I have just left a new comment to Margot Wallström’s blog explaining a proposal about how to upgrade the just launched Debating Europe forums (see Wallström’s post).

A proposal for developing a “forum++”

The problem

Web forums are very good to allow people discussing topics, and this means better information, more idea exchange and production, sometimes the development of a shared judgement about this or that policy. But will Commissioners be able to read 13,000 posts? Of course not… so European citizens will discuss things with other fellow European citizens, and this is anyway good, but they will not be heard by those people which seat where decisions are taken, and this is bad because democratic politics are made not only of discussions but also of decisions.

So what to do?

We need to add something to the conventional forum, I mean to add a kind of bottom-up tool which allows (i) people to propose policies to politicians and (ii) politicians to become aware of those proposals.

The following can be a draft description of the path of an idea inside this “forum++”.

Step 1.

An European citizen believes to have a good idea for an European policy;

Step 2.

She posts it publicly via some kind of web-form and in a particular format (i.e. not too long proposals and so on);

Step 3.

Some kind of editorial staff filters the proposals eliminating redundant ones and summarizing each proposal as much as they can (note that the not-filtered material must be anyway publicly accessible in order to allow citizens to check how the editorial staff is working, and note that this action of filtering has not to be confused with the common activity of moderation as it works for ordinary forums or blogs where they filter spam or offending material);

Step 4.

The edited material will be published on the net too.

Step 5.

People will be allowed to vote via internet about the various (edited) proposals.

Step 6.

Every month the ten most voted proposals will be checked by the Commission, this means that the Commission will be compelled to say if they intend or not to implement that proposals, why and in case how and when.