PARLAMENTO ELETTRONICO ONLINE

Design Principles

Roma, 19 Settembre 2013

Presentation by Emanuele Sabetta, Project Leader

PAR.EL.ON.• A Free and Open Source Platform for Direct Democracy

• It integrates solutions that are the product of 20 years of eDemocracy experiments all over the world.

• Completely based on Open Standards (Akoma Ntoso, XBRL, LegalRuleML, EuroVoc, etc.).

• Currently in development since September 2012 by volunteers on the initiative of the elected Councillor Davide Barillari (M5S Lazio, Italy)

USER INTERFACEDesigned to Maximize Usability and Accessibility

INTUITIVE RECOGNITION OF INTERACTIVE ELEMENTS IN THE PAGE

Big Buttons with 3D look to be easily distinguished from the plane of the page, sized for touch devices.

Graphic Language For UI Interaction ( curved = interactive , sharp corners = static )

Abandonment of Underscore as a Link Indicator

Reduced the number of choices per page to a minimum, while maintaining a levels of nesting below 5.

Breakdown of User Stories of Liquid Feedback in its atomic elements and restructuring these sequences in a simpler Step-by-Step actions like those of an ATM terminal.

Una Pagina = Una Scelta

• Use of very readable sans serif fonts and very LARGE sizes ( Oregon LDO ) !

• Use of large SUMMARY labels that accompany the data or the options displayed and which highlight the contents in a concise way.

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• At any time and in any page the user must be able to read in clearWHERE HE IS ,WHAT CAN HE DO and HOWTO GO BACK

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• In case of time related parameters (for example knowing at what stage you are in the legislative iter) we add a time bar or phases bar with a moving arrow that will show where in time or at what stage the user is.

ACCESSIBILITY FOR ALL CITIZENS

Introduction of Commissions of Experts

•Solves the Problem of the "Government of the Incompetents" raised by Plato

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•Technical Commissions Reports allow citizens to provide "informed consent" when they vote a law proposal, ensuring that users are aware of all the risks and benefits deriving from approving it. !

•Legal and Financial Commissions provides a report of feasibility but can also propose fixes and modifications to the draft bill that users must approve with another vote.

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•Neutrality Guaranteed by "Randomized Shifts" of members at each convocation.

LEGISLATIVE ITER PHASES BAR

• Most of the problems of comprehensibility in Liquid Feedback derived from the non-immediate understanding of the complex life cycle of a proposal.

• We added a phases bar that associates a set of boxes representing the stages of the legislative iter.

• A moving arrow above the boxes allows you to see immediately at what stage you are in, what you do at the current stage, and what will be the next step.

EVENT NOTIFICATION SYSTEM

Another problem evidenced by the Liquid Feedback experience is the user difficulty in following all the events happening and the changes made to the proposals.In LF there was no way to figure out changes to the text or who made those changes, and to list the new proposals or the new amendments introduced since the last logout. !

We introduced a notification system you can subscribe for each proposal, with indicators of the type of event and the author of modifications, that allows the user to get immediately an idea of the new things that need to be examined and to keep track of the new amendments.

KEYWORDS AND LABELS

•Introduction of Standard Keywords ( Teseo, EuroVoc, GeoNames... ) associated with the Proposals and Issues , to make it easier to catalog and to search them. !

•Introduction of Competencies Labels associated with the Proposals and the Issues.Those tags indicate all the Technical Areas of Expertise needed to evaluate an issue or a proposal, making easier to understand the type of technical background necessary to assess the validity of the proposals, allowing the citizens with such expertise to pick the proposals in which they can contribute more.

THE 3 INGREDIENTS OF PAR.EL.ON. SECURITY

•Two Factor Authentication Based on strong passwords and OTP Tokens

• Full Transparency : Open Source , Public User Profiles , Public Votes, Independent Ballots Verification ( Helios-Voting inspired digitally signed receipt )

•Open Mirroring: Remote Duplication & Auto Recovery, Data Consistency assured throu Multi-Paxos algorithm.

USER CERTIFICATION PROCEDURE

• Certification procedure of the user identity is very strict. It requires a meeting face-to-face with the Authorized Certification, the verification and digital photo recording of his paper documents, including his photo taken from the identity document to use as the only user profile photo, the signing by the user of documents authorizing the public display of his picture, his name and his social security number (NIN) for crowd auditing and verification.

• Delivery by hand of the OTP Token by the Authorized Certifier and registration of the token on the Parelon Certification Server. A password of 32 characters generated by the server ( which should be changed at the first login ) must be also given by hand in a closed envelope to the user by the certifier.

• A double log of all user profile informations is mandatory: they are recorded both on the Certification Server Online, and on a personal paper register.

• Each authorized certifier must sign a document which legally commits itself not to certify false identity and to follow the strict certification procedures. If a certifier registers a fake user and he is discovered, the system provides for the immediate re-certification (by another authorized certifier) of all users that have been certified by him.

MECHANISMS AIMED TO REDUCE THE DICTATORSHIP OF THE ACTIVERTS (hyperactive extroverts or astroturfers)

•Each unelected user has the right to to raise only one question per week

•Each unelected user is entitled to create only one proposal per week for each question

•Each unelected user has the right to suggest only one amendment for each proposal every week (an amendment is a set of one or more changes to the proposed draft)

•The maximum number of issues that can be in each stage of the legislative process at the same time is 14 each week, the other issues must wait in a queue until another slot becomes available before moving on to the next stage (FIFO QUEUE)

•No delegation options (to avoid vote-buying) and very low quorum (1-20%, based on the population size and the user base).

DETAILS OF THE PROPOSAL (SUMMARY)

•Stages Bar Progress Indicator

•Author Identification With N.I.N.

•Referring Issue Short Summary

•Keywords (push to search similar proposals)

•Current Users Support of this Proposal

PROPOSAL DRAFT (PREVIEW)

•Preview of the current proposal draft

•Option to open a full page view in the AT4AM editor

•List of linked documents

•Notifications for new or updated documents

SUGGESTED AMENDMENTS BOX

•Any user can submit a new amendment Amendments can be supported or opposed (on a 5 levels scale)

•Only the author of the proposal can choose to approve and implement an amendment.

•Documents linked to an amendment suggestion can be added and linked to the proposal draft if the author implements the amendment.

•The author has more chance to see his proposal approved if he choose to implement the more supported amendments.

•Amendments are edited in a custom edition of AT4AM, using Akoma Ntoso format and LegalRuleML

COMMISSION BOX

• Any user can submit a request for a Technical Commission

• Number of Requests must reach a quorum to be approved

• The system invites 12 randomly selected users from a pool of eligible candidates to join and form the commission.

• The members are given access to a temporary discussion area called Commission Discussion Room. This area is read only for non members of the commission.

STEP 1 :COMMISSION

CONVOCATION• Each proposal requires the author to specify

the skills required to evaluate it.

• Users can request additional or different skills, and the system will select the 4 most requested skills.

• Every user with the needed academic skills can register to be a candidate member for the commissions. The requisites are certified university degree and academic titles that qualify him as an expert in the field specified by the proposal keywords.

STEP 2:WAITING FOR

QUORUM• After a user has submitted his request for the

convocation of a Technical Commission and proposed additional skills and competences, he must wait until the total number of user requests reach a quorum (1-20%, based on the population size and the user base).

• For the Budget Commission and the Legal Commission this procedure is not necessary; those are mandatory and automatically convocated after the Technical Commission stage.

STEP 3:WAITING FOR

MEMBERS• The total number of members seats for each commission is 12.

The 12 seats are partitioned into 3 or 4 groups of the different skills requested for evaluate the proposal, sized in proportion to the requests made by the users.

• Candidates are invited via email, and have the option to accept or decline the invitation to be part of the Committee

• If an invited candidate declines or does not respond within a time limit to the email, the system automatically extracts at random another candidate from the pool of remaining experts registered in the system.

• The email calls stop being sent when you reach the full number of 12 Commissioners

STEP 4: PROPOSAL UNDER EXAMINATION

• Commissioners are given access to a temporary area called “Commission Discussion Room”, an area reserved to them and their proposals for the draft text of the technical report, but visible (read-only) from all the other users.

• In this area the committee members can write a report using the same tools used by citizens for the draft proposals. Various versions and drafts of the Technical Report can be proposed and amended. All amendments are subject to the same selection by number of supporters used for the law proposals, but those are also subject to an additional explicit vote each time the author of the proposal decide to implement one of them. Only the amendments approved by the majority by voting on each amendment are integrated in the draft text.

• Members have also the right to propose an alternative report draft if they think that none of the current drafts can be correct via amendments but a completely rewrite is needed. As in the case of the competing law proposals, only one version of the technical report will be approved at the end, using the Schulze preferential voting method.

• While the draft and the amendments are discussed by the committee members, users can follow their work in a transparent and read-only manner.

• The committee has a maximum time limit of selectable duration (ranging from one week to 6 months). If the committee fails to reach a majority consensus on the text of a report, the committee is dissolved and it is convened another composed by different members.

STEP 4: THE COMMISSION

DISCUSSION ROOM• They can also consult the curricula of the members

of the commission, and eventually making a “rejection request” if they think that the academic titles reported in the curricula are false or forged.

• Contested members have 7 days to upload the documents that confirms their titles.

• If the documents are not uploaded or are insufficient, they are automatically removed from the commission and from the candidates pool.

STEP 5: THE COMMISSION

TECHNICAL REPORT IS READY • Once approved by the technical committee published the technical report is permanently attached to the proposal

draft, all users can read it and evaluate it. The Commission can also optionally propose some amendments to the proposal draft, and those will be automatically implemented if the report is approved by the users at the voting stage (STEP 6).

• Along with the report the commission must vote for a verdict with two possible outcomes: FAVORABLE or UNFAVORABLE. If the verdict is unfavorable the users can still vote to approve the proposal draft, but the vote must be approved with a qualified majority (2/3 of voters).

• The report must not be only an evaluation of the technical feasibility of the proposal, but in a dedicated section must enumerate, in a clear and understandable way, all the positive and negative effects that the adoption of the proposal would have on the citizens, so that their vote will be an INFORMED CONSENT.

• The text of the report can be read online or downloaded in open formats (ODF) or printable formats (PDF). All reports are persistently stored on the server and they can be searched at any time by anyone, even non users. If there are any amendments to the text proposed by the committee, anybody can view them too in the editor AT4AM .

• If the final report is approved by the vote of the Committee members, then the users are asked to vote to approve the report and any amendments made to the text by the committee. If approved, the proposal of the citizens is updated with the new text. If the report is rejected with a qualified majority (2/3 of voters), a new committee is automatically convocated, and the process repeats until a report is approved.

AT4AM INTEGRATION AND UI REDESIGNwww.at4am.org

AT4AM - European Parliament Amendment Open Source Tool

AT4AM "LIGHT" FOR TOUCH DEVICES

TWO COLUMNS AMENDMENT VIEW

COLUMNS / TABLE CELLS SELECTION

The choices NEW or DELETE are followed by a choice between 4 options: Right Column, Left Column, Row Above, Row Below.

Page Left

Margin

Page Right

Margin

Right NeckLeft NeckSelected Article

ToolboxLeft Edge

SelectionToolbox Components

•Left Edge : Position mark

•Necks : Visual Connectors (size constant)

•Selection Box : Selected Text or Paragraph

•Toolbox : Multilevel Menu

Page Left

Margin

Page Right

Margin

Left Edge Toolbox

Right NeckSelected Article

Left Neck

Browser Window

Page Left

Margin

Page Right

Margin

Toolbox

Right NeckLeft NeckSelected Article

Left Edge

Browser Window

TheToolbox is anchored to the selection

in the document page

How The Toolbox Works

Default Position

Page Left

Margin

Page Right

Margin

Right NeckLeft NeckSelected Article

ToolboxLeft Edge

End of Page Position

Page Left

Margin

Page Right

Margin

Left Neck Right NeckSelected Article

Toolbox

Left Edge

How The Toolbox Works

Selection of Paragraphs with the Second Touch

Default Position

Page Left

Margin

Page Right

Margin

Right NeckLeft Neck Selected Paragraph

ToolboxLeft Edge

End of Page Position

Page Left

Margin

Page Right

Margin

Left Neck Right NeckSelected Paragraph

Toolbox

Left Edge

http://lime.cirsfid.unibo.it/

INITIAL DRAFTING OF THE BILLS

•The user can import the text of the proposals from existing documents, but we strongly encourage the creation of the first draft directly in Akoma Ntoso format with the online editor

•We are collaborating with University of Bologna (Prof. Monica Palmirani and Prof. Fabio Vitali ) to integrate the LIME Editor in PARELON

•We are working to develop a customized regional and national set of legal rules and constraints to help the user drafting a well formed legislative document using the LegalRuleML standard

•We are developing a new user interface for both LIME and AT4AM that will allow the user with no knowledge of law or of XML to understand and use all of the legally binding elements of the Akoma Ntoso

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Slides created by Emanuele Sabetta emanuele.sabetta@gmail.com

http://www.parelon.lazio.it/