| 51 | | == A Call for a Techie Congress at the US Social Forum == |
| | 52 | == Techie Congress Description == |
| | 53 | |
| | 54 | In this gathering, "techies" (the progressive movement's technologists) will join together to examine and discuss strategies for growing one of the largest, most important and powerful human movement in recent history. |
| | 55 | |
| | 56 | With over a billion people engaging in a collective activity, today's Internet is one of humanity's largest social movements, reflecting the kind of social interaction and collective achievement activists like us struggle for world-wide: fundamentally collaborative, democratic and based almost entirely on tools and software that has been produced collaboratively, developed by large, democratic communities and distributed freely. It is truly international and resilient against constant attempts to control its direction and curtail its positive growth. Techies have been fundamental to this movement and will continue to play an increasingly important role in the progress of humanity. |
| | 57 | |
| | 58 | Even more inspiring, the Internet has grown in this progressive way against considerable relentless opposition by powerful forces that don't want a "better world" for most of us. As such, it represents one of the progressive movement's most significant and important victories. An international Techie Congress seeks to strategize against this growing opposition. |
| | 59 | |
| | 60 | In this gathering, we seek to hold an open space for technologists to collaborate on a set of "principles" for organizing the Internet. Modeled after the Collaborative Democracy Workshop at the first US Social Forum, this event integrates virtual participation with organized in-person events in local venues. At each location, the audience breaks into groups of 4 - 5 people. Each group will speak with one voice via a "scribe" who will be tasked with entering the group's proposals into a web-based system. A dynamic, projected display of the current state of the document is viewable by participants in the room and anyone in the world with access to our website. |
| | 61 | |
| | 62 | All ideas belong to the group: any group can edit any proposal, whether they wrote the original version or not. All revisions of a given proposal are stored, but only the most recent edit is projected to the group as a whole. The group which creates a new version automatically endorses that right, but otherwise holds no special connection to it. |
| | 63 | |
| | 64 | Each group also has the ability to endorse any proposal that seems worthy. When a proposal is edited, existing endorsements are cleared, which requires solicitation of new endorsements for the new version. Proposals with more endorsers float to the top, while the proposals with fewer endorsers sink to the bottom of the projected list. |
| | 65 | |
| | 66 | To keep the document direct and concise, only 10 distinct proposals can exist at a given time. If 10 proposals already exist, the only way to add a new idea to the document is to edit an existing idea, which requires engaging other groups in a dialog to ensure an adequate number of re-endorsements. |
| | 67 | |
| | 68 | == A Call for a Techie Congress == |
| 83 | | Progressive Techie Congress |
| 84 | | |
| 85 | | that will wrap up a four month process of discussion and thinking on-line around these principles. |
| 86 | | |
| 87 | | After that Congress, we will distribute the principles to everyone at the Social Forum and propose them to the USSF's People's Assembly for ratification. On that basis, we will begin to build the kind of relationships inside the movement that will move us all forward. |
| 88 | | |
| 89 | | == Techie Congress Description == |
| 90 | | In this gathering, "techies" (the progressive movement's technologists) will join together to examine and discuss strategies for growing one of the largest, most important and powerful human movement in recent history. |
| 91 | | |
| 92 | | With over a billion people engaging in a collective activity, today's Internet is one of humanity's largest social movements, reflecting the kind of social interaction and collective achievement activists like us struggle for world-wide: fundamentally collaborative, democratic and based almost entirely on tools and software that has been produced collaboratively, developed by large, democratic communities and distributed freely. It is truly international and resilient against constant attempts to control its direction and curtail its positive growth. Techies have been fundamental to this movement and will continue to play an increasingly important role in the progress of humanity. |
| 93 | | |
| 94 | | Even more inspiring, the Internet has grown in this progressive way against considerable relentless opposition by powerful forces that don't want a "better world" for most of us. As such, it represents one of the progressive movement's most significant and important victories. An international Techie Congress seeks to strategize against this growing opposition. |
| 95 | | |
| 96 | | In this gathering, we seek to hold an open space for technologists to collaborate on a set of "principles" for organizing the Internet. Modeled after the Collaborative Democracy Workshop at the first US Social Forum, this event integrates virtual participation with organized in-person events in local venues. At each location, the audience breaks into groups of 4 - 5 people. Each group will speak with one voice via a "scribe" who will be tasked with entering the group's proposals into a web-based system. A dynamic, projected display of the current state of the document is viewable by participants in the room and anyone in the world with access to our website. |
| 97 | | |
| 98 | | All ideas belong to the group: any group can edit any proposal, whether they wrote the original version or not. All revisions of a given proposal are stored, but only the most recent edit is projected to the group as a whole. The group which creates a new version automatically endorses that right, but otherwise holds no special connection to it. |
| 99 | | |
| 100 | | Each group also has the ability to endorse any proposal that seems worthy. When a proposal is edited, existing endorsements are cleared, which requires solicitation of new endorsements for the new version. Proposals with more endorsers float to the top, while the proposals with fewer endorsers sink to the bottom of the projected list. |
| 101 | | |
| 102 | | To keep the document direct and concise, only 10 distinct proposals can exist at a given time. If 10 proposals already exist, the only way to add a new idea to the document is to edit an existing idea, which requires engaging other groups in a dialog to ensure an adequate number of re-endorsements. |
| | 100 | After each Congress, we will distribute the principles through our networks and to the Social Forum process as a consensus document. On that basis, we will begin to build the kind of relationships inside the movement that will move us all forward. |
