Short note to vTaiwan workshop hosted by cs, Liz and patcon in RightsCon @ Toronto, written by Yun-Chen.

Love Asking people who choose "unsure" the reason behind it.
In pol.is use case in Taiwan, we focus more on the controversial statement, why you agree/disagree, not starting from the unsure. (as far as I know) I like the opinions and questions raised from unsure people. I noticed those can be categorized mainly in out of context, target the different scope and needing more information.
I like the idea that you asked people to rephrase the statement. In pol.is, you can rephrase to have a new one, but it is hard to follow the rephrase evolution. Those statements are not connected in context. It makes think of Zhihu, like Quora in China, that allows senior certified users to rephrase the new asked question to enhance question quality.
Actually it's hard for people to discuss their opinions on pol.is. Most discussion still happens in meetings of stakeholders and very few active online participants.
ORID sounds cool but very hard for people to tell which is feeliing, interpretation or decision. You transform it into fact and feelings, ideas. however, it is still hard to categorize.
Participants ask questions in
How to conpress statements or categorize discussioin? Because citizens don't have time to look though all comments.
The answer is that not everyone read every comment.
I don't know how the algorithm works in pol.is, but it should show the most controversial and the most represnetative statements of each group at the beginning
Worried about trash talks, dominant voices and the disadvantaged that don't use Internet so much. And deliberation or civic engagement should include more voices.
vTaiwan was created for digital regulation discussion, in which most stakeholders and communities are familiar with online tools. You may want to ask Fang-Jui more on their experiments of PO meetings. PDIS has built a multi-stakeholder discussion model and tried it in more various topics and groups such as fishery rights in remote islands, intrauterine insemination on single woman, drunk driving and highway construction etc. It's a different model than vTaiwan and is more embedded in administration system. The discussion result in vTaiwan is not legally effective; so does PO meetings. vTaiwan is just a platform for discussion to happen. However, PO meeting is now a regulated procedure for responding proposals with over 5000 petitions from JOIN.tw
pol.is by design don't amplify large group's opinion but to identify different opinion group no matter the size of the group.
One more thing about vTaiwan: community. vTaiwan is not only a multi-stakeholder discussion process. It has been run by community collaboration. The website was built with open source communities. The weekly offline discussion is now run by a group of volunteers, around 6-7 active members. Meeting agenda, trello, discussion shared notes, participants are open to review online. The weekly vTaiwan meetup is also open for anyone to walk in, grab a piece of pizza and join the discussion.
The same old question of multi-stakeholders on vTaiwan and PO meetings : Who decide whom as qualified stakeholders in the meeting?
I write from my understanding but it may be wrong. You sould confirm the procedure with PDIS people.
Discussion topics in vTaiwan is raised by central government's ministry and departments.
PO meeting focus more on the multi-stakeholders inside the government, the person who starts the petition and external experts invited by the responsible government agency.
For me, civic participation in a larger scale or how to engage more online communities in those process can be better. Don't put me wrong. I still a fan of vTaiwan and PO process, but I am just thinking how to apply them in a larger scale. I know PDIS is working on promoting workshops of PO meeting to general public. I realy regret that I can't join their incoming workshops in NY.