Thanks for posting this, Pierre; I've just started working as a contributor to Global Voices in the last month; it's a great group of people dedicated to promoting online civic journalism. As you'll see on the website, the Global Voices Covenant is at version 0.2 - ie, it's a work in progress. They're looking for feedback on the covenant, so please visit the website and post your comments.

http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/globalvoices/

Happy holidays, andy

We also need to encourage debate.

People need a comfortable environment to offer their views, opposing or not. Some radio talk shows in developing countries have grown exceptionally popular by simply maintaining a fair, friendly and comfortable environment for people to call in and voice their opinions on any subject of interest. This is easy to do, yet is not done enough.

I used to debate in high school. I would love to see well-organized national or local debates on issues of interest, and get enough people to watch/listen and think about what is being said. Nothing excites me more than two well-informed people or teams respectfully answering each other's criticism with logic and evidence.

With speech & discussion comes a proliferation of fog, and we have no Internet tools to penetrate it.

The very sophisticated people on this network probably do not, for example, read White House press briefings every day, to track the difference between institutional rhetoric & reality. That's just one source for which we need some automated analysis.

I love news & blogs & groups, but they aren't enough to figure out, for example, what just happened in the Ukraine. Probably, the 'bad' guy just won, because of his overall good press, and the vast White House monetary support he apparently received. But that's just my instinct. Without transparent statistical sources and comprehensive analytic tools, who knows?

At the moment I'm torn between creating tools for communities to work together openly, feverishly, to build the world they want; and creating tools that can reveal the truth behind the publicity industry's manipulation of our global voices.

Greg, Excellent points.

One possible solution to the "fog" problem on internet forums is to require participants spend some time researching the topic before posting. Years ago as a high school debater we were required to follow rules, present logic and quote published evidence to make our points. There were no shortcuts to avoid research and thinking. People should be encouraged to not abuse their right to free speech.

That's partly why this particular radio show is successful. People are naturally encouraged to present themselves properly. They also have a thoughtful and considerate moderator who never tries to push his own opinions. Everyone listens to this show.

Maybe Omidyar.net needs to set up a national TV or radio station dedicated to giving people a place to voice their opinions. We could organize debates and tie-in the web-based discussions with live radio/TV discussion, much like CNN does.

Jason, that's an interesting idea ... instead of a "discussion forum", which you can find anywhere on the Internet, a "debating forum". It would require a bit of protocol and patience. Very much against the sound-bite zeitgeist.

As I was thinking about your comment, I debated someone over here (unfortunately we drifted off-topic, as has happened here too, because no one else is in the conversation):

http://www.omidyar.net/group/democracy/news/1/

There's a real multimedia possibility here, hinted at in the television programming you decribed. A "debating channel", multicultural, which requires sources published online that everyone can see, and agree upon. It would make Jeopardy look trivial, and CSPAN look divergent.

I saw a debate, from the 1960's, between Buckley & Chomsky. Buckley was terribly inconsiderate, not letting a sentence finish. He wasn't even listening. The impression you have of Chomsky is that he would have loved to present evidence. Because, if you read his footnotes, most of it is from the government, from politically neutral organizations like the Red Cross, and from news agencies.

Chomsky has said he doesn't get on 'Nightline' because he'd have to explain himself, and TV has no time for that. Well regulated debate, on serious topics, could make exciting television, and could help lift reality up, through the thickening layer of fog & spin.

This conversation gave me a flashback to a debate I saw between Timothy Leary and G. Gordon Liddy back in '89. The two were as polar opposite as you could get, but they were on tour together, and had developed quite a rhythm for arguing with each other. I think they might have actually even liked each other. Very interesting, very entertaining...

ac

Happy New to all!

Whilst I love the idea of more discussion and global voices being heard in debate it seems to me that what we lack as individuals is the ability to be able listen and understand what is sometimes being said.

I would welcome comments on how to improve this important factor in my character make-up. I know that being able to read the comments and points discussed on this website does help because I cannot interupt someone elses train of thought. How about you?

Harold

The Leary/Liddy roadshow, although courteous, seems a bit like packaged hopelessness.

Sure, the 'great conversation' never ends. But if two people cannot resolve their differences, what is the point of debating?

We already have too many 'professional partisan hacks', to quote Jon Stewart. A debate show would need to encourage synthesis, honesty, and human progress. That may be the hard part ... any ideas?

There may be a clue in what Harold has said, which reminds me of The Listening Project. "Winning" a debate might mean your "opponent" accepts a proposed resolution to the disagreement ...

Exactly right. Mainstream TV gives low priority to discourse/debate perhaps because the process takes too long, or is too deep. Our high school debates took 2 to 3 hours each. Everyone had to take notes, even the audience members. Otherwise you may get lost. Probably a lot of people don't have that kind of attention span or patience to follow the arguments and take notes.

The solution is to do the note taking for the audience. Record and organize the points being said in a web-based outline. Update the debate outline in real time on the web as the debate progresses on TV. Now viewers can see the logical flow of arguments and what arguments went unanswered. This would be a great education in organized thinking, especially for children.

This can work for viewers in two ways. Viewers can watch the live debate and outline evolve together. Or they can work off the outline, clicking on each point to hear an audio clip that corresponds to that point. Another advantage is each team can also see the live web-based outline. That will help each team better organize their arguments. The goal is to free everyone from note taking so they can concentrate on planning and delivering their arguments.

How to implement this? Code the points in real time using ordinary TV caption writers (or speech recognition) and have a second set of people code (place in the outline) each argument being made.

Debates can be judged like the HS and college debates: http://www.apdaweb.org/old/guide/judging.html Thus there can always be a winning and losing team. Why is it important to formerly judge debates? For one it gives teams an extra incentive to debate properly, using logic and evidence. It is also incentive to avoid confusion tactics, and teams ignoring certain arguments. It is critically important to ensure that teams do not win simply because they pick a politically correct or widely accepted stance. We want to encourage the debate of controversial topics.

Greg, this solves the problem of "hopelessness" you observed with the Leary/Liddy roadshow. Differences must be resolved either by logic or outside evidence. Otherwise it can get into a real mess and there is no methodical or sensible way to pick a winner. The audience gets confused and there isn't any real education going on.

There's a sense in the programming world that "good" TV is fast and bitesized, which these kind of debates rarely are. This need to explain oneself sunk Kerry in dealing with the mainstream public and it continues to keep most positive, thoughtful media away from the general public.

There is an audience for such debate, but it is not a mainstream audience yet. Most people would prefer to be entertained and engaged at a more basic level....very few are ready to tackle all of the layers inherent in such discussions.

I'm not saying there's no place for this kind of interaction on TV, but think carefully about the intended audience and how to frame it. Is it better to take it to TV instead of letting it happen organically online? Will the medium cheapen the message?

If your goal is to reach as many people as possible then think about ways to reframe the debate in more entertaining fastfoodfashion. I'm not saying that you should dumb it down, but you have to think carefully about pacing, langauge and context.

I just got a wacked-out image of Leary, Watts and Chomsky in a Guy Ritchie-style film, wielding weapons and spouting off about the free individual in the social context. Hmmmm.....

Reading the above, I had this vision of human projects being a sit-com for some deity....

There are a couple of interesting things I can note:

It used to be the case that all of German TV was state-owned, run out of some kind of cultural ministry. It had what is above referred to as debating. Now people here mostly watch imported junk.

Nonetheless, Germans are avid debaters. A significant part of this are various socialising traditions, including "Stammtisch" (something I guess "meetups" kind of hark back on) social clubs (e.g. sports) and cultural events (e.g. fairs and festivals, of which the bavarian "Oktoberfest" has become a global and thereby overscaled example). Perhaps these traditions go all the way back to heathen rituals -- I have no idea, but there are certainly some very strong forces towards consensus-building in German culture.

I'll bet that that a big chunk of it is history. That is obviously the one thing missing in the United States. The indigenous peoples were basically exterminated (whether by war or by disease), so there exists virtually no "collective memory" whatsoever. Along with this vacuum, the Americans (I guess incluing myself, although I am somewhat androgenous in this respect) also have no collective traditions and therefore very little glue to make the people "stick together".

The quintessential American will always be leaving town and moving on... -- I guess until he finds there is nowhere else to go.

So "nailing" an American (in a debate) is somewhat of a contradiction.

Could be, or maybe not -- just rambling thought.

(neat, how I ended kind of poetically, right?)

;D

nmw

Pierre Omidyar said:

I don't know much about the Global Voices project he references, but here's a quote of their "covenant." It makes perfect sense to me.

I read this in Joi's blog just after Christmas, and continue to be moved by the elegance of this extraordinary celebration of freedom and responsibility.

There does indeed feel like a great deal of sympatico between the goals and values expressed in this covenant and the anticipation of what's being built in the community that you and Pam have shared with us here.

Thank you, Pierre.

Jennifer Evonne said:

"There's a sense in the programming world that "good" TV is fast and bitesized, which these kind of debates rarely are.... There is an audience for such debate, but it is not a mainstream audience yet. Most people would prefer to be entertained and engaged at a more basic level.... Is it better to take it to TV instead of letting it happen organically online? Will the medium cheapen the message?"

Aren't we just feeding a downward cycle? If we cater to just the mainstream TV viewership we turn away the minority interest that enjoys in-depth programming. TV was not always so uniformly bitesized, flashy and catering to a short attention span. There used to be a lot more in-depth programming. Even children's cartoons and programming now seem more shallow and basic than what I grew up on in the 80's. These days I tend not to watch as much TV, only catching shows of interest. I go to the internet or books for in-depth content. TV is in a downward cycle. It is time to stop it.

Certainly the entire debate structure can be made more palatable for mainstream viewers. A debate can be condensed with good editing. There should be an emphasis on pragmatic discussion and topics that interest viewers, not disconnected idealistic or abstract ideas. It should be a true competition with strict rules. There will be no grandstanding, egotistical and flamboyant attitudes. A debate based on logic, evidence and quality of presentation becomes every bit as exciting as a sports game. There is strategy, suspense and surprises as new evidience and arguments are brought to bear. Finally the judges will deliver their verdict and explain each team's successes and failures.

Basically we want to have a cross between Law & Order (evidence), CNN Crossfire (debate) and American Idol (panel of judges). If these three elements can work in three shows than it should be possible to combine all three in one show. This could be truly great TV in fact.

Multi-Media

1 ear listening to news 1 ear listening to Debussy 1 eye zapping tube 1 eye surfing dozens of sites nose sniffing around, inspired by ... (see http://www.omidyar.net/user/u796864466/news/4/28/ )

No, if this is about media channels, then it ought to be a matter of technology. If you want to tell millions of people whether it's gonna be sunny or cloudy, then sending bitmaps to each one individually is certainly not a winning strategy -- and under 9/11 conditions it won't work anyways. If you're casting broadly, then you should use broadcasting.

The Internet should be for targeting subsets.

Local? Radio.

Print? Swimmers, beach-goers, ....

It's not a matter of thematic topics or genre.

Regarding the genre "debate" in this context, it is probably to some degree a matter of media-literacy, but on the other hand also a matter of concerns regarding privacy.

nmw

Regarding the cross-media applications of the "connected" debate/discussion: I guess we could all be inputting our opinions by webcam and/or microphone if the comment box also could hold our visual and audio. The screen would look like Blog Forum meets Hollywood Squares. The text might still have to be typed though depending on speech recognition software. Then maybe more TV viewers would be stimulated enough to expose themselves to the web media format, it would be more like some kind of reality opinion show. With the input devices and growing capabilities of the web, it probablly won't be long before we see an MP3 button beside the text.

Regarding the shear volume of knowledgs being put forward and how it's organized: The Omidyar Net is organized nicely and I can usually get to the subject I'm looking for.

How it's analyzed and applied is also an important issue and a new thing I have seen on the Omidyar Net compared to a regular message board or forum, is group analysis and plan-making efforts by the use of the Worksheet and the Wiki(the Worldchanging.org guys have at least one mentioned).

From what I have seen, these tools are great for a connected group to take the great ideas and idea developments and turn them into detailed, realistic models (eventually approaching a business/action plan) for applying the concept to the real world. - The final stages of idea development: Analysis, Plan Preperation and Plan Execution.

I think one of the key elements of democracy is the competition/evolution of ideas. Deliberative democracy. I've been on many boards where most people just vote the majority and the majority sways with the most eloquent arguments. I think voice is in many way more important than votes. Thanks for posting this Pierre. Does it make any sense to have a Global Voices workspace here or is it redundant?

Joi, good to find you here.

I think it would be useful to cultivate a Global Voices group here if not only to make it more accessible to a number of undiscovered allies withing the omidyar.net community who would certainly benefit. Maybe some interesting cross-pollination in both directions ... ?

BTW ... have you met Lars Hasselblad Torres yet? He's with America Speaks, and has been instrumental in cultivating a deliberative democracy approach with several projects that have been brought into the community here for further exploration. If you've not bumped into him here yet, you're bound to soon.

I haven't bumped into Lars, but I'm a great fan of deliberative democracy. Is there a discussion here somewhere?

I think I'll try to create a global voices bridge. Somewhere to cross post some of the important projects. What is the right process to do this? Maybe I need to bring 5 GV'ers including myself here and propose a workspace? The main workspace is at Harvard, but since the whole purpose of GV is to bridge projects, not compete with them, I think it's probably OK to have multiple regional offices...

I've set up a request for a group. http://www.omidyar.net/group/globalvoices/ We're still looking for sponsors. ;-)

Also, I've posted another item about setting up the workgroup. http://www.omidyar.net/user/u631902558/news/0/

I hope I'm not getting ahead of myself...

http://www.omidyar.net/group/globalvoices/

is now sponcered and active :)

Joi, I've gone ahead and sponsored it.

Just finished a conference call with Lars on another project where we're hoping to put some of his skills to work creating deliberative discussion guides. I'm not sure if there is already a dedicated thread on this somewhere here, although there's a very good chance there is, but it's come up as a component of several discourses throughout omidyar.net. The first place I connected was through the December 1st project, where Lars and I were two of the people working with Bob Bilheimer to come up with tools to broaden the discourse around the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Tonya Gonzalez, Director of the Deliberative Democracy Consortium, was part of those discussions. Tonya and Lars have also participated in one of Tom Munnecke's Positive Media workshop, which may be of interest to you as well. (supported by the Better World Media group here at omidyar.net)

Also talked to Lars about helping create a discussion guide with Sister Helen Prejean as we help her broaden the discourse around the death penalty in America.

Just a couple of interesting allies to connect with while you're here ...

Very interesting. Thanks! I'll follow the links now.

Very cool, I just happened onto this topic. Joi, Lars worked with us on the Activist Tech panels and meeting at SXSW. He's around here somewhere. Email me if you want an online intro.