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Lawmakers Game The System

Posted by simoniker on from the democracy-beta-version dept.

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."

4 of 116 comments (clear)

  1. Dumb & Dumber by gnuman99 · · Score: 5, Interesting
    This seems to be analogous to Microsoft getting advice from IBM on how to listen to the end user feedback.

    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"

  2. democratic game requests by obyrne · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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--

  3. Re:Anonymity in Democracy is overrated by Power+Luser · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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...

  4. Re:Lobbyists are neither anonymous or powerless by DaliTimepiece · · Score: 3, Interesting
    This is a little (ok maybe a lot) off topic but I'll come back around. I promise.

    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.