Liquid Democracy

This is really not so much of a feature idea.

I vote Loomio should employ a Discourse forum so that we have a place dedicated to discussion. This way Loomio can really focus on what it does best, and we have a better platform for discussions (a very nice platform Discourse is indeed). You can spin up a Discourse instaqnce with Digital Ocean and docker pretty quickly: https://meta.discourse.org/t/beginners-guide-to-deploy-discourse-on-digital-ocean-using-docker/12156

I've even proposed the idea of using Discourse for the commenting system inside loomio. This would allow for larger/longer conversations to take place with Discourse's summarization feature.

There is a feature request for Discourse that has the same idea!

https://www.loomio.org/d/Pacs4beV/feature-request-use-discourse-for-discussions

Wow that's two huge feature requests in one thread!

I love Discourse. Right now I'm confident that within the next 4-6 weeks the Loomio discussion platform will provide a comparable user experience - hopefully better in some regards actually, especially around email integration (details coming soon!)

I'd like to get that work out, play with it for a bit, and then reconsider whether we should continue investing in Loomio as a discussion engine or investigate integrating Discourse. We'll see.

I'm interested in the phrase "what Loomio does best" - what do you think that is @michaelduanemoorin?

Regarding liquid democracy, yes, it is exciting and powerful. I'd love to see some research, e.g. how are minority opinions protected in a liquid democracy? how does push- versus pull-delegation compare (i.e. seeking recommendations vs passing your vote on)? has anyone developed a liquid democracy interface that actually makes sense to the average web user?

Also, check out parpolity.

Woooooo buzzy stuff :P

Interesting indeed.

"What Loomio does best" ~ In node.js culture, we aim to create very minimal modules that do one thing. For example, socket.io's split into engine.io. It seems like Discourse is going to have the best discussion UX around, so why re-invent the wheel? The same way we decentralize/distribute/enable-access in our Loomio polls is the same way we need to look at open technology. As ubiquitous via APIs. Similar to how we all use/re-use popular development frameworks is the same way we need to look at quality open-source modules, as building blocks that we can leverage/tweak. This way when I'm integrating Loomio into apps I can rest assure that it's the best open-source polling around, bar-none.

Discourse is already going to have many of the features we're requesting in our Loomio discussions. This path lets you integrate and then simply maintain moving forward. You can rest easy knowing Discourse and it's huge open-source community is working 24/7 making it a better UX. Now switch roles and imagine someone implementing Loomio. They want/need to count that Loomio is the best polling UX around, but they're not necessarily coming to Loomio for the commenting engine. And it's not to bash the current/future Loomio commenting engine. I know as a developer that much work has gone into it. The above is simply a proposal. :)

Our ambition is a bit bigger than being 'the best polling UX around'. Speaking for myself, I want Loomio to empower groups to be smarter and more compassionate and resilient and stronger and more effective than any of their members. Polling is like a marketing hook to get some attention. The dialogue is where the magic happens IMHO.

Concur. To that I'd say collaborating with Discourse on enabling the best discussions around is a good idea. We're all part of this open source community/culture which is enabling this conversation right now. I'm going to start to look into the technical details of this integration this weekend to have a more formal proposal/plan versus such a high-level feature preach. Cheers!

I like the Liquid Democracy thing

Check out this previous thread on this topic:

https://www.loomio.org/d/PKFLcyEv/liquid-democracy-in-loomio

Oops, pardon the double post. This gives rise to the idea then, whenever someone's posting a new discussion/poll, there is a auto-populate/recommendation drop-down with existing discussions/polls with their link in smaller text. A user could click/keyboard down and select one and it links them to that existing discussion.

@michaelduanemoorin yes, good idea, please add it to https://www.loomio.org/g/GN7EFQTK/loomio-community-feature-ideas so that it can make it's way onto http://loomio.org/roadmap :)