1: Metascore
Govern and develop Metascore, the software to aid and manage community-based open source governance systems Other Information:
How it works: Metascore is intended to act as the replacement for the governance system of any community which currently relies
on representative democracy for governance. Within any community, any person may propose a new policy, comment on an existing
or proposed policy, or comment on other people's comments. Everyone is then invited to apply tags and scores to each proposal
and each comment, which are then raised in prominence if they accrue higher scores. Users are also invited to apply synthesis
scores to proposals, which are a numerical statement of how well they believe a particular proposal synthesizes two or more
other competing proposals. Synthesis scores allow a proposal to "steal" points from the proposals it synthesizes. If a proposal
attains a very high score (many positive scores and very few negative scores), it will be considered to have attained a consensus
and then will become a policy of the community. If a community is not able to achieve a consensus on a proposal, they are
encouraged to come up with a synthesis which will bring about a consensus. If that fails, the proposal may fall down to a
smaller sub-community where it can achieve consensus. That smaller community may then work further on the proposal until they
find a way to make it acceptable to the larger community. Transition: At first, we intend for Metascore to be used in very
small communities such as clubs, interest groups, and other small or newly-formed organizations. From these small communities,
we intend to get a better idea of how the process works in the real world. We will then adapt the software accordingly to
enable it to scale to larger and larger communities. At that point, we expect that Metascore will become an attractive governance
mechanism for larger communities. Members of those communities may set up an instance of Metascore ad hoc, without formal
approval from the larger community. As more members of that community begin to use that instance of Metascore, they will eventually
invite the entire community to switch its formal governance mechanism over to the Metascore instance. In this way, any community,
from a small club to a large government can transition to open source governance. When any ruling body cedes power to the
Metascore instance, the policies of the various levels of open source administration which affect the jurisdiction of the
ceding government become real and enforceable, to the extent that they are not forbidden by a higher level of government which
currently has established control of that area. We do not expect governments, particularly national governments, to cede their
authority in the near future. The intention of the Metagovernment and its associated communities is to gradually make a governance
system so superior to the status quo —and so compellingly, unprecedentedly democratic— that the people will demand a change
to this form of government. In states which claim to be built on democratic principles, the people should be able to peacefully
transform their government through the mechanisms of that government. In less democratic states, the transition may take longer,
but open source governments innately are protected from brutal force, as they do not have a single leader or a single physical
presence. Until an open source government has the power to collect taxes or otherwise raise funds, members may be invited
to act under the principles of adhocracy or perhaps to donate to possible nonprofit institutions which might act as the initial
stewards of these governments. Any such initial nonprofit institutions should be viewed as transient and goal-oriented, to
be dissolved once their goals are accomplished.
Objective(s):
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