This page is where you can join the democratic conversation with other delegates.

To participate, vote on the comments from other delegates above. If you feel something is missing, add your own ideas for others to vote on!

You can return to this same page to discuss each policy block at the times in the schedule above.

This page uses Polis: a tool for harnessing collective intelligence via democratic dialogue.

As you vote on comments, Polis will automatically show you in an “Opinion Group”. These groups only show people who vote similarly as a way to visualize where we all agree and disagree. Then, Polis uses consensus algorithms to find and elevate comments that attract support from all opinion groups. In this way, Polis helps us all collectively find the best ideas and identify key disagreements for further discussion.

Polis doesn’t know what comments say, so it can only help us to think together through dialogue. That means your contributions will drive this collective intelligence, and the more you participate, the better the results will be!

The basic rules for this conversation are:

1. Be respectful
2. Stay on the topic of the current policy block
3. Don’t spam or post duplicate comments
4. Don’t post personal information

This tool lets people collectively decide which comments are the most important. That means your comments will get much broader support (and be seen by more people) if you practice good democratic etiquette.

Focus on writing a few good comments. This platform favours quality over quantity, meaning one great comment will be much more impactful than many average comments. If your ideas have already appeared in the conversation, it’s enough to just vote “Agree”.

Speak to the crowd. There are no direct replies, meaning comments are addressed to everyone. So you should write as if you were speaking to a large crowd in a public place.

Use clear and simple language. Not everyone knows every detail about every topic, so write comments that everyone can understand.

Keep an open mind. Dialogue is only productive when we make a sincere effort to hear each other out and consider other perspectives.

Assume the best of others. People will be more receptive to your ideas when they see that you trust their motives and understand their perspective.

Give your reasons for your ideas. Everyone thinks they have good reasons for their beliefs. Instead of criticizing their position, they’ll be more likely to be persuaded if you give them better reasons for a new position.

Appeal to shared values. Democratic dialogue is about arriving at decisions that everyone can accept, even if they don’t fully agree. So your ideas will get much more support if you adapt to opposing views and base arguments on values everyone shares.