Echo Features
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Bird's Eye View
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A paradigm shift that dramatically changes the dynamic in the voter / elected representative ("proxy") relationship at the local level
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A software communications tool that organizes and funnels the most important issues, positions and priorities of the community to the proxy (city council or board of supervisors member), not as directives, but as crucial data points to aid in policy decision-making.
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An informal agenda setting and policy formulation platform for community members
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A data instrument that supplements our democratic processes and in no way denies, impedes, dilutes or usurps the legal authorities, duties and responsibilities vested in our elected leaders
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An exclusive and independent pitching, polling, endorsing and voting Echosphere established at the district or city level (jurisdictions)
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An empowerment and influencing tool that amplifies the individual's community voice through a hierarchical process of group and community litmus testing
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An exponentially more active, diverse and augmented base of resident participants vis-a-vis our local democratic processes which leverages technology to make Echo mobile, convenient, simple to use, cost-free and readily-accessible (24/7)
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A platform where all voices are equally weighted, yet amplified in proportion to the value a community places on their ideas
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A leadership accountability tool to monitor proxy choices through the transparency of clear, weighted and published voting recommendations derived from community consensus.
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A platform propelled by ideas, not by wealth, connections, influence, race, ethnicity, sex, gender, age, national origin, disability, etc. Echo will never ask its members for any such information and will never class its members into any such categories unless forced to by law
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A nonpartisan platform in nature, spirit and commitment by its user community
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What Echo is NOT​
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Echo is not a social media platform.
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Echo is not designed to address individual needs (e.g. my building permit isn't being approved), but only those submitted at the group level aimed at advancing a group's mission statement and principle goals
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Echo is not a platform in which for-profit businesses can pitch their ideas, though they may act as stakeholders with endorsement rights
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Echo is not a platform for organizing local demonstrations or protests
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Echo is not a platform for those willing to freely yield their power of choice over to others to shape their community for them
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A Deeper Dive
Overview
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Deploys a modified Lasswell Policy Model (e-democracy-adapted) at the individual, group and community levels, with informal agenda setting and policy formulation outcomes
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Allows users to form and manage groups, coalitions and mergers, each distinguished by its unique mission statement and policy field classification
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Creates voting opportunities for (1) Organic (born inside the Echo ecosystem) initiatives and repeals and (2) Inorganic (born outside the Echo ecosystem) policy proposals reaching the voting phase on a city council or board of supervisors agenda
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Establishes recurring Monthly Voting Cycles that sequence Echo members through a series of stages, or "gates," that advance a compelling organic initiative or repeal pitch through the voting and endorsement chain--from group level through community level.
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Establishes non-recurring, Special Voting Cycles triggered directly by the proxy to allow Echo members the option to provide input on inorganic policy proposals awaiting final voting during an upcoming city council or board of supervisors meeting.
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Utilizes proprietary, consensus modeling tools and direct voting mechanisms to determine what gets delivered to the proxy's desk
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Offers direct, data-gathering tools for voter group leads and the proxy for polling the general community
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Offers direct, data-gathering tools for all group and coalition leads to survey their individual members
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Relegates to the proxy less critical, mundane and day-to-day decisions---tasks not meeting group or community interest or focus (in Echo voting parlance: an insufficient quorum) to manage in the conventional manner
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Incorporates a user Activity Planner to help navigate the monthly voting process and its unique activities during the different voting stages
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Deploys an activity scoring system that rewards active and effective entities (see next section) with accolades and point conversions (e.g. promoting a group's mission or granting a group lead an additional opportunity to poll the community beyond the standard allotment) of various natures, as well as ranks them within their particular entity classes, as an additional motivational tool
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Regulates entity privilege accessibility through a lifecycle model that limits access to certain Echo functionalities and complexities, depending on the entity's readiness. Lifecycle transitions may also occur when inactivity levels over a certain period are below an established threshold, temporarily freezing certain privileges in order to keep individuals, groups and coalitions actively involved to optimize system efficiency
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Re-defines minority classes* by shifting away from traditional, overly-broad, vaguely-defined, stereotypical and manipulable classifications (e.g. ethnic, religious, culture, linguistic) and transitioning into a new system of classifications defined by small group interests (i.e. mission statements) vis-a-vis predominant group interests within an Echosphere.
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Through proprietary modeling, and under the appropriate conditions, yields leveraging & negotiating power to protect minority class* interests (see above) from unchecked, majority class dominance that direct democracy voting systems have lacked until now.
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Creates avenues for group leads to link directly to their preferred social media platforms on group homepages in order to leverage those platforms' extended communication capacities (e.g. chat, multimedia downloads, messaging, etc.) for extended group discussion and debating if Echo's tools and scope become too limiting
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Promotes and provides the tools that allow for a self-regulating speech community that puts Echo members in charge of setting their own standards for "acceptable" speech within its own boundaries along with the necessary software tools to implement it
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Deploys built-in audit trail features to allow independent 3rd-parties to reconcile voter confirmations with system voting tallies to reduce voting fraud to further breed public confidence in the Echo voting outcomes
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Includes a broad array of "How To" Videos to enable users to quickly gain the necessary knowledge to perform the basic Echo functions
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Monitors and protects the 1st Amendment rights of the E-Democracy user community through the advocacy efforts of the First Amendment Rights Preservation Society, Inc, a Santa Cruz-based, 501(c)(3), nonprofit
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Entity Classes, Purposes and Privileges
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Echo instantiates and supports three primary Entity Classes: (1) SINGULAR ENTITY, (2) MULTIPLE ENTITY and (3) COMMUNITY ENTITY
SINGULAR ENTITY - an individual member of the Echo ecosystem, each specified by a particular type, role and purpose
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MULTIPLE ENTITY - a collection of individual members of the Echo ecosystem with some shared interest and specified by a particular type, role and purpose
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COMMUNITY ENTITY - the collection of all singular and multiple entities of the particular Echo ecosystem
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Let's take a closer look at each of the entity classes:
INDIVIDUALS [ class: singular entity ] - Echo creates and manages four Entity Sub-Classes and their roles. These particular sub-classes are also known as USER TYPES.
VISITOR
Purpose(s): learn more about Echo and its benefits; spread the word; encourage Echo adoption in own community
Who are they? general public
Rights: viewing rights only
STAKEHOLDER
Purpose(s): to impart a degree of influence on how an Echo voter derives a final voting choice on a community bill(s) through the stakeholder's public display of support or lack of support; to a lesser degree, to impart influence on the proxy once final voting tallies have been published
Who are they? a resident not registered to vote in the pertinent jurisdiction; a non-resident who has some vested interest in the policy choices made in that particular jurisdiction ( a local business owner, charity founder, head of an association, staff member of an educational institution, governmental employee in a specific department, an undocumented resident, etc.)
Rights: community poll-taking rights, joining and / or forming stakeholder groups
VOTER
Purpose(s): to influence proxy policy choices by pitching ideas that have levels of community support behind them
Who are they? state-registered voters who reside in the pertinent jurisdiction
Rights: community-level voting rights, community poll-taking rights, joining and / or forming voter groups
PROXY
Purpose(s): elected representative of a jurisdiction; final voting authority at city council or board of supervisor proceedings; takes Echo ballot results as data points that may or may not influence their final voting decisions
Who is this? the elected city council member or board of supervisor of the pertinent jurisdiction f
Rights: submit community polls; vote on community ballots; may not form, join or lead groups or coalitions
GROUPS [ class: multiple entity ] - Echo creates and manages two Entity Sub-Classes: (1) voter groups and (2) stakeholder groups. A group is a self-serving entity characterized by its chosen policy field and mission statement-, perhaps better viewed as its common "cause" or raison-d'etre. Group members share in the pursuit of the group's common mission within its chosen policy field.
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General Rules for Groups - (1) users may only form group types that correspond to their user types (e.g. voters create voter groups; stakeholders create stakeholder groups), (2) voter groups have pitching and group voting rights while stakeholder groups have pitch endorsement rights, (3) users who form groups become their group leads and these groups are often referred to as the user's lead groups, (4) users may only lead a maximum of two lead groups at any given time, (5) users may join other groups not formed by them, often referred to as the user's member groups, and may maintain memberships in no more than three member groups at any given time, (6) users have annual caps on the number of times they may form new groups and join other groups.
VOTER GROUP
Purpose(s): a forum for a voter to pitch ideas to advance the group's mission with the parallel goal of attracting the support of the general voting community of a jurisdiction (litmus testing)
Example(s): a collection of voters sharing a common mission such as preserving the beaches or addressing the local crime problem
Group Rights: elevate top-ranking initiatives to the community level for ballot consideration, join voter coalitions and / or merge with other voter groups (both initiated by the group lead)
Group Member Rights - group survey-taking, organic initiative and inorganic referendum pitching rights, voting rights on high-level and low-level group pitches
Group Lead Rights: includes member rights plus additional rights that include exercising a variety of group management functions, creating and submitting community polls, creating and submitting group surveys, forming and / or joining / quitting the group from voter coalitions, requesting and / or accepting merger propositions from other voter groups
STAKEHOLDER GROUP
Purpose(s): a forum for a stakeholder to evaluate ballot measures (bills) that may benefit or harm the group's mission with the power to attach to those bills formal endorsements and / or counter-points from the group in its entirety
Example(s): a retail business composed of owners and employees who band together under a common mission to address community bills that may benefit or harm their overall business prospects; a group of homeowners who band together to protect their property interests from over-regulation and over-taxation
Group Rights: vote internally and link group endorsement and counter-point responses to particular community bills before voting activity commences
Group Member Rights: group survey-taking, group voting on endorsement and counterpoint recommendations
Group Lead Rights: includes member rights plus additional rights that include exercising a variety of group management functions, creating and submitting group surveys, forming and / or joining / quitting the group from stakeholder coalitions
THE GROUP LEAD *
Each group (or group of groups) must have a group lead. The group lead doesn't just oversee and (virtually) manage the functions of the group, but is the inspiration that motivates members to stay active and stay involved as well in the group's quest to reach its mission. On the other hand, the group lead has no extraordinary voting powers beyond those of any group member. So, what does a group lead do exactly?
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forms the group and gives it a name
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establishes the group’s mission statement
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mission statement - a concise explanation of the group's reason for existence. It describes the group's purpose and its overall intention. The mission statement supports the vision and serves to communicate purpose and direction to community members (stakeholders)
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categorizes the group according to the policy classification table
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develops a solicitation to attract new members
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establishes and updates the group tags
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delves more deeply into the group’s particular policy field of focus
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understands the rules and procedures of the voting processes and can answer questions from group members about them
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taps into the City Manager’s Office when needed
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moderates for terms and conditions violations by members
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ensures that active members remain active and inactive members either leave or begin participating more greatly
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has dual privileges both as lead and as a member
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keeps group members updated on important issues, votes and concerns related to the group’s mission
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creates and submits straw polls to the general community
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creates and submits surveys to group members
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critique’s members’ submissions as a form of guidance and points out training resources
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identifies and forms mutually-beneficial coalitions or mergers with like-minded groups
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selects a new group lead and transfers the leadership position to that individual when necessary
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terminates the group if and when it no longer effectively serves its purpose or has reached its mission objectives
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GROUP of GROUPS [ class: multiple entity ] - Echo creates and manages two Entity Sub-Classes: (1) coalitions and (2) mergers. Among coalitions, creates and manages two Entity Sub-Classes: (1) voter coalitions and (2) stakeholder coalitions. Among mergers, creates and manages one Entity SubClass: (1) voter group
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General Rules for Coalitions - (1) only group leads with lead groups may form new coalitions, (2) group leads may only form coalition types which match their lead group types (e.g. those who lead voter groups form voter coalitions, those who lead stakeholder groups from stakeholder coalitions), (3) regardless of the coalition type, coalitions only have community ballot endorsement rights that occur during the Community Viewing stage of a Monthly Voting Cycle, (4) when forming a coalition, a group lead must assign one of the lead groups to "anchor" the coalition as a permanent coalition group member. This is known as the "anchor group," (5) a lead group may anchor only one coalition at any given time, (6) a group lead may join a lead group to another users coalition and that group becomes a "member group" of the coalition, (7) any lead group may act as either a member group or an anchor group in no more that two coalitions at any given time (under the limitation of rule #4), (8) if a user joins group X as a member, and if the group X lead decides to join group X to coalition Y, then by virtue of becoming a member of group X, the user also becomes a member of coalition Y, (9) all individual members belonging to groups that have joined a coalition either as an anchor or member group automatically gain coalition voting rights.
VOTER COALITIONS
Purpose(s): the most influential among the coalition types for two primary reasons: (1) voter coalitions are made up of state registered voters who must endure a more exacting process of authentication by Echo than stakeholders, lending coalition composition greater legitimacy and (2) voter coalitions are made up of subsets of the individuals who deliver the deciding votes on the community pitches that are delivered to the proxy. Voter coalitions are simply a composition of voters from two or more voter groups that have joined forces under a common mission that may be strongly or loosely aligned (degree of overlap) to the unique missions of the individual groups. Voter coalitions are formed and joined simply to establish a larger and more influential force to sway public opinion and voter choices mostly through its mere size. Coalitions are a more flexible alternative than mergers in that groups still maintain their independence in coalitions while mergers absorb them and a co-dependence and balancing of interests is the result.
Examples: a voter group called "protect our neighborhoods" and another called "keep our schools safe for kids" decide to form a coalition called "citizenry for justice" that has the broader mission of supporting policies enabling law enforcement to be more proactive and the necessary funding that would be required.
Rights: similar endorsement and counter-point rights as stakeholder groups.
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STAKEHOLDER COALITIONS
Purpose(s): see Voter Coalition purpose(s). Less influential than voter coalitions due to the lack of any voting power of its members on community ballots.
Example(s): the stakeholder group "Santa Cruz Housing Authority" organizes a coalition to focus on policies that ease the burden of the homeless population. Two other stakeholder groups, "Housing Matters" and "Nation's Finest," a veterans support organization, immediately join this new stakeholder coalition.
Rights: similar endorsement and counter-point rights as stakeholder groups.
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VOTER GROUP MERGERS
Purpose(s): there are several reasons why two groups may wish to merge together. Perhaps, the two groups are duplicating efforts for similar causes and merging them together would create better efficiency with a larger member base. Secondly, voter groups operating below a certain membership level that don't meet Echo's "relevancy" test threshold are not only likely to flounder, but lose certain privileges that other voter groups maintain. Beyond re-branding itself or launching a new recruiting campaign, they could decide to merge with another group and the two groups, together, could have a sufficient membership level to pass the relevancy test. This will cause one of the groups to lose its identify in the absorption process, but the two groups may consider "meeting half-way" in defining the merged group's new mission. Thirdly, mid- to large-size groups can grow so large that they dominate the ballot selection process in their policy class if they decide to merge together. But one of the groups must be absorbed and lose its identify, and given that it was already significant in size, its own attraction and success could be a barrier to the choice to merge. What also limits the choice to merge is that the idea pitching environment becomes much more competitive the larger the group is. Members may lose their community voice in this respect. In addition, the size of the largest groups is likely to be a function of its broader mission statement (e.g. citizens for a clean environment) that simply may not be sufficiently focused for many. Large, dominant groups whose pitches always seem locked onto the community ballot for their particular policy classification, but that are not successful in being frequently promoted by the community to the proxy will see memberships fade, as new groups with better ideas will take its place. This may occur if voters reject their ideas or the effect of the bicameral element of community voting does not meet the sufficient thresholds for the bills approval.
Example(s): a small voter group, "keep RV's out of neighborhoods" lacks membership and is not meeting the relevancy threshold. They modified their mission statement and tried connecting with their Facebook friends to join them, but nothing seemed to help. They noticed a larger group loosely serving a similar cause, "beautify Santa Cruz neighborhoods" and decide to request a merger with them.
Rights: once merged, the combined group then reverts back to an ordinary voter group having the same rights and privileges and non-merged voter groups.
COMMUNITY [ class: community entity ] - the aggregate of all members, groups and groups of groups within a particular Echo ecosystem.
COMMUNITY
Purpose(s): the vehicle for final filtering of top-ranked voter group initiatives, referendums and responses, along with their associated endorsement and counterpoint inputs from stakeholders and coalitions, to pass onto the proxy as weighted consensus data points as determined by the broader community.
Example(s): the community votes strongly in favor of adding an new stop light at a dangerous intersection within the jurisdictional boundary
Rights: only voter user types have voting and decision power at the community level
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS (FAQS)
Q: How do I set up an ECHO ACCOUNT?
A: You can learn how to register for an Echo account by visiting the Echo Resources page and watching the "New User Registration" video located on the Welcome page.
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Q: What is an ECHO JURISDICTION?
A: An Echo jurisdiction is the virtual equivalent of an electoral district, or voting district, in the physical world. An electoral district votes to elect a candidate to represent them on some larger legislative body. Typically, each district elects a single representative. At the local level, this larger body is often a city council or a board of supervisors. Some cities do not carve themselves up into districts, but have at-large elections where the elected city council members do not represent specific segments of the city’s population, but the city's general population. In cases such as this, the mayor’s office acts as the figurehead and and center-point for resident inquiries. *** Special Note *** we sometimes casually throw out the terms "Echo Community," or "Your Community," in our informational videos. What we are referring to is not the broader community that you normally associate with the term "Community." In the Echo ecosystem, your "Community" is made of of all of the members who registered on Echo with the same jurisdiction as you did. It is they who are your audience and no one beyond that.
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Q: What are PAGE RIGHTS?
A: Depending on the user type (visitor, stakeholder, voter, proxy) you assigned yourself during the account registration process, you will be assigned a particular range of privileges to utilize certain tools on the various Echo pages. For example, visitor only have read-only privileges on the site, voters are the only user type that may vote in the community voting room, only stakeholder and voter group leads can access the group management toolboxes on their home pages, only the proxy can access the proxy toolbox on the proxy page, on stakeholder group, stakeholder coalition and voter coalition members may endorse and counter-point pitches, etc.
Q: What is a MERGER REQUEST?
A: When a group lead of a voter group ("solicitor") makes a request to another lead of a voter group ("solicitee") to combine their two groups together into a single group, the solicitor submits a formal request to the solicitee. The solicitee has 48-hours to respond to the solicitor, else the request expires. The solicitee may agree to the merger and its terms or reject the proposal. A group lead may disable / enable this feature by turning off / on the "Accept Merger Requests" action by updating the group profile at any time.
Q: Is the PROXY obligated to to vote in accordance to the Echo ballot results tabulations?
A: The answer is "no." Echo has no legal authority to dictate to the Proxy how how to vote on policy questions. Echo merely provides the community feedback of what's important, how it should be prioritized, and what position the community is taking. This data acts as one of many parameters as to how the Proxy will ultimately derive a final policy decision.
Q: Who can form a COALITION?
A: Echo members who have user types of either Stakeholder or Voter may form coalitions. Voters may only form Voter Coalitions and Stakeholders may only form Stakeholder Coalitions. But, there is an additional requirement that is not as clear---the Echo member must be a group lead who leads at least one qualified group. In other words, Individual Echo members cannot join coalitions, only group leads can. But, the group lead isn't joining as an individual member, but committing the entire group under leadership. So, while member A cannot join coalition Z directly, the group B lead can join the entire group B to coalItion Z and, by doing so, commits every single member of group B to become individual members of coalition Z, which gives them endorsement voting rights.
Q: What is a COALITION ANCHOR GROUP?
A: As mentioned, only a group lead of a voter group or stakeholder group may form a coalition. In doing so, that same group lead also becomes the coalition lead. But, a newly-formed coalition without members is powerless, so the group lead must commit one of the groups under his / her leadership to the newly-formed coalition in order to establish its membership base. This is called the anchor group. While other group leads may join and terminate their own groups from the coalition, the foundational anchor group always remains. It is only when the coalition lead terminates the coalition or swaps the coalition lead role, in which case the new coalition lead must choose a new anchor group among the groups under his/ her leadership, that the original anchor group is released from the coalition's obligations.
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Q: What is a VOTING QUORUM?
A: A voting quorum is the necessary minimum number of voters (voting threshold) among a certain population of voters who vote on a particular pitch for that pitch's vote to be considered valid. For example, Echo might establish a quorum requirement for group voting to be 40%. So, if group A has 50 members, then any given group A pitch that is voted on will require that at least 20 members (40% x 50 members) to vote on that pitch, now what vote they cast, for that pitch's vote to be considered as valid. If group B has 200 members, then at least 80 members must vote on a given pitch for it to be considered a valid vote.
Q: Why can't my group be MULTI--JURISDICTIOAL?
A: LEcho's primary purpose is to act as a leveraging tool to influence local policy decisions made by representatives (e.g. elected members of city councils and boards of supervisors), who are known as proxies. A group acts as the instrument to steer those decisions based on the "pitches" of its members which are aimed not only to advance the group's mission, but also designed broadly enough as a consideration of the Echo community, also known as the group's jurisdiction, or Echosphere. Ultimately, the audience of any group pitch is hierarchical in nature: (1) group members, (2) jurisdictional members (community) and (3) the proxy (representative).
Q: What is a LIFECYCLE and what is its purpose?
A: Click HERE for details.
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Q: What is group (or coalition) RELEVANCY and what is its purpose?
A: Group (or coalition) relevancy is a measure of a group's membership size relative to similar entity types in the Echosphere (e.g. a voter group would be compared to other voter groups, a stakeholder coalition would be compared to other stakeholder coalitions). A "relevancy factor" is arbitrarily established (e.g. 90%) that determines which groups are "relevant" based on membership size (e.g. upper 90%) and which groups are "irrelevant" based on membership size (e.g. lower 10%). Relevancy is used to disallow irrelevant group's use of certain tools that could swamp the system or push out relevant groups from accessing these tools, such as polling. Additionally, irrelevant groups are locked out of accessing certain voting features (e.g. submitting endorsements, gaining seats on the E-Senate floor) in order to prevent an abnormally-large "minority power imbalance" by granting too much minority power to fledgling groups. Meanwhile, when a group is formed, Echo sets its relevancy to "staging" which allows it to utilize the same features as relevant groups over a short period of time (e.g. 1-2 months) to allow this embryonic group sufficient time to grow its membership and to exercise the full array of Echo features for the first time. After the staging period expires, the group is herein evaluated for relevancy against other groups (or coalitions) of the same type, as discussed earlier.
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Q: What is a GROUP MERGER?
A: A MERGER can help a group you lead to advance its mission by combining members of your group with those of another group in your jurisdiction. The two groups should share some overlapping purpose—a similar mission statement or related cause. Requesting a merger is a form of self-sacrifice of your own group in order to create better opportunities to advance its core goals. But, there are pros and cons whether merging your group is right for you and your fellow members. To be allowed, a merger must meet certain conditions:
* Only groups, not coalitions, may merge
* Only group leads may submit and reply to merger requests
* Only groups of the same type (e.g. voter, stakeholder) may merge
* Only groups of the same policy classification (e.g. Public Health) may merge
* A group may be in only one active merger courtship at any time
* The requesting group (SOLICITOR) must be free of all coalition associations
* The receiving group (SOLICITEE) may either accept or reject the merger offer
* If accepted, the solicitee group absorbs the solicitor group (dissolves)
* A solicitor may cancel a merge request at any time before the solicitee replies
* A merge request will expire after a 48-hour period if no reply is received
Q: What is COMMUNITY POLLING?
A: Every lead of a VOTER GROUP is entitled to pose one single question to the members of the Echosphere (jurisdiction) during each Monthly Voting Cycle. This question is known as a COMMUNITY POLL. The purpose of a community poll is to help a voter group to quickly assess the pulse of the Echosphere as it pertains to an issue that is directly or indirectly relevant or impactful to the group's overall mission underscored by the group's mission statement. During the development of the poll, the group lead must decide the polling audience which can be composed of any combination of voters, stakeholders and visitors. A community poll may be submitted to the community at any stage of a Monthly Voting Cycle, except during the Administrative and Wrapup stages. It can be created and submitted by the group lead through the LEAD TOOLBOX on the group's homepage. To take a poll, members of the target audience may do so by visiting the Community page and clicking on Community Polling Room menu icon. The final results of the poll are tabulated and published at the beginning of the Wrapup stage of a Monthly Voting Cycle and can be accessed either through the Community page or the group's homepage.
Q: What is GROUP SURVEYING?
A: Every lead of a voter group, stakeholder group, voter coalition and stakeholder coalition is entitled to pose up to five questions to the group or coalition members during each Monthly Voting Cycle. This is known as GROUP SURVEYING. The purpose of a group survey is to solicit group or coalition members directly on questions as they related to an issue(s) that is (are) designed to help the group lead effect changes to the group in order to advance its mission. A group survey may be submitted to its members at any stage of a Monthly Voting Cycle, except during the Administrative and Wrapup stages. It can be created and submitted by the group lead through the LEAD TOOLBOX on the group's homepage. To take a group survey, members may do so by visiting the group's or coalition's homepage and clicking on the "Voting Activities" menu icon. The final results of the poll are tabulated and published at the beginning of the Wrapup stage of a Monthly Voting Cycle and can be accessed either through the Community page or the group's homepage.
Q: What is the COMMUNITY BALLOT?
A: Each Monthly Voting Cycle will have a different COMMUNITY BALLOT. The generation of a Community Ballot is based on a modeling formula that evaluates the popularity of the top-two pitches of each and every VOTER GROUP against one another in the related POLICY CLASSIFICATION and assigns up to two ballot slots for that policy classification. Since a given VOTER group is restricted to a single POLICY CLASSIFICATION upon its formation, any pitch it makes to the community will be limited to its policy classification bracket on the Community Ballot where it must compete with similar policy class VOTER GROUPS. The Community Ballot is officially formed by Echo in the interlude between the end of the GROUP VOTING stage and just before the beginning of the COMMUNITY VIEWING stage of the Monthly Voting Cycle.
Q: What is the COMMUNITY VIEWING ROOM?
A: During the COMMUNITY VIEWING stage of a Monthly Voting Cycle, the COMMUNITY VIEWING ROOM opens to every member of the Echosphere. It can be accessed by visiting the Community page and clicking on the Community Viewing Room menu icon. The icon will indicate either OPEN or CLOSED, depending on whether the Monthly Voting Cycle is in the Community Viewing stage or not. Once an Echosphere member clicks on the open room, they may viewing on-going Endorsement and Counter-point voting activities being by submitted by Stakeholder groups, Stakeholder coalitions and Voter coalitions with respect to the various COMMUNITY BALLOT BILLS. The underlying purpose of these Endorsements and Counter-points boils down to the attempts by these groups and coalitions to influence the individual VOTERS ('voter' user types) on how they should vote on the COMMUNITY BALLOT BILLS that may affect their groups' or coalitions' missions either positively or negatively. Those final voting decisions are made in the following stage of the Monthly Voting Cycle known as the COMMUNITY VOTING stage. Intermediate Endorsement and Counter-Point results may be viewed, sorted and filtered in various manners by anyone visiting the Community Viewing room throughout the Community Viewing stage. These tabulations are continually updated on-the-hour, a process that remains on-going until the Community Viewing stage eventually terminates and the COMMUNITY VIEWING ROOM closes, thereby terminating the Endorsement and Counter-Point activities.
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Q: What is the COMMUNITY VOTING ROOM?
A: The COMMUNITY VOTING ROOM is the place where VOTERS ('voter' user types) visit to cast their final votes on the COMMUNITY BALLOT BILLS--the top pitches selected by Echo from the pool of voter groups. It is here where the voters do not cast their votes under the auspices of any group or coalition to advance one of those entity's particular missions, but to cast votes that reflect the individual's all-encompassing "personal mission" aligning with their unique set of values and purposes. This voting process takes place during the COMMUNITY VOTING stage of a Monthly Voting Cycle. A VOTER does not necessarily make these decisions in a vacuum in a self-centered way, but can access important community feedback concerning those same bills that are in the form of Endorsements and Counter-points submitted by the Stakeholder groups, Stakeholder coalitions and Voter coalitions to support their final decision. Upon entering the Community Voting Room, VOTER will be presented with the COMMUNITY BALLOT BILLS as well the Endorsement and Counter-point feedback from the Echosphere. The VOTER then votes on the bills and can return anytime to change his or her votes until the Community Voting stage formally terminates. This voting stage always lasts over a period of two days. Once the stage ends, the voting on the COMMUNITY BALLOT BILLS terminates.
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