Re: [Cdn-DMCA] Political contributions

From: Kristofer Coward <kris _-at-_ melon.org>
To: No DMCA in Canada <canada-dmca-opponents (at) flora.org>
Date: Mon, 29 Apr 2002 23:30:23 -0400
References: <20020429015149.GJ1828@melon.org> <Pine.LNX.4.21.0204291802400.9622-100000@diamond.ansuz.sooke.bc.ca>

On Mon, Apr 29, 2002 at 07:41:52PM -0400, mskala@ansuz.sooke.bc.ca wrote:
> On Sun, 28 Apr 2002, Kristofer Coward wrote:
> > Any interest in scanning Hansard? Any interest in putting together a
> > page where we can "keep score" for given politicians? Anyone interested
> > in encouraging others to make contributions based on our assessments?
> 
> I've been scanning all over Hansard since January, and noting the points I
> find interesting in my web log at http://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/lebwog.html .
> Those aren't limited to copyright.  Something that has occurred to me is
> to create some kind of score card of different MPs and my thoughts on them
> - I sometimes make comments like "so-and-so is my favourite MP at the
> moment" but it might be interesting to formalize that.
> 
> What if we had a database of all the MPs, and an interface allowing people
> to add comments to individual MPs, including adding or subtracting points
> representing status or approval?  Some MP gets up to give a speech on
> copyright, and I might add a comment saying "Made interesting point
> re: blank media levy, +2 points".  The site would be designed so readers
> could look at all recent comments, or all comments on a given MP, and so
> on, and it would keep track of the point totals, as "Matthew's opinion of
> this MP", "Total of all members' opinions of this MP", "Total points for
> this party", and so on.  There would also be some kind of interface to
> generate form letters - so that if I chose to participate in Kris's
> campaign contribution scheme, I might say "Okay, I'll value my points at
> $1 each" and then it would spit out an itemized list for each MP - "Dear
> whoever, please find enclosed my cheque for $17, computed as
> follows:  such-and-such date, you did thus-and-so, $2, such-and-such date,
> you did this-other-thing, $1, such-and-such date, you made this mistake,
> subtract $1".

Report quarterly, including their current rank among the various MPs,
along with a reminder that come election time, the MP with the most
points gets a big fat campaign contribution (whereas the MP with the
lowest score gets a big fat negative publicity campaign).

Of course, this means we also need to attract pledges to the "grand
prize" winnres.

> Such a site might encourage more people to pay attention to what's going
> on in Parliament; it might also increase exposure for the opinions of

In fact, it might become so effective that even the parliamentarians
might consider paying attention :)

> anyone who participated in the rating process; it might provide some
> interesting feedback on public opinion; and so on.  It would be desirable
> to attract a lot of participation.  A vague idea I have is that it might
> be fun to build some kind of stock-market-simulation or betting-pool style
> of game into it, to help encourage people to visit regularly, but I'm not
> sure just how that would operate.

Well for the attention, all we really need is mention on /. :)

-- 
Kristofer Coward				http://unripe.melon.org/
GPG Fingerprint: 2BF3 957D 310A FEEC 4733  830E 21A4 05C7 1FEB 12B3
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