dol2day

Dol2day is a company incorporated in 2000, award-winning German -language policy community on the web. Your full name is: " democracy online Today" (English, "Democracy in the net today "). It gives its users ( " Dolern " ) the opportunity to engage in discussion about self-selected topics, with a focus on political issues, and to participate in chat events with politicians and other personalities. Membership is free. dol2day is one of the oldest and longest-running social networks on the Internet.

Dol2day not claim to be a democracy simulation. Members have the opportunity to join together in virtual parties. By " initiatives " (virtual teams ) the organization is refined. Every four months, an "Internet chancellor " is selected beyond. This dol2day represents a mixture of überparteilichem Internet Forum and RPG

• 3.1 " Real Life " meeting
• 3.2 Community Radio
• 3.3 Community Blog
• 3.4 Activities within the community
• 3.5 Activities on other platforms, external presentation

• 4.1 Chancellor election
• 4.2 Surveys and discussions
• 4.3 dol - currency " Bimbes "
• 4.4 confidence
• 4.5 High Scores
• 4.6 " Battle Of Parties "
• 4.7 Activities within the parties and initiatives
• 4.8 Community Chat
• 4.9 Chancellor's Office Forum
• 4:10 simulation of the U.S. 2008 presidential election
• 4:11 simulation of the 2009 federal election

• 7.1 New operators

User profile

Dol2day belongs to the so-called social software. It offers the possibility to create user profiles that can be provided with personal information about age, gender and contact among others. In addition, the user can think on his or her profile and then make a political statement. Also dol2day offers a mail function that can be used for direct communication between the Dolern. About the profile itself also let Posts and surveys of the user at dol2day call. There is also the opportunity to lead a normal social network contact list that is referred to herein as the " Trust List ".

Institutions

Dol2day is a relatively complex structure community that has a variety of institutions operating possibilities and regulations. At this complexity and the user guide criticism is voiced again and again, because it is not always immediately transparent to new Dole.

Editorial / operator

Controls will dol2day by an editorial, which has its headquarters in Berlin. On the editorial include the creation of dol2day went back. In addition to most of the founding members were among the editors later two former "Internet Chancellor " and two other members, selected from among the community.

In 2012 joined the editorial staff of operators and is now composed of two shareholders and two community members.

The editorial staff is responsible for the technical development of dol2day. In addition, they also reserves the overall supervision of administrative tasks and the substantive developments of dol2day. This construction is variously seen as problematic, as some staffers as a partner in a civil partnership ( GbR ) are indeed responsible for the operation of the server and in the sense of media legislation, at the same time, however, not subject to separation of powers or other democratic concepts in the internal logic of the simulation are. However, the majority of the community accepted this condition as a necessary condition for the existence of dol2day.

Internet Registrar / Internet Government

The Internet Chancellor is elected every four months. He has no defined tasks within the system of dol2day. Occasionally, he has performed as a representative of the Community and dol2day has told the press and other organizations represented (see links). In general, this task is but taken directly from the editors. So far, the Internet Chancellor and their teams, which are often from " ministers " or " secretaries " exist ("Internet Government"), with the organization of chats with personalities from politics and society, and with the development of rules using " Dolisziten " were ( referendums employed by dol2day ). This, however, was highly dependent on the personal commitment of each government teams. Also, not all Doliszite be implemented by the editors for legal reasons or due to lack of time resources. The discrepancy between the name "Internet Registrar ", which seems to point to a powerful position, and its only a very limited ability to influence is variously caricatured in dol2day by the derisive term " Internet Kasper ". Meanwhile, the "Internet Chancellor " basically have a monthly programming budget of the editors. This whose position is to be strengthened.

Parties

There are now no longer only parties that are based on the political forces represented in the Bundestag in dol2day. By spin-offs of individual wings additional parties have established. In addition, parties were founded, which are located outside of the represented in the Bundestag political spectrum. Some of them also pursue policies that are beyond traditional political and ideological constructions. At present there are 16 parties.

These must have at dol2day a certain minimum number of members to be not resolved. Party start-ups are possible. However, their party programs are previously subjected to a content control through a specially constructed Control, they must not contradict the free democratic basic order. Also, plenty of supporters and founding members sought out.

The Dole can in principle follow each party. Decides on the admission the party, each may define their own admission criteria in the statute.

Court of Arbitration

Even in the early days of the operation of dol2day arose the need of working with " destructive " behavior patterns and partly criminal Statements by individual members. For this purpose, a so-called " committee " was created, which was equipped by the editorial staff with the tools to work through reported cases, ie Editor's either an acquittal to recommend a warning or a temporary / permanent blocking of a user. The members ( " Gremianten " ) were appointed by the editors. Recently, the editors had frequently chosen not to wait for the recommendations in each case, but already speak a lock during an ongoing process.

The decisions of the committee was the subject of heated debate since its establishment. Often while the Gremianten political bias was assumed; Representatives of the right-wing thought they could often recognize a leaning to the left of the panel, while leftist Dole often seemingly too large tolerance " law " criticized. However, the majority of sanctions related to users who are associated with the right spectrum.

The beginning of 2008, the Panel was replaced by its successor " arbitration ". Each 30 community members are selected according to certain non- publicly accessible criteria based on a random basis, and can then decide on a complaint received; So concretely how this is to be assessed, and whether or how the user over which was weighted, is to sanction it.

Moderators

Since January 2005, the dol2day editors in addition to the body or arbitration by ten appointed by herself Moderators supported. This Editor's usually personally known members of the community have taken various administrative tasks. Among other things, they can make the contributions of other users, for others invisible on their own responsibility, unless in violation of applicable law or the culture of debate and impose temporary write locks. Even with spam the moderators act which do their job voluntarily. At the Moderators activity criticism is expressed sporadically since it was a lack of transparency of decisions taken. In addition to the ten appointed by the editorial staff of the respective Internet Chancellor and the Vice-Chancellor to support the moderation team.

Initiatives

Initiatives are virtual teams in dol2day. These are similar to so-called " groups " of other online communities such as XING and StudiVZ. You must pursue any political content, but can be based on common interests, such as favorite soccer club, field of study or hometown. Initiatives may establish any Dole. The prerequisite is that with them no anti-constitutional aims and does not already exist, an initiative of the same content. Contact person for the establishment of an initiative are the moderators.

Tutors / new members care

After the loss of several members of the target is known in the community again and again to gain new members. Given the not very easy for a new Dole orientation purpose, several approaches are discussed. Since 2003 there is a tutorial system at dol2day. Could this earlier if necessary, a new member choose a tutor from a special list, a tutor is assigned today directly after registration, the new Dole is also automatically a member of an initiative to facilitate access to dol2day on. The tutors ratio and the membership of the initiative can finish the new member at any time.

In addition to the tutoring system were as orientation for new members and prospects 2008, a dol - Info-Tour as well as a collection ( see Related links ) furnished.

Registry office

Since 2000, the Dole have the opportunity to take a virtual marriage. This documentation is usually deep connection, often with a background in real life. There are different - and same-sex marriages possible, as registrars act the former Internet Chancellor and members of the editorial staff.

The community thought

In addition to the classic, made ​​by the operators available elements such as mail function, chat feature and contact lists offers dol2day community elements that differ mainly from the commitment of its members grow up and dol2day from other social platforms.

" Real Life " meeting

Since founding dol2days there are local, nationwide and in some cases also on a continental scale organized so-called " Real Life " meetings that are based mostly on their own initiative dedicated Dole. A special highlight will be the first hosted by the editors, and later of dedicated Dolern dol2day birthday parties, which take place every year usually in May. Last but failed to organize such a party.

Finally arise in dol2day through a virtual and real meeting of representatives of different political views, are reliant on far - in terms of the political landscape of the Federal Republic - disproportionate share of right -and left- radically -oriented users meet, dialogues, discussions and even common positions that would not have been possible without this platform well.

Community radio

A special dol2days represents the December 2008 Hosted by dedicated Dolern Internet Radio dar. This is operated by the dol2day - shareholders, but organized by Dolern and filled with content. The programs include musical contributions of almost all sorts of styles, interviews and news concerning dol2day ( such as, for example, the announcement of results of the election of the Chancellor ). The aura usually follows a fixed schedule, which is found in the corresponding initiative.

Community Blog

Dol2day parties, Dole, editorial and dol2day governments continued to have the opportunity to make products available in the community own blog.

Activities within the community

From time to time also held various activities in the community. So pleased the annual Easter egg hunt organized by the editors regularly popularity. Also twice video contests on YouTube were held. Under these two actions you could win in the past Amazon vouchers.

Activities on other platforms, external presentation

Dol2day regularly informed with profiles on Facebook, Google and Twitter news from the community, upcoming chats, elections, etc. There also exist in various Internet forums and networks such as XING, StudiVZ and Last.fm dol2day groups, the focal point for there Dole are registered and all other interested parties are open.

In 2002, the CDU began to celebrate the upcoming federal election a policy simulation with the name of constituency 300 This platform had content and graphic parallels to dol2day on. Plagiarism allegations have been Consequently loud. Some Dole organized themselves in a non-partisan initiative founded in dol2day and successfully infiltrated the policy simulation of the CDU. Constituency 300 is now disabled.

Game elements

Dol2day offers Dolern number of opportunities.

Election of the Chancellor

The chancellor candidates are usually set up by party alliances and elected directly by the Dolern by the preferential voting system (PWS ). In the early days of the Internet Chancellor nor by the majority system (possibly with a runoff ) was chosen. In an election period in 2006 was tried to let the Registrar by a " Dolament ", ie the virtual version of a parliament vote. This was, however, unique, since after the first chosen by the Chancellor Dolament the right to vote the chancellor went back over to the community.

Surveys and discussions

A key component is its dol2days forums function. The Dole have the opportunity to make surveys and to write opinions in belonging to these surveys discussions. These opinions can then be rated by other Dolern. Surveys can be found on various political and social issues. The quality of surveys is to be secured by a review system. It must Dole, who want to make a survey, previously assess the quality of other publishing upcoming polls. May represent only one survey a Dole per day. This limitation and not always functioning quality assurance were repeated part of critical discussions. In addition to these dol - public surveys and discussions can be discussed and agreed in the parties and initiatives.

Dol - currency " Bimbes "

For the locations of surveys, vote for online times, logging and for drafting and review of articles in the related discussions of the so-called Dole " Bimbes " which is a form of currency in dol2day receives. The high scores are determined partly hereafter. Contributions in initiatives and parties are not rewarded with Bimbes. The output options for Bimbes, however, are extremely limited.

Trust

The equivalent to contact lists of other online communities is at dol2day the trust list dar. addition, it is also possible Dolern utter a suspicion. Both are also increased as a premium trust or distrust - possible. Saying these trust and distrust represents one of the few ways to spend Bimbes.

High Scores

In dol2day daily, weekly and overall high scores are out. It is based on the activity of the respective Dolers in surveys and discussions. Was observed that broke out about daily and weekly wins a fairly intense competition among some Dolern in the early days dol2days, so at last left the significance of these high scores significantly after.

"Battle Of Parties "

Parties have the opportunity to challenge each other on a particular topic. For this they need to submit a contribution. Contributions are put to the vote. The Dole then have the option to choose whatever contribution they favor. The victorious party receives in the " BOP " party high score a point, the losing loses.

Activities within the parties and initiatives

In addition to the dol - public discourse in surveys, it is also possible to discuss in parties and initiatives and to start voting. However, these activities are not bimbesrelevant. In addition, party leaders and party executives in many parties regularly elected to take over the administrative tasks and represent the parties to the outside. In some initiatives also their administrators are elected.

Community chat

In addition to the discussions in the classic threads, parties, initiatives and e -mail offers dol2day two variants of the members chats. On one hand, as in the browser integrated chat in the form of instant messengers, does not require a separate application, but immediately after logging in dol2day is active, and in the functioning of ICQ and similar protocols corresponds. On the other hand, a public chat room is offered. Here is a separate registration with dol2day nickname and password is required.

Chancellor's Office Forum

In the Chancellery forum can date headlines and threads for policy to be compiled to social and dol - internal topics. These can not be bimbesrelevant - turn - over discusses the developments. This forum looks similar to and in respect of the construction most likely the classic Internet forums.

Simulation of the U.S. 2008 presidential election

On the initiative of individual members of dol2day the U.S. presidential election and the previous primaries were simulated in 2008.

Simulation of the 2009 federal election

For the first time a simulation for the parliamentary elections took place in dol2day. This candidate lists were created for the most promising parties. After the Dole were called to vote. Following coalition negotiations were simulated.

Interaction with the traditional party politics

The respective governments, the virtual parties and other dedicated groups in dol2day endeavor usually interlocutor primarily from parties to win their youth organizations and NGOs for chat events. Mostly for the contacts of the often beyond the internet politically active dol2day members are used. For this, many prominent politicians have already been won - by Federal Ministers and Presidents of the Bundestag to state politicians. Such were, for example, Christian Wulff (CDU ), Markus Söder (CSU ), Franz Müntefering ( SPD ), Reinhard Bütikofer ( Alliance 90/The Greens ), Dirk Niebel (FDP) and Gregor Gysi ( Die Linke ) as well as European Commissioner Günter Verheugen, Bishop Gebhard Fürst and the last State Council of the GDR Egon Krenz a guest in the chat at dol2day. There are also collaborations with other political projects on the Internet, such as with policy - digital.de or trupoli.com.

Addition was dol2day in both 2005 and 2008 with an own booth at the festival for young Affairs in Berlin. In this context, discussions with, for example, Renate Schmidt (SPD ), Hans- Christian Ströbele ( Alliance 90/The Greens ), Klaus Uwe Benneter (SPD) and Franziska Drohsel ( Young Socialists ) were held.

Dealing with confounding factors

In addition to the arbitral tribunal and the moderators, the editorial staff reserves the right periodically to take over direct judgments in democratic structures.

Thus, the editorial staff has ruled on several occasions to extinction of right-wing parties, which a radically nationalist and anti-democratic attitude was accused. This concerned the parties National League of Germany ( NLD July 2002 prohibited), and " liberally Independent National " (FUN ), which was dissolved in June 2003, and its successor " liberally Regardless German " ( FRIENDS ) whose prohibition was in November 2004. In the summer of 2006, several members of the " German Center Party " were blocked ( DZP ), operated at that time the largest membership of any party in dol2day because its sole opinion of the editorial board of the formerly forbidden FUN not clear enough distanced and a revival of FUN. In the ensuing discussion, process the rest of DZP members with the editors, the party eventually dissolved itself. Parties of the left spectrum, their compatibility with the FDGO was doubted were not yet target of politically-induced deletions.

Another disturbing factor formed long time so-called " double account ". The dol - rules heard that each user is allowed to operate only one account. From double accounts is when a user runs multiple user accounts. With these high scores were manipulated parties infiltrated and intervened in the election of the Chancellor. After the high scores declined in importance, many members dol2day left and the editors consistently was searching after double accounts whose importance declined markedly.

Factional dispute, present and Outlook

In the early days the community was also affected especially in the context of political youth organizations large inflow. Finally, the community has lost many of its members. Found himself dol2day earlier in the media again, for example, at Spiegel Online (see References and links ), such references are rare today. The concern expressed by some members of expectation dol2day could influence the real German policy from the Internet, has not yet been fulfilled. Under the impact of declining membership numbers will be discussed again and again over the question of self-understanding of the community. For what dol2day to give priority to is disputed among its users: While some members view the project primarily as a platform for discussion on policy issues and demand to keep its rules as simple as possible for beginners easy to understand, others are of the opinion that the idea democracy simulation emphasized and a high degree of self-government of the community should be sought. A third group emphasizes the game character of the project and suggested to put the fun into the center of dol2day. The editorial team has so far expressed cautious usually in this factional dispute and stressed that dol2day was what its members made ​​of it. Periodically, there are very intensive discussions on the future of dol2day, however, lead to a consensus. That the editorial dol2day full time basis, but cared for in their spare time, represents a further constraint, which leads to a sluggish development of the project. By the end of 2008, there was a duty to his RL relatively comprehensive data specified when registering in order to avoid the so-called double accounts. It had to be specified name, address, e- mail address and a phone number. Although these data were not abused by the editorial staff and to third parties, but concerns about data protection have been voiced in the community again and again. Meanwhile, for the registration only to specify the name and e -mail address is required. From the 29th legislature of the Internet Chancellor ( from February 2009), the editors worked for a time with a monthly programming budget, which the chancellor could use for innovations. Thus, the position of the Internet Chancellor strengthened and the work of the editorial staff for the Dole should be transparent.

New operators

In December 2011 it was announced that the founder and former operator of dol2day will cease their support of the site and are ready to transfer the platform at an appropriate concept to new managers. On June 1, 2012, the operation went from dol2day to two long-standing members of the platform. In order to take account of data protection, Dole transfer of their profiles have to agree. Who did not already June 1, may also agree in the part of the log, indicating the pseudonym using a contact form, subsequently the transfer and so can the profile be enabled again.

Technical implementation and financing

The necessary political processes for mapping parts of the program have been implemented by PHP, more free software is in use. During operation, the database proved to be a bottleneck, short-term remedy gave the editorial team by outsourcing and deletion of old records. Is financed dol2day mainly from advertising, donations, government, project-based grants and prizes, as well as through the membership fees of the company founded by the dol2day editorial in 2002 " club for multimedia participation eV ".

Awards

In 2002, the developers received from dol2day the prestigious Grimme Online Award for Media Literacy and the Dieter Baacke Award of the Society for Media Education and communication culture. 2004, the Community has been awarded the internationally recognized Prix Ars Electronica, including a multi-week exhibition at the United Nations in New York.

Partnerships

Dol2day maintains partnerships with several internet communities. So we have partnerships trupoli.com with the political pages, e - politik.de and policy - digital.de and with the iForia page. In addition, the actions supported dol2day " net against justice", " show face ", " compact.de - democracy in action ", " More Democracy " and " optimismushoch1000.de ".