Website Analysis

Content here should be moved out to the analysis for the 37 websites or that Word Doc content should be moved here later (low priority)

Often, what a website actually does is what other websites say about it (their own statements about themselves are almost always exaggerated and glorified). We have to create the most condensed summary of what the website is basically all about. If anything is copy-pasted it should be surrounded by quotes.

We can create details of all websites in one section of the page and at the top, we can list the short summaries of all websites.

The Complexity of a website (from 0 to 10) is an approximate rating of how many features are provided and how they work.

Websites Analyzed

• https://www.citizens.is/ (this first analysis has more text because it was the first one to check. We'll try to make the analysis as short as possible)
  • Github: https://github.com/CitizensFoundation
  • https://betrireykjavik.is/domain/1 (Better Reykjavík) - (online since 2010) "Better Reykjavik is an online platform for the crowdsourcing of solutions to urban challenges. ... Innovations include a unique debating system, crowd-sourcing of content and prioritization, submission of multimedia content, and extensive use of AI to improve the user experience as well as content submitted. ... It’s a platform for crowdsourcing solutions to urban challenges and has multiple democratic functions: Agenda setting, Participatory budgeting, and Policymaking. .... Participation has increased steadily with new records reached almost every year. This 450 million ISK (4.2 million USD, 3.6 million EUR) participatory budgeting initiative enables the public to spend approximately 6% of the city’s capital investment budget."
    • When their name is searched in Google, their twitter comes up and it only has 38 followers and no posts.
    • Here's a sample page: https://www.betrireykjavik.is/group/3743 -- English Translation had to be activated and I had to login.
    • Seems like people can submit ideas, here's an example: https://www.betrireykjavik.is/post/38680 - The posting always asks them to submit answers to two questions "What do you want done?" and "why". People are able to vote yes or no for an idea and add a comment with it, which can also include a 30 sec audio or video clip. In a 'Debate' section, people can upvote or downvote other people's comments. There's a place to upload photos. Bad points: No dates are displayed on the ideas or comments so we cant tell if a comment is 5 years old or 5 days old.
    • (summary of analysis; important points) Basically this is a simple website, with just idea creation and allowing upvoting by other people and at this point we wonder if that is all there is. They also talked about participatory budgeting. Unable to see it so lets see.
    • Interesting idea that had some opposition with written comments: https://www.betrireykjavik.is/post/26876 -- this tells us that its not enough to just oppose an idea but provide a comment for it too.
    • (may be good to take a break while analyzing a website)
    • Another website confirms that this website is only for Ideas (and not participatory budgeting) - https://reykjavik.is/betri-reykjavik-0
    • One key feature is that Ideas are grouped by 'Communities' (makes sense to invite people to submit ideas on a certain topic). Otherwise all ideas would be submitted into a single group which would make it hard to organize and search etc, and we expect some kind of categorization of the Ideas
    • Indeed, the final summary is that this is just a website for Idea submission and commenting on them. Its possible that the govt of the city takes the ideas and funds the most popular ones (hence their claim of participatory budgeting). So it seems to be clear that the claims made on the original website are more than what is actually happening on the website. Its true that the website could be facilitating some of the stuff happening outside of the website but it is not happening on the website (for example there's no direct built-in budget management function).
    • The same exact platform is used for other purposes such as for "Icelandic Constitution Crowdsourcing" - https://stjornarskra-2019.betraisland.is/group/2102 -- Once again people submit ideas and can comment on it (that is all). Another interesting controversial topic with significant amount of support and opposition
    • Example of a US based implementation - https://enjine.smarter.nj.gov/group/6 - once again its the same platform so this confirms that this is all it is. Various countries are using it (with mostly light usage). That site is linked from the NJ website. This shows us the great potential of websites like this which are actually relatively simple. And all of them can be combined into one domain with differentiation based on location (instead of having separate websites for every location or purpose)
    • Went back to the main website to find out if there was anything else and yes this confirms it: https://citizens.is/getting-started/
    • Another summary: People are trying to submit ideas on various topics and their comments are recorded and upvoted. And the website displays the top ideas and the top comments. That is all.
    • Its also interesting to see what the NJ website is saying about this platform they're using - https://smarter.nj.gov/enjine/stage-one-ideas.html -- again this confirms its all about "ideas" (a search of that word brings up 16 occurrences on that page)
    • There could be several ways to improve this platform and add a lot of functionality to it (in the end, the sum of all improvements will go towards the design of our own website)
    • Sounds like the main Github of this website is at: https://github.com/CitizensFoundation/your-priorities-app (the Github is linked on top of the main website https://www.citizens.is/ ). Description of this app is "Your Priorities is a citizen engagement platform, a progressive web app, and a participatory social network that empowers groups of any size to speak with one voice and organize around ideas." - so that is the real description of the core software
  • The shortest summary for this would be: Their product (open source) is basically just for submitting Ideas, upvoting them, commenting on the ideas and upvoting those comments as well. Its used in various locations. They all look the same. We can see how simple the actual product is after we investigate it for ourselves. However some products are actually as complex as claimed.
  • Complexity of Product: 2/10

• https://democraciaos.org/en/
  • (from About page) "based in Argentina. Made up of activists, programmers and social scientists, who from doing so seek to open public institutions and decision-making processes."
  • They have 4 products which are open-source (Github) with some limited screenshots:
    • Participatory budget - "A digital citizen participation tool that allows governments and institutions to consult on different public policies, enabling citizens to comment, vote, rank, choose between option, or establish degrees of valuation in public matters." -- Features: "Proposals upload, Feasibility of proposals, Project execution phases, Project follow-up, Comments, Vote"
    • Public Consultation: "A digital citizen participation tool that allows governments and institutions to consult on different public policies, enabling citizens to comment, vote, rank, choose between option, or establish degrees of valuation in public matters." Features: Consult upload, Citizen proposal upload, Comments, Vote, Polls, Prioritize
    • Crowd Law Making: "A digital tool that opens up dialogue and makes the process of drafting norms transparent, where representatives consider the laws to be drawn up, inviting them to leave their contributions."- Features: High bills, Explanation of the project, Support projects, Contributions, Versions
    • Goals tracking: "Digital platform for governments and institutions that allows the publication of goals and commitments, facilitating the monitoring of progress and active transparency." - Features: Objectives, Goals, Reports, Validation
  • Complexity of Product(s): 5/10 (since there are 4 products)

• https://www.civis.vote/
  • based in India -- "The process where you share feedback with the government on how a policy may impact you and your community, is known as a public consultation."
  • A 'consultation' is first created which is basically an invitation for the public to provide comments on a government policy. People can then comment on the policy.
  • Example of a closed consultation. Another example with good comments. Open consultations are similar but do not let people see comments.
  • Leaderboard - Unclear how the points are awarded
  • Complexity of Product: 2/10

Website Analysis-Synthesis

Sources:

1. Analysis of 37 websites in Google Doc (originally a list of 600+ websites was analyzed)
2. Done: Website Analysis

The goal is to find or create a tool that enables people to work together in a variety of scenarios such as

• Govt and Leadership:
  • Working together on issues facing society and reducing partisanship; Improving politics and leadership in some way
  • Creating or improving Laws
  • Creating and strengthening international alliances
• Products and Services
  • New Product or Service Design
  • Creating Specifications/standards for Product Design
  • Feedback for Existing Product or Service (examining issues and suggesting solutions)
  • Evaluating companies on various metrics including transparency and how well they listen to customer feedback
  • Creating a framework for creation and operation of 'open-source' businesses owned by its employees, its customers and the public
• Working to solve problems of all kinds (relating to any topic)

Any platform that can do any of the above would have a complex design. We start by first looking at what existing websites and software can do for the above.

Synthesis of Findings

This section will tell us what websites have what features. Not all websites or all features are mentioned here. Initially the idea was to list all websites and all their features. However now only different or unique features or websites are being listed.

• Ideation/Citizen Proposals:
  • https://www.citizenlab.co/- Citizen Proposals: "Enable citizens to suggest projects on any given topic and gather support from fellow citizens" - example 1 (more info on Proposals from citizenlab.co)
  • https://airesis.eu/public - seems to specialize in proposals (needs investigation on whats unique about it). Site not used anymore (last actions in 2013)
  • https://www.citizenlab.co/ - Ideation: Similar to their Proposals, it allows users to add ideas, comments and votes. No actual demo is available but a quick video is available here
  • Decidim.org - example
  • liquidfeedback.com - Create initiative, support them, suggest improvements, update initiative, start alternate initiative, preferential voting system how it works, Demo on Youtube
  • https://democracy.foundation/ - (product does not seem to be under active development). Epitome is a platform where users are able to identify issues, crowdsource solutions and improve them and then vote on them
  • https://adhocracy.plus/info/features/ - they have 9 modules, most of them are related to letting people propose ideas, discuss, vote on them and place them on a map etc.
  • https://civic-europe.eu/ideas/ - Ideas, upvotes and comments (with categories)
  • Uplink - "UpLink is a digital platform to crowdsource solutions for the world's most pressing issues, as outline by the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)." ... "UpLink aspires to nurture a world where anyone with impact-oriented ideas and solutions is empowered to address the world’s most pressing challenges."
  • https://www.openideo.com/ - A Challenge (example) is posted and responses (example) are submitted
• Brainstorming/Problem-solving: opendcn.org: Brainstorming (Italy) - has some interesting functionality such as (1) initial proposals are hidden from others. (2) Ideas are then made public but authors are hidden (looks like doin this promotes more objective evaluation). (3) Ideas that incorporate minority views are given additional credit. This paper Don’t Vote, Evolve! is cited as an inspiration for this method.
• Participatory budget
  • https://democraciaos.org - "A digital citizen participation tool that allows governments and institutions to consult on different public policies, enabling citizens to comment, vote, rank, choose between option, or establish degrees of valuation in public matters." -- Features: "Proposals upload, Feasibility of proposals, Project execution phases, Project follow-up, Comments, Vote" (example 1)
  • https://www.citizenlab.co/ - No live demo available however see this Blog post that has some information on it (the concept seems simple enough)
  • OpenDCN.org - Example (description of tool in Italian)
• Public Consultation: (maybe merge with Ideation/Citizen Proposals)
  • https://democraciaos.org - "A digital citizen participation tool that allows governments and institutions to consult on different public policies, enabling citizens to comment, vote, rank, choose between option, or establish degrees of valuation in public matters." Features: Consult upload, Citizen proposal upload, Comments, Vote, Polls, Prioritize (example 1
  • example 2 from https://www.citizens.is/
  • example 3 from https://www.civis.vote/)
• Crowd Policy/Law Making:
  • https://democraciaos.org - "A digital tool that opens up dialogue and makes the process of drafting norms transparent, where representatives consider the laws to be drawn up, inviting them to leave their contributions."- Features: High bills, Explanation of the project, Support projects, Contributions, versions (example 1)
  • Collaborative Legislation (consulproject.org)
  • https://crowd.law/crowdlaw-af1a9e1c9455 - (blog type material for reference only, cant see any tools being used)
  • Collaborative policy-making: dcentproject.eu - described more in their 'Toolbox' (pdf) on pg. 7. -- "Objective 8 (Github) is a policy drafting tool that allows organizations to work with their members to produce transparent and crowdsourced policies.". Allows people to "review, comment and annotate versions (drafts) of a policy."
• Goals tracking:
  • https://democraciaos.org - "Digital platform for governments and institutions that allows the publication of goals and commitments, facilitating the monitoring of progress and active transparency." - Features: Objectives, Goals, Reports, Validation (example 1)
• Using Map modules (google maps etc) to assign location information to issues, ideas and other information
  • https://www.citizenlab.co/ - Similar to Ideation, their Maps module allows adding of ideas on a map. example 1
  • https://adhocracy.plus/info/features/ - "Participants can submit their own ideas and locate them on a map."

• Reward Systems
  • Freecoin (Blockchain Reward scheme) - linked on D-Cent - "Freecoin is a set of tools to let people run reward schemes that are transparent and auditable to other organisations. It is made for participatory and democratic organizations who want to incentivise participation, unlike centralized banking databases."

Noteworthy links

Some organizations have products with a lot of features and it would be efficient to list them here:

• https://decidim.org - Decidim is open-source software. See an overview that shows a diagram. It has various features. Also see their different modules (some modules listed are more trivial than others). Further study of the General description page is needed to better understand Decidim. As per the diagram and what they say on the website, their key features seem to be Initiatives, Processes, Assemblies and Consultations. It does not support collaborative work for design/development/maintenance of a product/service.

Other Websites

These are websites with features that other websites mentioned above already have.

• https://citizenos.com/product/ - Discussions and Votes
• https://consulproject.org/en/#features - Debates, Proposals, Participatory budgeting, Voting, Collaborative Legislation (linked page has videos on these features)
• D-CENT Website:https://dcentproject.eu/ - Various modules described in their toolbox here (PDF). Voting, Collaborative Policy Making (Objective-8), Consul (start debates, submit proposals and vote for them, participatory budgeting), Your Priorities (submit ideas and vote for them), secure online voting with privacy, FreeCoin (blockchain-based rewards system)
• Rousseau - "a platform for participatory democracy and active citizenship" - it was used by the '5 Star Movement' political part and has some features such as voting and collaborative law creation. Other smaller more specialized functions are listed.
• Civocracy (commercial product, not a lot of detail available) - Consultations, Ideas, Surveys, Participatory Budget, eMapping (using maps to locate projects)