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Change.gov Uses Google Moderator System
GMonkeyLouie writes "The website for President-elect Obama's transition team, Change.gov, has unveiled a section called Open for Questions, which lets users submit questions and vote them up or down, in an effort to let the collaborative mind produce the questions that are the most important to the American populace (or at least the web-savvy portion). The page is powered by Google Moderator. It was unveiled yesterday, and CNet reports that when they went to post last night, '159,890 had voted on 1,986 questions from 3,255 people.'"
...and I approve this message: ALLAHU AKBAR!
America as we know it is dead.
The republic be damned. This is true democracy in action: decision-by-mob!
1,986 questions from 3,255 people
Either a couple thousand people asked the exact same question or some questions are being "lost".
A politician that actually listens to the people? Now I have seen all.
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
The website allows for greater transparency... or greater ability to bury unwanted/uncomfortable questions while seeming more transparent.
http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/1208/Blagojevich_questions_censored_on_Transition_site.html?showall
President-elect Barack Obama's Transition today launched "Open for Questions," a Digg-style feature allowing citizens to submit questions, and to vote on one another's questions, bringing favored inquiries to the top of the list.
It was suggested when it launched that the tool would bring uncomfortable questions to the fore, but the results so far are the opposite: Obama's supporters appear to be using -- and abusing -- a tool allowing them to "flag" questions as "inappropriate" to remove all questions mentioning Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich from the main pages of Obama's website.
The Blagojevich questions -- many of them polite and reasonable -- can be found only by searching words in them, like "Blagojevich," which produces 35 questions missing from the main page of the site.
"Given the current corruption charges involving Blagojevich, will 'serious' campaign finance reform that takes money completely out of politics through publicly funded elections be a priority in the first term?" asked Metteyya of Santa Cruz, California.
"This submission was removed because people believe it is inappropriate," reads the text underneath it.
Also removed as "inappropriate":
"In light of the recent corruption scandals (Blagojevich, Rangel, Jefferson, Stevens, etc) that have dominated the political scene,is there any ethics legislation being crafted to actually curb corruption and prevent another wave of nixonian cynicism?", a question from "lupercal," of Gainesville.
And: "Is Barack Obama aware of any communications in the last six weeks between Rod Blagojevich or anyone representing Rod Blagojevich and any of Obama's top aides?", a question from Phil from Pennsylvania.
Declaring a question "inappropriate" is different from merely voting it down; it's calling foul on a question, not just disapproving of it.
Community reporting systems like this are often vulnerable to abuse from committed partisans -- YouTube has wrestled with a parallel problem -- and the only solution is conscious efforts to remedy it.
So far, Obama's team does not seem to have stepped in to allow uncomfortable questions to rise to the top, and instead is allowing his supporters to sanitize the site.
link
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
I understand our past presidents have been old... But really. Was there no person in their cabinets close enough/savvy enough to make it clear that a platform by which to hear from their populace was good and useful?
Giving the appearance of being interested in the ideas/concerns of the populace garners support. Even if they don't pay any attention to it, people will feel like they have a platform to communicate their ideas.
Overclockers
This is nice, however, partisans have modded down any questions regarding B.O.'s relationship and knowledge regarding the pay for play issue of Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich. This certainly raises questions, now I am not accusing, but since B.O. is the product of Chicago politics . . .
From Washington Correspondent Jamie Dupree's Blog for Cox Radio:
President-elect Barack Obama's Transition today launched "Open for Questions," a Digg-style feature allowing citizens to submit questions, and to vote on one another's questions, bringing favored inquiries to the top of the list.
It was suggested when it launched that the tool would bring uncomfortable questions to the fore, but the results so far are the opposite: Obama's supporters appear to be using -- and abusing -- a tool allowing them to "flag" questions as "inappropriate" to remove all questions mentioning Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich from the main pages of Obama's website.
The Blagojevich questions -- many of them polite and reasonable -- can be found only by searching words in them, like "Blagojevich," which produces 35 questions missing from the main page of the site.
"Given the current corruption charges involving Blagojevich, will serious' campaign finance reform that takes money completely out of politics through publicly funded elections be a priority in the first term?" asked Metteyya of Santa Cruz, California. "This submission was removed because people believe it is inappropriate," reads the text underneath it.
Also removed as "inappropriate":
"In light of the recent corruption scandals (Blagojevich, Rangel, Jefferson, Stevens, etc) that have dominated the political scene,is there any ethics legislation being crafted to actually curb corruption and prevent another wave of nixonian cynicism?", a question from "lupercal," of Gainesville.
And: "Is Barack Obama aware of any communications in the last six weeks between Rod Blagojevich or anyone representing Rod Blagojevich and any of Obama's top aides?", a question from Phil from Pennsylvania.
Declaring a question "inappropriate" is different from merely voting it down; it's calling foul on a question, not just disapproving of it.
Community reporting systems like this are often vulnerable to abuse from committed partisans -- YouTube has wrestled with a parallel problem -- and the only solution is conscious efforts to remedy it.
So far, Obama's team does not seem to have stepped in to allow uncomfortable questions to rise to the top, and instead is allowing his supporters to sanitize the site.
Wonder why it didn't get picked up? What if it was Palin, or a Republican governor selling a Republican president-elect's senate seat? Think about how many stories we have had about corruption among Republicans...guess the double standard is alive and well.
FBI agents on Tuesday morning arrested Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich and his Chief of Staff, John Harris, on a variety of corruption charges, including attempting to sell the US Senate seat vacated by President-elect Barack Obama. The story has dominated the news since breaking yesterday, beginning with live coverage on cable news of the announcement of the indictment by US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald and FBI Special Agent in Charge Robert Grant. The allegations against Blagojevich are being reported as astounding, even given the state's history of corruption, and nearly every media outlet included some version of Grant's comment about Illinois, "If it isn't the most corrupt state in the United States, it's certainly one hell of a competitor." Blagojevich also threatened the Chicago Tribune to fire editors and writers who allowed or wrote critical stories. Most reports also note that the indictments in no way suggest Obama is linked to Blagojevich's alleged corrupt schemes. Obama once supported Blagojevich but had distanced himself from the governor in recent years.
This story should have been tagged "Whatcouldpossiblygowrong". I mean, a moderation system that lets useful ideas float to the top and useless ideas to the bottom is based on the rather naive concept that the people voting are educated and unbiased. On behalf of the few educated and unbiased people present, I'd like to add the following comment to this idea: buwhahahahahahahahahaha--!!!
People don't vote their conscience, they vote their prejudices. I thought that would have been clear by now.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
change.gov? so his political party tagline can get a .gov tld?
Did you know that WW2 German soldiers did NOT wear swastikas? That's because even the Nazis recognized SOME separation between party and government.
Mao would be proud though...and it looks like Khrushchev was right.
THL phish sticks
Maybe I'll sign in so I can submit my question:
"Why does your government web site link to and use JavaScript hosted on a corporate site, googleapis.com?"
It's bad whether it's Haliburton OR Google.
I wonder how much he's paying Filipino kids to vote up topics he wants answered and vote down questions he doesn't want to address.
This is the way government should be: good initiatives will be automatically 'dugg' up, and bad ones will be 'buried', according to the will of the people.
What could possibly go wrong?
I voted on a few questions just to see how it worked, I saw at least 10 Blagojevich questions out of the 50 I voted on. If the wingnuts are gonna spam stupid questions they should be deleted when there are real questions out there. There were also five or so birth certificate questions. The Republicans are probably not going to have good luck winning elections anytime soon unless they realize people don't care about this bullshit right now, we care about the war and the economy.
Is anybody else having issues with the change.org site in Firefox? All it is displaying for me is a bunch of garblygook, but works fine in other browsers. This is the only site I have had this issue with.
A community-oriented lyrics site
I can understand the general feeling of negativity or at least pessimism regarding this, but I'd like to think that its a good step to see them continuing to embrace the web as a way to allow more people to reach them. Is it just a PR thing? Maybe. But with the questions being so 'out there' to everyone to see, I would think it allows people to call them out on more topics.
Sort of a 'Hey, on your own website people are asking questions about stem cell research. What is your answer? Don't pretend you don't see it's the number three question.'
I will shred my adversaries. Pull their eyes out just enough to turn them towards their mewing, mutilated faces. Illyria
I am very skeptical that even the "Web-savvy" general population is able to correctly identify the most important issues facing humanity. Even so-called experts often can't properly place that emphasis. Take the Sierra Club, for instance: overpopulation is the 800-pound gorilla of environmental problems, yet they only give it lip service and then spend all their money dashing hither and thither fighting the myriad symptoms of that. It's really the 800-pound gorilla thrashing around that is causing all the damage, but they do nothing to restrain the beast.
Given that overpopulation is the one single most pressing problem facing humanity, and further given that we are completely incapable of voluntarily resolving it, there really is only one single solution which should be the entire planet's primary focus:
Establishing other sustainable colonies of humanity that can at least provide a migration opportunity and remove some of the pressure on the Earth's ecosystem and our social structures.
My name is Alex Jones, and I *disapprove* of that message! Thermite, missiles, no trace of a plane anywhere, no witnesses, and - need I add - FREE FALL SPEEDS, you sheep! When in your life have you EVER seen something fall at free fall speed? It never happens, and parachutists are all IDF agents sent here to brainwash us.
Questioning deficit spending and printing currency as a response to the problems of a debt-based economy hardly seems like crackpottery.
in some superior future, google moderator itself is our government
what i mean by that is, the citizens govern themselves via internet technology that groups, edits, and resolves the important issues and what to do about them, no representational system needed
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
So... use up our resources to send a few people to a different planet and let them use up the resources there?
The real questions can be buried. And then nothing has to change...
Deleted
"On behalf of the few educated and unbiased people present"
this instantly tells me you are extremely biased. as for "educated", unless you are talking about the hard sciences, this word means "indoctrinated into the clique"
everyone is biased. the intelligent person is always on the guard for the bias they have, and admit and accept they have some unidentified bias. in such a way, they form opinions that are about as unbiased as possible, by constantly being on guard against it
meanwhile, someone who is convinced they are magically incapabable of bias, for whatever idiotic reason, is leading forth with their biases on full display for everyone, utterly blind to how biased they are
that's you
the problem with saying that everyone is prejudiced and this is a bad thing is that it requires some sort of magical, omnipotent adjudicator of bias and prejudice somewhere. no such person or magical machine exists. as such, yes, we are prejudiced and baised in small and large ways, and this is just the way it is, and the way it will always be, and no one can ever do anything about that, so you just accept it as a fact of life, and it is not a problem to fix, but simply a fact of life to get used to
and, here's the real powe rof democracy: everyone's biases and prejudices balance out
meawhile, this sort of aristocratic opinion that there is an "us" few who are unbiased and fit for rule and a "them" who are hopelessly prejudiced and unfit for democracy is about as UNDEMOCRATIC and fascist an attitude as possible
you should try living in some place like china, where they know the common man is unfit, and only a speicla class of technocrats is fit for rule
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Kind-of off-topic, but I'm really stunned at how this shows that people just don't understand our government. I'm seeing so many questions that assume that the president has control over state and local government issues, should be doing things that should be handled by local governments, or assume that the president has legislative or judicial powers. Seriously.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
are modded down to oblivion. Move along, nothing to see here! Is that what Obama meant my "transparency?"
Change.gov will be used as a political marketing tool if it picks up enough steam. I can hear it now "Well .1% of the country thought this would be a great idea."
I was able to sign in with a Canadian postal code instead of a US Zip code. Finally, we non-USians can have our issues with the American government heard.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Fuck the 1.5 presidents in office, the future president, the one after that.
Fuck chicago politicians selling off their old senate seat (BULLSHIT OBAMA ISNT INVOLVED).
Fuck the theft (thats what this bailout shit is, not socialism, not capitalism, simple outright theft on an unprecedented scale) of taxpayer money to hand to private corporations.
Congress has no more power to give money to Chrysler than they have to stick it in their pocket and walk out. They have no right to hand close to a trillion to the treasury to dish out as they see fit (you can not delegate constitutionally granted authorities). Obama is the head of this cadre of handout thieves.
Fuck him, fuck his slick douchebag image which has fooled so many, fuck his plans to rearrange the NCAA playoffs.
Fuck him straight up his worthless two bit thieving ass with a pressure treated railroad tie.
And fuck the retards who thought that a politician from Chicago, of all fucking places, is the honest god-sent savior who's bringing us change.
The slashdot crowd won't recognize how wrong all of this is until Microsoft goes to congress, hat in hand, "too big to fail". We used to prosecute for anti-trust, now our tax dollars directly fund it.
I can't believe that almost 10 years ago I was actually proud when I got permanent residency.
OK, not this part so much, but it's not bad. Did you notice that the site also posts all lobbying efforts made to the transition team? There's some very revealing documents there. A definite step in the right direction in terms of government transparency.
Perhaps the reason it is getting modded down is because A) There are about 500 duplicates of the same stupid questions B) It's a state issue that Obama really shouldn't/can't be screwing with C) Blagojevich got caught, is losing his job/going to jail. Problem solved.
When will people start to be "modded" away for opposing the One?
(Score:-1, Flamebait)
That's right, Obama has so much time on his hands that he's secretly organizing masses of people to flag as inappropriate questions that he doesn't like. Where do you conspiracy nuts get this stuff?
I see three questions with the term "DMCA" in them right now. None have been flagged as inappropriate. One of them is somewhat well rated. What happened to the conspiracy?
Obama said he did not meet with him, and hasn't.
But the story from KHQA has already been retracted, as any others will be. Newspapers make mistakes. Obama isn't lying about this, there are wiretaps involved, the truth will come out. He isn't that dumb. I know you want eight more years of Bush style government because all that torture and economic disaster worked out so well, but it isn't going to happen.
http://blogs.ft.com/rachmanblog/2008/12/covered-in-internet-slime/
in all seriousness though: exactly what is wrong with the idea one DEMOCRATIC world government?
i think its our future. and a good one
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Sure it's appropriate.
Make an Idle section!
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
I think the problem is that much of what passes for normal in politics falls under what we call Troll or Flamebait.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
What questions are there that haven't been answered already in the press? What was Obama supposed to do that hasn't been done already?
It's just amazing. You'd think the eight years between now and the stained dress never happened, the way the Right is carrying on. Keep on fighting for the rule of law you rugged spreaders of democracy, even if it means looking like an ass on every last political forum on the Internet.
A "pure" democracy? No, in truth *any* democracy is bad.
Think about it. In a democracy people voice "opinions" on various topics and the majorities opinion is selected and made law. That law must oppress the minority. In a democracy we will all eventually find ourselves in the minority on some topic so we all will loose. Also the opinion selected and made law creates a one size fits all policy for the government. The *problem* is it is a cohesive system designed to use force on other people. One size never fit's all and there are opinions that should never be law.
(Opinion is in quotes there because that is what most people think a vote is, you opinion on a topic, however this is not all together accurate. For instance, government presents you with a ballot measure to raise taxes to pay for a new park. You like parks right? You have no problem paying for a park so you vote, yes. The problem here is.. they are not actually asking you for your opinion on if *you* want a park.. they are asking you if you think it is ok for them to force your neighbor to pay for it.. at gunpoint if necessary.)
Democracy fails to provide freedom. For example look at public schools. Be it prayer is school, evolution vs creationism, the pledge, sex ed, gay friendly education, school lunch, or any number of other topics. They are just opinions people have on what values their own children should learn. Democracy creates a system of force where one group must battle another group to have their values presented to their children. Think about the ragging intensity and hate this creates. If people could actually choose schools that shared their own values, these arguments wouldn't just diminish, they would vanish.
If we had "more democracy" in out schools we would be arguing over everything from building construction to the color of the walls! Different people can't agree on anything, but that's ok. The idea that we must all come to a consensus is stupid. We don't all need to agree on things.. in fact if we did, it would cause intellectual sloth as new ideas or methods of teaching are opposed.
I believe instigating force on another person or group of people is wrong. Philosophically speaking the most ideal form of government is anarchy. (anarchy meaning without rule, not chaos.) Market anarchy provides the absolute extreme in freedom. As anarchy is a difficult state to maintain without someone somewhere obtaining power over it, and thus beings anew the cycle of people using force on people. If anarchy can not work, a second most idea form is a tiny tiny limited republic like the Constitution creates. Our founding fathers had failed however to chain down the growth of government... and perhaps it's impossible.. but at least we can try.. In either regard we should start moving in that direction.
"But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain - that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case, it is unfit to exist." -- Lysander Spooner
The America form of government was never even referred to as a Democracy until the 1900's. Today people use the word interchangeably with Republic, but the founders were quite clear about what it was and went to great lengths to prevent it.
Some historical reference for you:
About 370 BC, Plato wrote: "A democracy is a state in which the poor,
gaining the upper hand, kill some and banish others, and then divide
the offices among the remaining citizens equally."
About 126 BC, Polybius wrote: "The common people feel themselves
oppressed by the grasping of some, and their vanity is flattered by
others. Fired with evil passions, they are no longer willing to submit
to control, but demand that everything be subject to their authority.
The invariable result is that government assumes the noble names of
free and popular, but becomes in fact the most execrable thing, mob
rule."
And about 63 BC, Seneca, a Roman wrote: "Democracy is mor
Bringing liberty to the masses. - http://freetalklive.com/
Complain if the government doesn't listen, complain if it does. Complain if it uses fad technologies, complain that it's in the dark ages. Complain that it's too big, complain that it doesn't do enough. Complain that taxes are too high...well, there's seldom heard a counterpoint to that one.
God Bless America, and no place else.
I heard they live in the same state too! The guilt by association thing with Obama is getting WAY old. He survived Wright, Ayers, Rezko just fine. If someone, ANYONE, has ANY actual evidence that Obama has done anything wrong it would be a refreshing change of pace.
NO THIS IS MUSHROOM KINGDOM!
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
But I applaud them for trying. Do you remember any other President ever asking you for your opinion or providing you an online tool to do so? I sure don't.
Slashdot's moderation system is the best I've ever seen, and is light-years ahead of the dreck that is Digg (No, I really don't want to see another top 10 list or diatribe about legalizing marijuana, kiddies). So Change.gov would do well to emulate /., but give them time--they took it live two days ago, for heaven's sake. It took /. years to arrive where we are now.
Lastly, I have designed many of these sorts of feedback systems professionally, and I can tell you that even the most staid brand team in the most monolithic giant corporations DO read the comments they get back from customers. And at the current level of feedback they've gotten, ~3K in the last two days, even one lazy intern could read absolutely every post and pass the uniques and interesting ones along to decision makers.
From my survey of the questions, it's even easier given that the potheads have spammed their usual questions, "when are you going to make cannabis legal?", the dittoheads have spammed with their usual talking points, "when are you going to reveal the true nature of your relationship with Rev. Wright?!", and your well-meaning but ridiculously esoteric single-issue people have spammed with theirs, "When are you going to normalize relations with Cuba?"
Send them a well-worded, thoughtful, and properly spelled question and I guarantee you it will be read and passed up the chain.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
"When will you come clean on the the Black Mesa incident? The creation of portal technology allowed the creatures from Xen to this planet.... And When Is Episode 3 Coming Out?!!?!?!"
http://moderator.change.gov/?embed=http://change.gov/openforquestions#9/e=8&t=black+mesa
...from Germany. Still can't watch your shows on Hulu though.
How about answering truthfully whether or not Obama spoke to Blagojevich about filling his Senate seat, and to what extent? Axelrod is on record saying that they spoke, and then Obama's handlers come out and say that Axelrod "misspoke." Either they did speak, or they didn't speak. The two are mutually exclusive. Your fuzzy, ethics of convenience liberal thinking doesn't apply here.
All of your governments are belong to Google
For the discussions previously hosted on change.gov I could log in with my openid account. Now I am required to sign up for a new account. I was very disappointed by this development. I believe this is because google does not support being an openid consumer in contrast to the company used for the Health Care discussion. Im tired of having 40+ different login names and passwords. I quite.
I, for one, welcome the way America hands parts of it's democratic power to Google.
Hail to the first Google employee who learns to dictate public opinion!
The site is fun to use. I voted on 200 questions mostly because the random crap that people ask is pretty entertaining.
The concept isn't bad -- think of it as wisdom of crowds in action...
When in your life have you EVER seen something fall at free fall speed?
Actually, pretty much every time an aeroplane noses down. Those jets work a little faster than gravity, don'cha know.
DRM: Terminator crops for your mind!
The problem, as so clearly seen in the final days of the Bush administration, is that the government is, in fact, far too powerful.
And makes more mistakes all the time. The histrionic BS about Banking and Automotive bail-outs show this very very clearly.
You need to replace Presidential assent by electronic referendum so bad law, and flawed decisions, are slowed down. The media howls 'do something', and that is almost always wrong.
The present economic crisis is the result of that.
See Direct Democracy in Switzerland
... who bitch about the /. moderating system remember what this site looked like before it was introduced.
all that National Guard service stuff and Bush eh?
Sorry, the land of whackos is the most equal opportunity non discriminatory place on this planet.
Still, I do have to give credit to the op for linking the Governor of Illinois with the Birth Certificate story in order to neutralize the one. Sorry but there are many of us who still want true campaign reform and such. The only reason its not a big deal now to the Democrats is because it worked for them this time, before this they were always crying it wasn't fair that privately funded campaigns had such an advantage...
As for the economy, the same fools who created it are making it worse. Bailout is code for "reward friends" and will only sink the economy further into a pit making it even harder to get out of. The only correction needed is to sweep the current Congress out of power but that ain't going to happen because people vote them back in regardless. After all, its never their Senator/Representative that is the bad one.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
You are acting vindicated that mob rule is determining what crosses the president's desk?
in a nation ruled by television, do you think anything remotely related to copyright reform will make it through the mindless hordes who will mod it down "because hanna montana say's downloading is bad" into obama's "must read list"?
What about gay rights, which a majority of citizens in "the people's republic of california" voted to strip away?
I'm sorry, but "change" doesn't happen when the mindless hordes are deciding what crosses the president's desk.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
mod parent up.
i've been taking notes on this as it's crossed my mind and may some day write a paper or book on it "the alternative to democracy"
one of the biggest problems which is making this more and more evident today is the fact that, until recently, the world was simple enough to get a basic understanding of how everything works.
It's no longer the case anymore, and this allows politicians to pull blatant stunts of corruption and claim any experts that speak against it are a "fringe group".
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
the latest archive seems to be utterly riddled with dupes, pretty much all of them focused on the war on drugs, to the exclusion of almost all other issues, including an economy quickly sliding to 1933 levels.
I say they need to go through multiple rounds of moderation.
First to categorize them generally, then to choose the best from those categories to avoid most dupes.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
Open for Questions because Closed for Questions at 12AM today. I pity the poor souls who now have to wade through that drek and formulate answers that don't begin with "In response to IheartDick443@hotmail.com's dumbass question..."