalizes player-generated petitions for game requests, and lets the players vote democratically on whether they should be implemented (within reason).
It seems to require a lot more time to filter and prioritize requests, but I think it's more honest than the 'lobbying' style that most games (and government) use. The citizen most adept at being heard by the developers/lawmakers isn't always the most representative.
--Owen--
Call me a cynic, but to really participate in democracy you need to be part of some powerful lobby group or business that the government wants to please for votes or campaign donations. In my country anyway, there's a serious disconnect between big government and the general populace that is only barely bridged by the sensationalist media.
It's nice to hear that governments are building processes for getting feedback from the general public I still don't see this helping the little guy affect big picture legislation as much as the 2 million dollar donation from corporate sponsor X...
...MMOGs and such are probably the best large scale working models of societal interaction to date. They work more dyanmically than mathematical models. While you have to abstract out the suspension of disbelief (i.e being a Nanomage doesn't really translate to a common role in meatspace), you essentially have many of the same macro and micro level interaction you do in real life, and being in a virtual world, aggregating behavioral data (i.e population migrations based on opportunities, aggressive versus combative roles and how their patterns of movement and interaction change, et al) It is really interesting stuff.
I don't think Big Tobacco really fits the role here. They are in defensive mode now. We have managed to strip them of most of the benefits of a capitalist system and still manage to vilify them.
Trust me, there are plenty of people who would put the gaming industry in the same department. What we are ultimately talking about here is freedom. We know the limitations of the political/legal systems. I think some of us just had higher hopes in terms of net-based realities. I would like to think that if we just push the game industry a little bit we can keep this more open for a while.
It seems people like virtualities precisely because they incorporate a communicational fluidity that is diametrically opposed to the the hierarchical constraints in real life - you cannot really aks to change anything out there, the best you can do is answer when someone asks you whether you want to have it changed.
Now, I don't want all of my life to hang of a menu-driven system, with somebody else designing the menu. I think that if the online games culture rigidifies to the same extent as political life has rigidified in its transition from Greek direct democracy to today's mediated democracies, pople are going tu rush to alternate fora.
This is not a signature.
Raph Koster of SWG is now an expert in designing societies?
Please.
If you play SWG, you know what kind of society it is. One where players are encouraged to do mindless missions in pursuit of the mystical plum to be a jedi. Have players complained? Sure, check out the development forums (restricted to paying subscribers of SWG), and you'll find many requests going untouched. And the people who actually go and complain on a bulletin board is just a small percentage of the persons who actually play, get disgruntled, and leave. If you were a SWG beta tester, you know this pain intimately. One of the reasons why it's so frustrating is because I sincerely believe there's a good game waiting inside, just like there's a great government that we can have...but we're not there in the game and I'd argue that I'm actually happier with the government (see sig for how I feel about our government).
Having said that, as previous posters have noted, designing public feedback systems for government is tough. But seriously--why not a slashdot-style government posting forum? Probably it's a chicken-and-egg problem--I don't want to post on a website that nobody will read, but legislators have no incentive to read a slashgov board with 7 users. Moderation will swing towards the masses, but if you're supposed to be serving the masses, then that's good. I think one of the problems is that legislators won't want to have to be on record (i.e. wayback machine) as saying one thing or not responding to one comment and having it haunt them in the future. But if we can get slashgov to work well, I think it would be spectacular.
I'm willing to host. I lack real programming ability. If you want to jump in, let me know. I think this is a cool concept.
Goverment is already like Ultima Online. By that I mean that if you pay extra you get special treatemnt. Just look at the 29.95 'enhanced' characters they offer.