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Sometime last year on the way to an Oxfam Youth Board residential I scribbled down a back-of-the-envelope idea for running an online learning journey for campaigners on using social media tools in their local campaigning.
The idea progressed from envelope to project proposal, moved to a focus on online video and morphed into a project plan.
Stephen Coleman's questions during Q&A sessions at the Young People, New Technology and Political Engagement conference have probably sparked more posts here than any other inputs.
This time, after a presentation on a web forum in Slovenia that achieved 100 contributions, "Why should a Member of Parliament care if 100 self-selecting people, quite possibly many of them friends of the person running the consultation - have posted on a message board?".
The simple answer seems to me to be: exactly the same reason they should care that 100 self-selecting people, quite possibly many of them friends of the person convening the meeting, turned up to the local town hall meeting and had their say.
But - this raises a more interesting question. Should (excepting the empirical aside that there are not many public meetings where 100 people get to speak - even if 100 may attend) the 100 online voices count for as much as the 100 in-person voices? After all - those who have turned out in person, we may argue, have put in more effort to participate - and so must have a stronger preference for the issue.
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