Tom Driberg of mysociety.org has reacted to some of the various points I relayed from the list, and my own comments, viz.,

...

...

...

...

...

>>>>> Tom Steinberg says:

Hello Dominic (and your colleagues by proxy), Let me tackle your various questions and arguments.

Friends are highly dubious about this petition system, and that the support of say the repeal of the Hunting Act is representative.

They are completely entitled to feel that way about this or any other initiative we run. However, I’m afraid that whilst thousands of people per day are making use of it, though, that’s not a good enough reason to persuade me to suggest to the trustees, developers or our volunteer community that we should annul our contract and close down the site.

Surely you don’t envisage Blur or Broon acting because the highest number counted support the repeal of the Hunting Act?

Speaking personally, I think you’re probably right about the chances of the pro fox-hunting people getting a repeal of this act under this government. However, I hope it is pretty obvious that we didn’t build this petition system because we thought the government would and should do everything that was petitioned for: it is simply a new channel in our multi-layered representative democracy. It does not make the rest of the political universe vanish.

yes, it would have been possible to build in deliberation. It has been done in relation to Parliamentary Committees, and in departmental consolations. Why not with No10?

Excellent news - please point me to examples. I am especially keen to see ones that can deal with over 1000 parallell discussions on different topics.

Were you allowed to do so? I don’t know, you should tell us, did you ask?

No, I didn’t ask. I was much more concerned that the process of actually signing and making petitions should be percieved as transparent and trustworthy by most users, as it clearly is. However, we have now added lots of features that I didn’t ask for, and nor did No10 as the site was being designed. This is what it means to run a beta.

Is moderation too expensive when billions are spent in man+equipment in Iraq

You might have noticed that mySociety hasn’t launched any military action in Iraq recently. This is a question to direct to No10. I am sure your view that this is a good use of money will form part of their considerations on the issue of discussion systems - you can let them know directly by mailing the support address on the petitions homepage.

I couldn’t see any party political reference, and in any case why should that be a bar?

There is a strict division of powers over rejections or acceptances - this is No10’s business not ours. However you appear to have quoted No10’s justification in your own email, relating to Mrs Thatcher. If you think that they should have allowed her to be mentioned, please drop No10 a mail through the support address on the homepage of the petitions site.

Is that a likely development? We could see powerful parliamentary committees questioning the government closely on what steps it will be taking?

As Stephen Coleman would doubtless point out now, the executive and the Parliament are different things. I’m not aware of any such plans, but why not ask your MP to raise the idea in the House of Commons? Personally I would be happy to see petitions given some sort of more formal status, although I have not spent much time working out exactly what. Do you have any views? all the best, Tom written on November 30th, 2006

...

...

...

...

...

>>>>>>

Anyone can try the petition system out (well, as long as you're a citizen of something, an elector of the UK - form the site: You must be a British citizen or resident to sign the petition. Or, if you're an expatriate, you're in an overseas territory, a Crown dependency or in the Armed Forces without a postcode .... And contribute directly to these discussions - I'm no proxy :-) http://www.mysociety.org/2006/11/14/no10-petitions-system-goes-live Dominic Pinto BA MIEEE MCMI MRi FRSA http://www.ecademy.com/user/dominicpinto e-m: dominic.pinto@ieee.org M: +44 780 302-8268 Ph: +44 207 379-8341 In the U.S. M/Cell: +1 215 667-3001