Ali's Journal

Since this project is about the election, it shouldn’t be run privately. When I said coordinators shouldn’t earn money by the project I meant they shouldn’t be able to change the project to their financial benefit. It’s probably required that users open accounts with their national IDs to protect the platform against fake accounts.

This project is the Green Party’s initiative and will be run by them but it doesn’t mean people with different perspectives are omitted. I’ll contact the Guardian because of its stance on environmental issues. This makes it the obvious choice. However, competition between different viewpoints is critical in any project. It’s important to make sure the environment is set in such a way to ensure the competition is healthy and productive. The objective of this competition is not to omit one another but to evolve the project.

It was said that posts on this platform are in the form of events. Meaning that event creators can specify the structure of events. Two main things should be specified by them:

A) The governance model: How the event is being moderated and governed. In the dictatorship model, the owner of the event can omit posts at will and can block anyone they wish, etc. but that’s not the only governance model. The variety of governance options is good for the public and educates them on how small communities can be governed. New models may be added later on by developers along the way. The formula for earning points is specified in the governance model. So there is no universal formula for that purpose. This makes some events more popular for users to participate in. However, the owner can decide that he/she collects all the points themselves. To clarify, there is a universal formula that specifies how many points each event gets (based on people’s activities in the event, etc) and then the governance model specifies how those points will be distributed.

B) Structure of updates and users’ contributions: It’s very important how data is presented. The easiest method is when people write comments one after another. This is not the most efficient way to present data. The way data is presented specifies how it can be evolved. So there will be different layout options for event creators. Again more formats can be added later on.

UPDATE 1:

This is not a complex project. It consists of two sections: A) for users and B) for companies to add offerings

There are 5 main modules in the first section:

1) voting module – it involves governance mechanisms

2) searching (events, offerings, people) – it includes tag assignment mechanism

3) layout module

4) reward module including payments, etc – optionally can contain the functionality to sell and buy points

5) various functionalities (profile setting, etc)

UPDATE 2:

An important part of the project is the economy of donation. People shouldn’t randomly press the donate button whenever they see an update. That’s as if they have limited capital to donate. If they keep donating their donations will be less and less valuable due to inflation.

Because the general election is probably in May, things should be changed a bit. This is the plan:

I’ll publish an article which will address Just Stop Oil. Because the way they promote their ideas (by disrupting things, etc) is the opposite of how things should be promoted. They currently want big companies to reduce their profits and earnings for the good of society and the earth. This is called donation. In reality, they ask companies to donate and to encourage companies to do so they block roads, etc.

So one part of the project is to redefine donation and how it should work. The second part is that since political parties use a top-down approach to run their rallies, the aim is to provide a platform where people can earn money by supporting what they want to support.

So I’ll write an article and discuss the shortcomings of the disruption approach and explain an alternative approach which is this platform. Since it is about election the coordinators of the project will earn absolutely no money in this project all money will be paid to users of the platform. So companies willing to advertise themselves directly pay users.

Currently on social media platforms, likes and shares have the same weight. Each like or share is a type of donation. People would like to donate to content generators but instead, they promote it by liking or sharing them and companies pay for that content. The content generators and people who promote the content will earn money. So if a user promotes 10 posts and 4 of them are paid, this user’s next promotions will weigh more than another user who promotes 10 posts but 2 of them are funded. Also, those who promote a post earlier get more weight than those who promote already popular posts. So people get paid for content generation and promotion.

In the article, I’ll outline the overall project and things that should be developed. Companies can also pay developers to develop those sections. However, the project should be as simple as possible and the development phase shouldn’t be complex.

UPDATE 1:

here content refers to all types of social media updates, social gatherings, ideas, etc.

Before writing the article I’ll contact people in the Guardian and discuss the idea.

UPDATE 2:

This platform is a bit different from other platforms where users have a list of following/followers, etc. and view new updates from people in their lists. Here, each post is an event. Events might be social gatherings, discussions about a debate, or any other event. Events are created and defined by users (define means specifying the structure of the event). Then other users add new stuff to different events. So one event might contain mainly texts and discussions about organizing a social event, or another event might contain videos/images/ etc. about a topic.

Because the general election is in 3-4 months the targeted advertisement mechanism cannot be very complex. Most of it can be handled manually, meaning that content creators associate tags with events. Also, it’s good if users are presented with a list of companies wishing to donate. Imagine a user gets lots of points, he/she then can be given a list of companies willing to sell their products to them with a discount or pay them directly, etc. Users will then have an option and choose their rewards themselves. So it’s a semi-targeted ad mechanism. it’s simpler than complex AI algorithms. It’s better for the users too, they can accumulate their points for a big discount or something instead of winning many small things. This method simfiles the ad mechanism a great deal because most of the functionality is being done manually by users themselves.

So it’s not a targeted ad at all. Companies list what they wish to offer. Then users select their rewards based on their points. So instead of companies searching for users who might be interested in their products, users themselves will search through the list of rewards and offerings.

Symmetry of a system tries to change it in such a way as to adapt to the new situation without being totally destroyed. If the system faces many challenges, clearly the worst approach will be to oppose them all and try to keep the curve unchanged. However, an enormous shock to the curve may cause the system to collapse altogether. So the best approach is to modify the symmetry mechanism so that the system gradually adapts to the new situation and produces new curves.

When all elements exist to ensure the curve will roll back to its previous measurement, it’s not advisable to push for a radical change all at once.

When tension is high between two individuals, it’s best to avoid each other as much as possible. The same applies when the tension between a government and its people is high. With high inflation and tax rates and heavy social presence the hypothetical government is in constant contact with its people.

One of the main areas of tension between Iran’s government and its people is Iran’s regional policies. If that changes in such a way that Iranians are included in international interactions, they don’t spend so much money for abroad military purposes and instead, they earn money, then that is something Iranians will consider as an achievement. This is good for the Iran government because it is protecting Palestinians, and simultaneously it decreases the tension between the government and its people.

Of course, for long-term survival, the symmetry mechanism should be updated. This is not a trick to silent Iranians, this is the first step toward adapting to new situations.