OpenGov - Open Government Brainstorm

True. But I'm sure they notice it and know it...

Which leads me to wonder why not make changes to get more

input?

Anyone who has followed this site at all would notice it. Unfortunately, in addition to skewing the numbers on the site, that same activity has driven a lot of people away and pretty much ruined the site's credibility as a place for an accurate assessment of public reaction to new ideas.

How to fix it? I'm not sure. It sounds like they've tried blocking the birth certificate guy but that didn't stop him. And I don't think blocking people is the answer in any event. It seems to me that the best way is to create almost a separate community around individual ideas, then invite people in your circle (and then their circles) to that particular idea/discussion.

Also, I would like to see a change in the vote display. I would show the number of for & against votes and the total number of votes. The way it's done now, a small number is seen as a lack of interest in the topic when there could be a lot of interest, but the votes are evenly divided.

bsmolko, I find the idea of creating idea-based groups quite appealing. The moderators could then steer often-repeated ideas into groups specifically designed for them, getting rid of all the censorship objections, and what we'd have left is a list of idea-groups we could jump into for a discussion as they caught our eye.

As far as the vote display goes, it would be better if they just showed the positive and negative counts instead of forcing you to click on the number to see how the votes are falling.

In elections, what matters is the number of votes.

In the task of evaluating ideas, what matters are the Principles involved and the Logical accuracy in the relation of a proposal or a view and the Principle that, allegedly, the writer thinks the reader accepts -before the idea, proposal or suggestion is read.

Just because all of us might agree that, for example: Suppose I argue that "it is best to let the company that makes a drug also pay for the cost of testing its effectiveness in healing and not add this burden to the Taxpayers. After all, they will reap the huge profits, not the taxpayer!"

Others might consider the Principle of Profit to be the guiding Principle and not the Oath to "Do no Harm!"

A secondary argument may be "They can ALWAYS sue!"

I say the one with the higher and proper Principle should get the most votes and, if not, that is why other layers of Administration and Justice are there to try to prevent such excesses. I theenk!

I have posted forty-four ideas, and I can easily add another twenty or so. None of my ideas has anything to do with Obama’s birth records. This idea site was great until June 1st, when the birthers attacked. I have no idea how they organized, but it does seem coordinated. Most citizens are blissfully unaware of this site, but somehow significant numbers of birthers all found it, one day. More categories need to be created to allow more filtering of content. I do not advocate censorship, but the bither movement definitely deserves its own category.

I believe the price of Democracy, that is never mentioned, is the need to tolerate verbose comments and irrelevant views and ignorant assertions, just like many of us are able to make.

You may not believe this, but it was not intended to irate you or end this fine process.

Yes, patience is required, to quote something "Listen to others as you would have them listen to you."

I guess the fact that 10 people posting most of the content on the site prove the old saying that 10 percent of the people do most of the work.