How To Build A Political Social Network

The article all but ignores the fact that there <i>are</i> political social networks that exist. Experienced political organizers already know this, which is why so much effort goes into courting the endorsements of unions like AFT, NEA, AFSCME and SEIU and churches and their leaders like Billy Graham.<p>These <i>ARE</i> social networks, and they're WIRED, and have a lot of structure at the local level where, as O'Neil instructs us, is where all politics is anyways. Any up-start "political social network" that ignores that existing infrastructure is like Facebook ignoring colleges.

It strikes me that one aspect of the "get 100,000 people on the legislature's front lawn" mode of political speech is that it also proves that each and every one of those 100,000 people <i>cares</i> enough to spend hours arranging transport and then standing around outside. Short-circuiting that process by putting it on a webpage with an upvote button that takes orders of magnitude less time to click blunts the message by a similar factor.

Most developed countries are democracies, and democracy means that governments should obey the will of the people. The exercise of democracy means aggregating social information, and this is so easily done now through the internet. However, the use of internet for exercising democratic rights seems very limited. Why it is so? Why people spend more time on Facebook than on a political social network where the opinions they share could have direct positive impacts on those aspects of their live that depends on government and legislation?

I'm not sure what problem is supposed to be solved here. Sharing political opinions? I can't walk down the street without hearing someone's political opinions. That's all humans DO, is share political opinions.<p>The shortage is not of opinions, but attention. Why should I or anyone pay attention to your site? I can write my political opinions anywhere: Obama sucks. See? Look how easy that was.<p>I'm a voter. Why should I use your site? No reason.<p>I'm a politician. Why should I use your site? No reason.<p>You need to rethink. Go talk to some actual political people. No one has any reason to use your site or to give you any money. Most importantly, there's no virality factor - no one has any reason to try to get their friends to use it.<p>I just went to your site. It asked me something about a bike lane in Madison Wisconsin. I don't have the slightest idea what it is talking about and have never been to Madison Wisconsin. I voted no.

And for what it's worth if anyone had any questions or comments I'd love to talk about them here. &#60;3 HN.