Products

We offer the following services to all citizen groups and organizations under non-profit status, individually or in networks. If you are a governmental or private organization, please refer to our partner www.partecs.com.

Samretano 1.0 is an innovative participatory groupware software solution to enable the democratic and effective rating, classification and creation of collective knowledge bases.
Some of the features are specifically targeted to networks of transnational citizen groups. It is being developed in a modular and scalable fashion to enable full functional flexibility, and simplify integration with other systems. It will be developed to support its deployment as an internally-managed large-scale ASP service, as well as a platform to be installed, customized and integrated for our clients.
All application modules will be released under some kind of free software license still to be determined. Public release is scheduled for October 2003.

Here is a list of the features, under 5 main categories, that we plan to include in the first release of the software:

[1] INFORMATION EXCHANGE: INTERNATIONAL NEWS, FACTS LIBRARY AND OPINIONS

Enable decentralized and participatory rating and classification of information which is relevant to the discussion and deliberation of global issues. Securely authenticated and profiled users will be allowed and encouraged to:

Submit original or third party information of any kind and format.
Include required and optional descriptors, including source and licensing.

 Participate in information rating for relevance and approval.

 Participate in information classification.

 Easily initiate and maintain editorial pages of custom/aggregated content.

 Participate in the rating and classification of such editorial pages.

[2] DELIBERATIVE DISCUSSION AREAS (DDAs)

A set of asynchronous, deliberatory and collaborative idea-rating and text-authoring tools for individuals and organizations. Such tools will enable the participatory and effective definition of collective: mission statements; press releases; advocacy statements; political strategies; action plans;definition of statute, internal rules and policies; software configuration and improvements. Securely authenticated and profiled users will have access to the following functionality:

 Advanced discovery of interlocutors by theme and geography.

 User-configurable internal messaging address.

 Collectively customize main tools-enabled decision-making processes by choosing and configuring software set-ups.

  Anyone creates a new discussion area DDAs are setup with moderation rules, facilitation rules, voting % threshold, admission rules, fixed timing, rules and objective.

 DDA objective may include: definition of goals and rules of a DDA or a GDA; drafting of a text document, structured and unstructured; decide on a date/place for a collective event, elect one of more persons to a post.

 A minimum number of users have to endorse the creation of a specific DDA.

 A number of customizable templates of different DDAs type will be available, for easier

 All users that sign up to a specific DDA will declare to bind themselves to support the ultimate resulting resolution.

 If participants in a DDA achieve agreement on a motion and they represent at least x% of total users, then the motion is passed to a General Deliberation Area (GDA)for all members to discuss and vote upon.

 Most features described above will be available on a synchronous communication component, in the form of an advanced chat system.

 [3] GENERAL DELIBERATION AREAS (GDAs)

General Deliberation Areas will be setup into separate categories by issue. Sample GDAs may be: press releases, proposed statute changes, rules of procedures, proposed software improvements, proposed actions, Budget allocation, mission statements, etc.

 All successfull DDAs will generate a final resolution or other text document. Such document will be automatically listed in the General Deliberation Area (GDA) related to that issue.

 All GDA resolutions will be listed sequentially based on the number of members or proportionate members that have endorsed each.

 GDA decision making rules for each different GDA will be decided upon by all members based on simple majority originally and then changed with a 2/3 majority.

 A 40% majority can request a full revision and redefinition of GDA decision making rules and organizational statute at any point, provided that at least X months/years have passed since the last revision.

[4] REPRESENTATIVITY PROFILING

Organizations will be allowed to be represented by their elected officials, but the votes of representatives will be weighted based on the internal accountability and participatoriness of each organizations. HerÈs how:

 Organizations will be required submit a set of information and documents with regards to their internal decision-making process.

 Orgs will be required to submit official and unofficial organizational documentation relating to decision making processes, funding, level of participation by members, a list of 100 or 30% of their members whichever is less (with minimal contact information). They will be required to undersign the validity of such documents.

 Orgs will perform a representativity self-assessment on an online or offline questionnaire.

 An authenticity and accuracy assessment of submitted documents will be performed as much as possible. For example, random members of the org will be called to ascertain validity of submitted documentation.

 The weighting process will be automatically driven by a set of pre-defined parameters collectively defined and changed by all individual members.

 Initial parameters will be defined in combination with Charter 99 through a worldwide and statistically varied consultation.

[5] GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS


 Asynchronous support for major-languages translation of highly rated items. Translations will be manually performed by dispersed users, volunteers and paid professionals.

 Temporary, Revocable and Issue-limited Representatives. Individuals and organization can choose to temporarily delegate/revoke their voting rights on specific decision areas to other individuals or organizations, while maintaining ultimate sovereignty through the ability to overwrite their vote whenever they choose to.

 Secure user authentication.

 Secure transaction.

 Security from authority collusion through distributed certification authority, database mirroring, full transparency.

 Privacy of users profile and activity data.

A proof of concept and prototype of Samretano 1.0 core functionalities can be tested by anyone on the site of The Global Democracy Experiment, our first customer: try it now at www.tgde.org.

We have called it Samretano 0.1 to emphasize the fact that it includes only 10% of the functionalities that will be available later this year in Samretano 1.0.
It allows any member of an organization or network to experience the possibility of engaging online in deliberative participatory discussions to build consensus around any issue: from internal rules of procedures, to organization statute, to organizational goals, or a budget. It represents a prototype of a participatory self-administered organization of individuals on the internet.