ACT Virtual Community Cabinet: How to do it better

I’m not sure this is soluble as the more credible a platform is the more the parties will try to dominate it.

At the end of the day the Legislative Assembly is paid at great expense to be the chamber these arguments are supposed to be heard in, even that appears to have been co-opted.

Which is not to say that technology shouldn’t be enhancing democracy (although any such enhancement is unlikely as it would be at the expense of the entrenched players), just that it’s a bigger question than the IT department is supposed to be wrestling with.

Having said that it could well be that the RiotACT email interviews time has come again.

Like you riotous, I like Google Moderate, but is has it’s limitations — and there would not be a large enough proportion of Canberran’s with Google accounts (even some strongly opposed to using anything google).

The idea of asking questions in that format though is excellent, and getting punters to rank them gives a better sense of what the broader community wants answered.

The ACTVCC exercise of this week was a good, and brave, start by the ACT Government, but it will be unworkable if 2,3 or 10 times the number of people tune in to the discussion and add questions.
I think the ACT Govt needs to look at a number of different platforms and options, and perhaps trial a range of them (innovation = trial things quickly, fail quickly, learn from mistakes and move on.)