Hello,

I contribute mainly to the French wiktionary. I create an account here because of the Wikicracy project: I have a special interest in participatory democracy. Currently, participatory democracy does not work well (nowhere). Neither citizens nor people they elect should be taken as responsible of this situation, because there are many real, serious, reasons to it. I have developed a technique to solve all these problems, and the associated tool.

This tool is not a wiki, but they share two common points:

  • the idea that the more people participate, the better the results,
  • technical tools used: PHP and MySQL.

I need statistical figures in order to convince towns. You can help me by taking 5 minutes and answering the following questionnaire (even if your answers seem to you quite uninteresting: resulting statistics are very interesting), and also by forwarding it to people you know. Corrections to English are welcome.

Participatory democracy questionnaire

To send me a message: Special:Emailuser/Lmaltier.

Your town (and, if possible, its size) and country: ………………..

1. Have you already suggested something to the town (other than only informing them of problems)?

  • YES
  • NO

If you have made suggestions:

How often? …………

2. Have you received replies? How many times? ..

3. From replies, did you feel that the suggestion was likely to be studied?

  • YES
  • NO
  • SOMETIMES

4. Have you been kept informed on what decision was taken about it, and why?

  • YES
  • NO
  • SOMETIMES

Questions to everybody:

5. Have you already thought of good ideas without communicating them to the town?

  • YES
  • NO

6. If you answered YES, why? (keep only relevant reasons)

  • it is too complicated;
  • I think that I’m probably not the first one to think of it;
  • I am sure that transmitting it would be useless, the idea won’t be studied;
  • It is not me, at my level, who’ll be able to change something
  • I don’t know how to proceed, to whom I should send it;
  • I don’t feel I’m concerned with the life of the town;
  • There are public meetings, but I don’t dare to speak;
  • I’m disgusted by politics;
  • I’m against people currently in charge, and I don’t want to help them;
  • other reasons (please, explain):

7. Can you give your arguments before a decision is taken?

  • YES
  • NO
  • SOMETIMES

8. Have you already been displeased with a decision taken before you could react?

  • YES
  • NO

9. Do you feel that the town understand well what is of interest to people, even people who never say what they think?

  • YES
  • NO

10. Would you like your wishes and suggestions to be better taken into account?

  • YES
  • NO

11. If you could be quite certain that your ideas had never been proposed, that they would be studied seriously, and that you would be kept informed of the decision, would you be more likely to put forward your ideas?

  • YES
  • NO

12. Your personal comments: ………………………………………........

13. Other information (if you wish to: this information is not really required, but will help for a better interpretation of results):

  • How long have you lived in your town?
  • How old are you?
  • Male, female?
  • Have you an associative, syndical or political responsibility?
  • Have you a municipal mandate?
  • Your profession?

Thanks for your help! fr:User:Lmaltier