This white paper outlines a long-term scientific vision for the development of digital-democracy technology. We contend that if digital democracy is to meet the ambition of enabling a participatory renewal in our societies, then a comprehensive multi-methods research effort is required that could, over the years, support its development in a democratically principled, empirically and computationally informed way.
A panel with Ulrike Hahn and Michael Mäs, moderated by Andreas Nitsche at the National Coalition for Equity Impact (NCEI) Summit #2: Innovations in Equity — Contextualizing U.S. and International Perspectives. The summit was organized by RAND Center to Advance Racial Equity Policy in cooperation with the Consulate General of the Federal Republic of Germany – Los Angeles, Interaktive Demokratie – Association for Interactive Democracy, Brasfield and Associates, Tangible Development, Fair Count, and Magic Soup Games. It was held in Santa Monica, California.
A conversation between Michael Mäs and Andreas Nitsche at the National Coalition for Equity Impact (NCEI) Summit #2: Innovations in Equity — Contextualizing U.S. and International Perspectives. The summit was organized by RAND Center to Advance Racial Equity Policy in cooperation with the Consulate General of the Federal Republic of Germany – Los Angeles, Interaktive Demokratie – Association for Interactive Democracy, Brasfield and Associates, Tangible Development, Fair Count, and Magic Soup Games. It was held in Santa Monica, California.
Statement by Andreas Nitsche at National Coalition for Equity Impact (NCEI) Summit #3: Centering Innovations in Equity — Developing Green and Smart Infrastructure Solutions in Communities, Municipalities, and Global Contexts. This event was organized by the RAND Center to Advance Racial Equity Policy in cooperation with the Consulate General of Finland – Los Angeles and the Consulate General of the Federal Republic of Germany – Los Angeles. It was held at Cal Endowment in Los Angeles, California.
This is the transcript of the debate on Using Deliberative Conversation Methods to Bridge Divides and the panel on Building Bridges with Algorithms — Standards for a Strong and Equitable Digital Democracy, presenting German and European experiences and perspectives.
Los Angeles Green New Deal is one of the most ambitious and comprehensive programs for greening a metropolitan area. Aiming at carbon neutrality and sustainability generally requires utilizing extensive digital networks, efficient and inclusive data economy applications, and smart city solutions.
A discussion about ‘Innovations in Equity - Contextualizing US and International Perspectives’ and the many promises and perils of inclusive practices across spaces, including, standards development, neurodiversity, digital equity, algorithms/machine learning and Artificial Intelligence (AI). The goal of this summit is to articulate ways that we might co-create responses to inequities in these spaces in order to support the inclusion of marginalized populations equitably in public policy decisions.
Scientists from both sides of the Atlantic gather at the Lorentz Center in Leiden for a one week workshop in order to discuss digital democracy, social networks, algorithmic fairness, social influence, argumentation, and collective intelligence.
In recent years, on both sides of the Atlantic, we have observed the rise of populism along with growing levels of polarization and radicalization. Democracies are challenged by disinformation and online social networks have reshaped the way in which public opinion forms. Democratic societies experience a lack of dialogue between parts of society. At the Thomas Mann House, Martin Kaplan, Professor of Entertainment, Media and Society at the University of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, and 2022 Thomas Mann Fellow Andreas Nitsche get into conversation about what can be done to re-enable dialogue between segregated parts of society taking differences and commonalities between Germany and the United States into account. They explore the nexus between quality journalism and the prospects of large scale deliberation. They also address (new) communication strategies and their ethical implications.
What is it like to live and work in the former home of the Mann family? What topic will you be pursuing during your fellowship? And what are you most looking forward to during your time here in California? The Thomas Mann House sat down with Andreas Nitsche, Computer Scientist and 2022 Thomas Mann House Fellow, to talk about his project and time in California.
Thomas Mann House in Los Angeles hosted a four-day, multi-platform program in April 2022 with innovators from academia, artistic fields and politics to discuss concrete steps for restoring public trust in Germany and the U.S.
The annual Berlin Conference by Stiftung Zukunft Berlin took place from November 7 to November 9, 2021. The conference took off with a visit to Chemnitz, European Capital of Culture 2025. On the following days, the conference continued in Berlin at Allianz Forum, Pariser Platz. The conference was supported by the German Federal Foreign Office.
On both sides of the Atlantic, liquid democracy continues to strike a chord in the field of democratic self-organization. By embracing individual freedom of choice, it seeks to reconcile the idealistic appeal of pure democracy with the practicality of representation. Liquid democracy is of particular interest for democratic governance in civil society organizations, legislative bodies, and cooperatives.
In ongoing discussions on liquid democracy, we sometimes find arguments which appear to be based on the isolated examination of delegation graphs for a single decision as the underlying model. We believe that a comprehensive analysis of the functionality and the impact of liquid democracy requires a broader view, namely adding a temporal dimension to delegation models.
Andrés Zambrano-Bravo talks with Andreas Nitsche about LiquidFeedback, the challenges of online opinion formation, and application fields. In the second part of the interview, they discuss Liquid Democracy and its use in LiquidFeedback.
In recent years, on both sides of the Atlantic, we have seen the rise of populism. Society has been challenged by polarization, as well as the creation of seemingly antagonistic groups. The internet appears to contribute to this situation through micro-targeting, personalization, and, ultimately, alienation between large groups of the society.
We are pleased to announce that Andreas Nitsche is one of six fellows nominated for a 2021 residency at Thomas Mann House, the former home of Thomas Mann in Los Angeles. The following press release was published by Villa Aurora & Thomas Mann House.
The Centre for Democratic Engagement and the UK House of Commons have joined forces to develop a network of academics and practitioners across the world, to critically examine public engagement with parliament: the International Parliament Engagement Network (IPEN).
The UK House of Commons and the Centre for Democratic Engagement have joined forces to co-host a one day international workshop about parliamentary public engagement, focusing particularly on its impact on parliaments and their scrutiny processes.
On this day a decade ago, the first release of LiquidFeedback was published. From political parties to intergovernmental organizations, from civic engagement to constituency empowerment, from employee participation to entrepreneurial self-governance, from product development to standardization - LiquidFeedback has morphed into an international benchmark for democratic participation using the internet.
The 2-day workshop brings together mathematicians and data analysts from academia, industry, NGOs and government, focused on how mathematics and data can and are being used to drive social progress.
With the WeGovNow project coming to an end after three years, it is now the time to put our heads together and discuss the project’s general bottom-up WeGovernment approach. With a view to not only discuss lessons learned but to stimulate further research or uptakes of the WeGovNow platform, an international exploitation workshop will take place next week in Padua, Italy.
The public administration in San Donà di Piave, one of our three pilot sites, and the local high schools Liceo Scientifico Galilei, Liceo Statale E. Montale and Istituto Tecnico Tecnologico Statale Volterra have concluded a formal agreement enabling 30 students to work as WeGovNow ambassadors.
Today, the Interaktive Demokratie e. V. released the first prototype of the LiquidFeedback Blockchain, an internet software for creating peer-to-peer based applications, especially in the democratic domain. The inventors of LiquidFeedback successfully combined one decade of experience in enabling large groups of people with internet based collective proposition development and decision making with the disruptive ideas behind blockchains.
The public administration in San Donà di Piave, one of our three pilot sites, and the local high schools Liceo Scientifico Galilei, Liceo Statale E. Montale and Istituto Tecnico Tecnologico Statale Volterra have concluded a formal agreement enabling 30 students to work as WeGovNow ambassadors.
The City of Turin launched the WeGovNow public pilot with FirstLife and LiquidFeedback. More WeGovNow applications will follow soon.
Project partner London Borough of Southwark hosted another WeGovNow stakeholder workshop this year and invited representatives of key actors to the Canada Water Library in London.
An interactive WeGovNow booth captured visitors of a popular annual fair in San Donà di Piave, providing an ideal setting for an open, constructive dialogue between citizens and project representatives on the potentials that lie in the WeGovNow prototype as well as on the local issues for which the community engagement platform could be harnessed.
Dieser Artikel erschien zuerst auf der Online-Präsenz von
„vorwärts : die Zeitung der deutschen Sozialdemokratie“
Die Initiative SPD++ fordert von der Partei, stärker digitale Beteiligungsmöglichkeiten zu nutzen. Das ist ein richtiger Ansatz. Um ihre Erneuerung gemeinsam mit der Basis voranzutreiben, sollte die SPD LiquidFeedback nutzen – als erste Volkspartei Europas.
Vor dem Hintergrund der Ergebnisse der Bundestagswahl gibt es in der SPD neue Bestrebungen, die Willensbildung zu modernisieren und dabei auch auf Online-Beteiligung zu setzen. Diese soll durch Themenforen ermöglicht werden, die sich nicht mehr am bisherigen Ortsprinzip der Partei orientieren. [1] Der entsprechende Antragsentwurf fordert, dass sich „jedes Parteimitglied […] unbürokratisch in […] Online-Themenforen beteiligen können“ soll. Diese Foren sollen „antragsberechtigt für den Bundesparteitag“ sein und „Delegierte für den Bundesparteitag“ stellen. [2] Genauso wie ein „analoger“ Parteitag nur durch eine durchdachte Geschäftsordnung fair bleiben kann, braucht auch digitale Online-Beteiligung demokratische Prozesse und faire Regeln, wie sie von herkömmlicher Internet-Software gar nicht geboten werden.
Wir laden die SPD daher zu einem Test der in Kürze verfügbaren Version 4.0 von LiquidFeedback ein und bieten unsere Unterstützung bei der Erstellung eines Umsetzungskonzeptes zur Online-Beteiligung an.
In einem Beitrag auf der Online-Präsenz der sozialdemokratischen Zeitung „vorwärts“ beschäftigt sich der Sozialwissenschaftler Wolfgang Gründinger mit der Online-Abstimmungsplattform einer neuen Partei („Demokratie in Bewegung“, DiB). [1] Hierbei nimmt er auch auf LiquidFeedback Bezug, um aufzuzeigen, dass beim Einsatz von Online-Abstimmungsplattformen gewisse Fragen in der Vergangenheit angeblich nie hätten geklärt werden können.
Paolo Gerbaudo, Director of the Centre for Digital Culture at King’s College London invited theorists and practitioners of digital democracy such as
The Teatro Metropolitano Astra in San Donà di Piave, Italy, provided an impressive surrounding for discussing the potentials generally provided by WeGovNow for achieving more participatory public services.
Dieser Artikel erschien zuerst auf der Online-Präsenz von
„vorwärts : die Zeitung der deutschen Sozialdemokratie“
Liquid Democracy kann die repräsentative Demokratie nicht ersetzen. Trotzdem könnte die Gesellschaft von Liquid Democracy profitieren – vor allem die Parteien sollten die Chance nutzen.
The Institute of Advanced Studies (ISA) of Europe’s oldest university, the University of Bologna, organized a workshop on “The Future of Democracy”. A workshop on the topic of democracy and participation is by its nature multidisciplinary, involving mathematics, computer science, social psychology, and political science. Invited speakers are experts from several European countries.
“WeGovNow! - Towards We-Government: Collective and participative approaches for addressing local policy challenges” is an OpenStreetMap based E-Government solution to be validated and evaluated in London Southwark (UK), Turin (Italy) and San Donà di Piave (Metropolitan City of Venice, Italy) [1]. WeGovNow will seamlessly integrate applications such as Community Maps, GeoKey, FirstLife, ImproveMyCity, LiquidFeedback and OntoMap. The project will add new modules such as a TrustedMarketplace and be open for existing citizen services and third party applications in general. Mobile use will be possible with WeGovNow apps as well as third party apps. Municipalities can allow login by Facebook Login, Google SignIn and Microsoft Account. For certain actions in WeGovNow municipalities may also require a verification by a national or local identity provider. Voting privileges can be gained by verification of an existing account.
The COST Action IC1205 Industry Day [1] is held in Toulouse, France on June 21, 2016. The aim of the Industry Day is to bridge the gap between current theoretical research in computational social choice and innovative applications in industry and policy making related to collective decision making.
Andreas Nitsche, board member of the Association for Interactive Democracy, will deliver a keynote on the topic “LiquidFeedback and a fair process of decision making”. Other keynote speakers are Craig Boutilier (Google, USA), Elliott Peranson (National Matching Services Inc., Canada), Jacques Traoré (Orange Labs, France) and Matthew Robb (NHS Blood and Transplant, UK).
The Gottlieb Duttweiler Institute [1] in Rüschlikon/Zurich, Switzerland executed a creative workshop for members of the Swiss water economy in October 2015. In cooperation with partners from science, economy and culture the participants discussed extreme scenarios for the management of water supply and distribution. LiquidFeedback [2] was used to discuss, comment and evaluate several scenarios. The workshop also revealed the chances provided by LiquidFeedback for restructuring currently static procedures and complex processes.
Today the Public Software Group published the software LiquidFeedback 3.1. LiquidFeedback is a software for proposition development and decision making using the internet and allowing large scale groups to develop and decide on propositions in a fair democractic process. The most significant innovation of version 3.1 is the possible integration of revision control systems as first described by Björn Swierczek in Summer 2015 in the paper “Democratic File Revision Control with LiquidFeedback”.
The Office of the High Commissioner for Peace (OACP) to the Colombian government has invited Andreas Nitsche, Board Member of Interaktive Demokratie e. V. - Association for Interactive Democracy to attend the conference “Conectados por la Paz” in Bogotá, Colombia on August 5, 2015. Public officials and advisors from different agencies of the national government and members of civil society organizations, examined the role that ICT could play in the promotion of citizen engagement during the implementation of the agreements that result from the current peace negotiations between the Colombian Government and the FARC.
Björn Swierczek, co-developer of the open source software LiquidFeedback, is presenting a prototype of a new technology to the public today. It combines the concepts of LiquidFeedback with revision control systems, such as the software “Git” by the Linux developer Linus Torvalds.
Andreas Nitsche, Board Member of Interaktive Demokratie e. V. - Association for Interactive Democracy has been invited to represent LiquidFeedback at the CAPS2015 conference under the aegis of the European Commission and coordinated by Sigma Orionis. For the second time, leading Collective Awareness Platforms for Sustainability and Social Innovation (CAPS) gathered in Brussels, Belgium on July 7 and 8, 2015.
Just recently, Liquid Democracy enthusiasts suggested alternative delegation models different from the transitive delegations used in LiquidFeedback. These models are the so-called “preferential delegations” and also different hybrids combining the ideas of preferential and transitive delegations.
The Public Software Group e.V. continuously enhances LiquidFeedback as open-source software and publishes it free to be downloaded by any organization. Last summer, the current version 3.0 of the software was released. This provided significant improvements through a new self-explanatory user interface. Recent research results in algorithmics were also implemented.
The Netherlands Institute for Multiparty Democracy (NIMD) in The Hague [1], the NIMD South Caucasus Representation [2] and the Association for Interactive Democracy (IAD) in Berlin [3] held a LiquidFeedback [4] presentation and workshop for Georgian political parties in Tbilisi and Kvareli, Georgia from October 28 - 29 2014. The event was also attended by representatives of Dutch political parties and the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance in Stockholm.
The opening remarks for the presentation day in Tbilisi were delivered by His Excellency Hans P.P.M. Horbach, Ambassador of the Kingdom of the Netherlands to Georgia and Armenia, Kati Piri, Member of the European Parliament, and Levan Tsutskiridze, NIMD Representative in the South Caucasus.
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) [1] [2] has invited Andreas Nitsche, Board Member of Interaktive Demokratie e. V. - Association for Interactive Democracy [3] to attend the conference “Technology & Strengthening Democracy” [4] to be held in Islamabad, Pakistan from October 14 - 16 2014. The conference will discuss the role of technology in strengthening democracy.
Nitsche will present LiquidFeedback [5] with a focus on political party development and on how technology can be applied to provide a fully self organized proposition development and decision-making process. He will elaborate on challenges and solutions for a fair democratic process: collective moderation, minority protection, dealing with noisy minorities, preferential voting and verifiability.
Last week, the Public Software Group received the extension “ldap4lqfb” as contribution for LiquidFeedback. This extension implements member authorization and authentication using an LDAP server as described in the feature proposal.
On 28 January 2014 the Netherlands Institute for Multiparty Democracy hosted the international launch of the book The Principles of LiquidFeedback, which deals extensively with the open-source software LiquidFeedback. Preceded by a Foreword by Dr Will Derks of NIMD, the book discusses in over 200 pages all the relevant aspects of such an innovative democratic tool; from state-of –the-art voting theory to possible areas for application.
The launch was attended by representatives of Dutch political parties, ministries and NIMD’s partner organizations, among others International IDEA (Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assisstance).
We are pleased to announce the launch of our new book The Principles of LiquidFeedback and the presentation of “LiquidFeedback 3.0” at the following locations and times:
The subscription phase for our new book “The Principles of LiquidFeedback“ has now started.
Subscribers can purchase the book at the price of € 20 (shipping included) instead of the regular price of € 30. Along with the book all buyers will be granted additional access to a digital version of the book.
Furthermore, we would like to invite the subscribers to our book launch in January 2014, where we will also present “LiquidFeedback 3.0″ to the public.
Our new book “The Principles of LiquidFeedback” will be published in January 2014:
This book gives an in-depth insight into the philosophical, political and technological aspects of decision making using the internet and into the “secrets” of LiquidFeedback, a computer software designed to empower organizations to make democratic decisions independent of physical assemblies, giving every member of the organization an equal opportunity to participate in the democratic process.
The Asia-Europe Foundation (ASEF), Singapur, organized a workshop “Political Parties and the Citizens” to be held in Yangon, Myanmar from 14 – 16 November 2013. [1] The workshop is part of the Democratisation And Justice Series [2] of the Political and Economic Department of ASEF. [3] The workshop focuses on how political parties interact with citizens and citizen movements in countries across Asia and Europe.
In Berlin wurde in der vergangenen Woche das Projekt liquidlabs.org ins Leben gerufen. Zwei der Erfinder von LiquidFeedback, Jan Behrens und Björn Swierczek, haben sich mit dem Projekt das Ziel gesetzt, Grundlagenarbeit zu leisten, um "Voraussetzungen für die Gründung einer Partei zu erarbeiten, in der sich Menschen selbstbestimmt und frei organisieren können." [1] Weitere Informationen veröffentlicht das Projekt auf seinem Blog unter http://liquidlabs.org/.
LiquidFeedback version 2.1 introduced a new feature, the so-called "polling mode". While there are several analogies to classical polls, in this blog post we will point out, that LiquidFeedback in "polling mode" does much more than offering a simple poll.
When integrating LiquidFeedback in existing democratic systems (based on elected representatives), you might want to be able to poll people's opinions about propositions, which are voted upon in the assembly of delegates. If it is clear, that a proposition will be processed in the meeting, then simply starting a normal LiquidFeedback initiative to poll people's opinions might lead to unexpected results:
It's not always possible for everyone to make a well-founded decision on every topic. To overcome this problem of direct democracy, LiquidFeedback provides the possibility to delegate your vote to someone else - and to revoke those delegations at any time. This leads to
Immer wieder werden wir auf Bürgerbeteiligungsprojekte oder Beteiligungsprojekte unter Einbeziehung der Öffentlichkeit angesprochen. Wir haben potentiellen Anwendern stets vom Einsatz abgeraten, wenn klar wurde, dass aufgrund der Rahmenbedingungen kein ernsthafter Einsatz möglich ist. Als Beispiele seien hier die Enquête-Kommision Internet und digitale Gesellschaft des Deutschen Bundestages [1] oder die Aktion des Zeit-Magazins zur Gestaltung eines Heftes genannt.
On the occasion of the upcoming release of LiquidFeedback 2.0 Marc Strassman (Etopia News L.A.) interviews Andreas Nitsche on the history and future of the project. They talk about concepts, new features, current and future users of LiquidFeedback.
Strassman: It's 12.02 p.m. in Los Angeles on Monday the 25th of June 2012. I am Marc Strassman, reporter for Etopia News. It is 9 p.m. in Berlin where I am about to speak to Andreas Nitsche, co-developer of LiquidFeedback. Thank you for talking to us on Etopia News.
Nitsche: Thank you very much. It's great to be here.
The developers of LiquidFeedback are pleased to announce the upcoming release date of LiquidFeedback version 2.0.
Immer wieder werden wir auf Bürgerbeteiligungsprojekte oder Beteiligungsprojekte unter Einbeziehung der Öffentlichkeit angesprochen. Wir haben potentiellen Anwendern stets vom Einsatz abgeraten, wenn klar wurde, dass aufgrund der Rahmenbedingungen kein ernsthafter Einsatz möglich ist. Als Beispiele seien hier die Enquête-Kommision Internet und digitale Gesellschaft des Deutschen Bundestages [1] oder die Aktion des Zeit-Magazins zur Gestaltung eines Heftes genannt.
The developers of LiquidFeedback are pleased to announce the upcoming release date of LiquidFeedback version 2.0.
LiquidFeedback ist einer der Preisträger der SuMa Awards 2011.
Die SuMa Awards werden jedes Jahr vom SuMa e. V. - Verein für freien Wissenszugang vergeben. Die diesjährige Preisverleihung fand während des SuMa-Kongresses am 28.09.2011 in der Vertretung des Landes Niedersachsen beim Bund in Berlin statt. Herr Prof. Dr. rer. nat. Walther Umstätter hielt die Laudatio.
LiquidFeedback Core 2.0.0 released
Today the Public Software Group e. V. released version 2.0.0 of LiquidFeedback Core, the main part of LiquidFeedback consisting of a PostgreSQL database schema and a background job for counting. This first version of the new major release line is dedicated to developers as it still needs some testing.
Die Fortentwicklung von LiquidFeedback wird zukünftig auf der neuen Entwicklerplatform unter http://dev.liquidfeedback.org/ koordiniert. Die Projektkoordination und die Veröffentlichung von Softwarereleases wird auch zukünftig ebenso wie der Betrieb der neuen Entwicklerplattform durch den Public Software Group e. V. durchgeführt werden.
Mit dem Update auf LiquidFeedback-Kern Version 1.3.1 und dem dazugehörigen Frontend beta31 lässt sich das Stimmgewicht von Benutzern, die sich länger nicht mehr eingeloggt haben, automatisch entziehen.
Seit der Veröffentlichung von LiquidFeedback gab es seitens verschiedener Parteien und anderer Vereinigungen immer wieder Nachfragen bezüglich Informationsveranstaltungen zu LiquidFeedback und dem Einsatz elektronischer Medien zu demokratischen Zwecken. Da die Durchführung solcher Veranstaltungen den Rahmen der Public Software Group sprengt, haben sich Entwickler von LiquidFeedback zu einem neuen Verein "Interaktive Demokratie e. V." zusammengeschlossen.
Nachdem sich der Kern von LiquidFeedback einige Zeit im wesentlichen unverändert im produktiven Einsatz bewähren konnte, haben wir ihn nunmehr offiziell als stabile Version v1.0.0 deklariert (Sektkorken!). Das Frontend wird sicherlich noch einige Zeit "Beta" bleiben, da diverse Funktionen noch nicht fertig gestellt sind. Dennoch halten wir es aufgrund der in den letzten Monaten gesammelten Erfahrungen des realen Betriebs bereits jetzt für einsatzfähig. An dieser Stelle möchten wir uns bei allen Kontributoren, Testern, Unterstützern und Anwendern für die Mitarbeit und das konstruktive Feedback danken - ohne dies wäre LiquidFeedback heute noch nicht soweit wie es ist!
Oftmals gibt es den Fall, dass mehrere Anträge zur Abstimmung zugelassen werden, die man grundsätzlich unterstützenswert findet und die sich evtl. nur in Detailfragen unterscheiden. Um zu vermeiden, dass diese Anträge trotz einer eigentlich bestehenden Mehrheit aufgrund von gegenseitiger Stimmenwegnahme nicht beschlossen werden können, gibt es in LiquidFeedback die Möglichkeit, mehreren konkurrierenden Anträgen GLEICHZEITIG zuzustimmen. Die verschiedenen Alternativanträge lassen sich außerdem in eine persönliche Präferenzreihenfolge bringen.
Kein System ist unangreifbar. Genau aus diesem Grund wurde beim Design von LiquidFeedback ein besonderes Augenmerk darauf gelegt, die gesamte Stimmenauszählung nachvollziehbar zu gestalten, so dass sich jeder Teilnehmer selbst von der korrekten Zählung seiner Stimme überzeugen kann. Da hierbei auch Delegationen eine Rolle spielen, wird bei jedem Thema zu bestimmten kritischen Zeitpunkten ein sogenannter "Snapshot" erzeugt, der eine Kopie der aktuellen Unterstützersituation incl. der verwendeten Delegationen darstellt.
Ab sofort ist LiquidFeedback nicht nur als komprimiertes Tar-Archiv, sondern auch mittels eines verteilten Versionsverwaltungssystems (mercurial) verfügbar. Entwicklern wird es dadurch leichter gemacht, über Änderungen am Quellcode den Überblick zu behalten. Administratoren können auf einfachere Art Updates installieren, auch dann, wenn Anpassungen an der Software für die eigenen Bedürfnisse vorgenommen wurden. Zukünftige Updates werden ggf. schon vor einem offiziellen Release im jeweiligen Repository verfügbar sein.
Die LiquidFeedback Implementation gliedert sich in zwei Teile: Den LiquidFeedback Kern (Core) und das LiquidFeedback Frontend. Die Speicherstruktur aller Daten sowie die Stimmenauszählung unter Berücksichtigung vorhandener Delegationen und das Überführen der Themen und Initiativen in die verschiedenen Antragsstadien ist Teil des Kerns. Die gesamte Bedienoberfläche einschließlich Benutzerauthentifizierung ist Teil des Frontends.
Liquid Democracy vereinigt Elemente der repräsentativen und der direkten Demokratie. Ein Stimmberechtigter kann einen Repräsentanten mit der Wahrnehmung seiner Interessen beauftragen. Anders als bei der Wahl eines Amtsinhabers oder Abgeordneten kann die Delegation aber jederzeit geändert werden und der Stimmberechtigte kann seine Interessen auf Wunsch selbst wahrnehmen.
Liquid Democracy vereinigt Elemente der repräsentativen und der direkten Demokratie. Ein Stimmberechtigter kann einen Repräsentanten mit der Wahrnehmung seiner Interessen beauftragen. Anders als bei der Wahl eines Amtsinhabers oder Abgeordneten kann die Delegation aber jederzeit geändert werden und der Stimmberechtigte kann seine Interessen auf Wunsch selbst wahrnehmen.
