Liquid Feedback | Interactive politics and "final enemies"

Liquid Feedback has little to do with questionable party drugs. It's more of a new platform for expressing political opinions. The pirate party has been using the software for a long time to survey opinions from party members and develop written political claims. The program enables every member to publish their own topic threads and post them up for discussion and votes. Das It is similar to facebook in that there is a “like” button for initiatives. “It saves time and reduces stress” says Alexander Morlang from the pirate party, “as well as a huge amount of e-mails and mailing lists. All party members should also be able to press ahead with claims and initiatives.

A green bar measures the other users' interest and approval rate. After a certain number of votes has been reached, initiatives are up for election, which is where the political agenda is transferred into analog reality. “Of course everyone wants a green bar” says Björn Swierczek of the Public Software Group developing firm.  Andreas Lange, the director of the computer game museum, agrees. “Gamification” - taking elements from the gaming industry and using them for primarily political software – was the theme of a recent discussion forum at the museum. “Members of the pirate party compare their political work with liquid feedback to computer game processes. We've seen tweets where people talk about reaching the next level as soon as an inititiative has reached the required number of votes” says Lange. And “final enemy” is a term not seldomly heard in the realm of liquid feedback.

The pirate party has been using Liquid Feedback – an open source software - since 2009 for their political work. But the program can be useful for any party, club or firm that requires direct democratic decision-making processes.  

(simb)