Open Government Dialogue
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Move Off-Topic Submissions - Add an Out-of-Scope button to move off-topic posts to their own space
Since a few people seek to dominate any public space hosted by government regardless of the topic, re-establish some equity by allowing participants to flag submissions as "off-topic." With 10 off-topic votes, instead of deleting such posts, simply move them to a proper tab for all *who wish to see* can view them. An online consultation should make engagement more efficient. The online consultation manager should be able to freeze this feature should a minority of users attempt to game the system by flagging clearly on topic posts as off-topic.

Why Is This Idea Important?

When government spends tax dollars (or lends their support to partners like NAPA) to host structured sessions to gather online input, it is a waste of resources if relatively few individuals seek to hijack the public space for their pet issue which is clearly off-topic from the promised theme or agenda. Such submissions should be channeled rather than deleted (which would be a potential violation of the first amendment in what appears to be a legally public forum).
Comments
Tim Bonnemann 8 months ago
Leaving off-topic ideas and spam unmoderated also forces those participants who come to this site with a sincere intention to contribute to dig through layers and layers of unrelated material. This makes participating more cumbersome and a lot less productive (and less fun). Any convener of e-participation effort of this kind would be well advised to being more mindful of their participants' precious time. In that sense, moderation and community management become a courtesy.
Enquirer 8 months ago
It will also allow just a few people to move the concerns and opinions of many out of the view of the uninformed. Then it could be like the official Obama sites where they censor and purge contrarion dialogue.
Tim Bonnemann 8 months ago
@Enquirer

I agree that a lot of the issues brought up in this forum (healthcare, legalization of marijuana, balanced budget, foreign policy etc. etc.) are important and many people care deeply about them.

However, for the most part they do not relate to the topic at hand, which is to gather citizen input that will inform the crafting of the Open Government Directive (namely around the three principles for promoting a transparent and open government: transparency, participation, and collaboration).

Starting with Change.gov, there have already been a number of opportunities created by the new administration for citizens to discuss their most pressing issues, ask questions or brainstorm ideas online (and I'm pretty sure there will be many more, both general as well as focused on specific topics like this one here).

I think it's reasonable to ask people to respect the fact that every topic cannot be discussed every time and to refrain from flooding forums with off-topic remarks (there's also been a lot of foul language and name calling in recent days to a level that is hard to tolerate). It is also reasonable to allow the site moderators to gently keep their site in order (and as Steven's idea suggest, nothing would be deleted, but instead simply moved to the side).
silona 8 months ago
I like the idea of duplicate idea button...

I think that would solve most of this variety spam.
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