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The experiment:

Phase 1: "Ideas" forum (closed) ¦ Phase 2: "Debate" forum (closed) ¦ Phase 3: "Ballot" forum (closed) ¦ Vote (closed) ¦

An experiment in consensus voting and e-democracy

This phase is now over and the discussion forums have been shut to further comments. Phase 2 begins soon - you will be contacted with details of how to participate shortly. Responses received in Phase 1 are archived below.

The first phase of the de Borda trial is the "ideas" phase. In this phase, we invite all participants to submit suggested solutions to the conflict question we have posed. The team of consensors will then turn these suggestions into "options" to be debated in Phase 2 of the trial.

For a brief overview of the full process of the trial, click here.

Guidelines for Phase 1

- To emphasise, the conflict question we have chosen is:

How should we fund those who serve, or aspire to serve, in political office in the UK?

- At this stage we are inviting people to submit ideas and suggestions for how they feel this problem should be solved. The aim of this stage is to define the scope of the debate somewhat, and allow people to get a feel of how other participants view the problem.

- The de Borda process phrases problems as open questions. However, there are limits to the scope of inquiry. We do not want to consider, for instance, whether political parties are necessary, or whether the political "process" could be run any differently. Our question assumes that there is relative agreement that the process is needed - we just want to consider how to fund it. However, if you feel there are bits of the process which must be discussed in order to discuss party funding, please bring them up - the emphasis here is on an open discussion. For more background information on the boundaries of this question, please click here.

- We are asking participants to submit at least one suggestion to one of the threads here (though you are welcome to submit more if you wish). Suggestions can be simple, relating to one aspect of the problem (for example. "On their political campaigns, politicians should only be able to spend personal money"). Or they can be more complex - full solutions to the problem.

- These suggestions will be combined by consensors into comparable full "options" for use in the debate stage (phase 2).

- There are four threads below which you can use to contribute to this stage of the discussion. Three of them ("Who should be paying for politics?", "How much money should be spent on politics?" and "How should expenditure be controlled?") invite suggestions on specific aspects of funding politics in the UK. A fourth ("General thread") is open to all suggestions, especially those that do not fit in the three specific threads.

- The thread entitled "Questions on process" is for queries about how this experiment is being run. This is a trial, so please do comment if things are unclear. Your feedback will be valuable in improving the process.

- Click on the title of a thread, below, to enter it, and scroll to the bottom to post your own comment. Do not start new threads at this stage - they will be deleted.

- Don't worry if someone else has already submitted your suggestion - please submit it anyway. Submission of options multiple times is a good way of indicating strength of support for one particular option. You do not have to read all options already submitted before submitting your own.

- Please limit individual contributions to a maximum of 200 words

- Comments in this forum will be moderated after they have been posted. If you see any racist, abusive or otherwise unsuitable comments, please do inform the moderation team (jon.bright@opendemocracy.net). Unsuitable comments will be deleted and their poster may be barred from the experiment.

- This forum is moderated by Jon Bright of openDemocracy and Peter Emerson of the de Borda institute