Icelandic Citizen Engagement Tool Offers Tips for U.S.

Better Reykjavic platform ... encourage thoughtful debate for government improvement among citizens while avoiding vitriolic arguments...

a new debate system with simple tweaks: Citizens must list arguments for and against ideas, and instead of replying to each other directly, they can only down-vote things ... forces users to create standalone points, rather than volley combative responses ... threaded in the fashion of Facebook or Twitter...

not asking people to write the first comment they think of. We’re actually asking people to evaluate the idea... trading anger clicks for coherent discourse... some municipalities report 20 percent citizen usage... Citizens Foundation has now built like-minded projects in 20 countries...

this misconception that people don’t care... won’t participate. No, they do care, you just don’t make it easy for them ... engaging residents [via] neighborhood social networking platform Nextdoor, which requires verification that residents actually live in the communities they are voicing opinions about...

online platforms with specific, results-oriented missions... reel residents in... by asking them to help solve problems they care about... showing them the actual results of their contributions... results-oriented work has created an actionable channel for making real, lasting change... no social media retort is capable of that...

a little bit of transparency and a little bit of participation dramatically decreases divisions between people... especially ... at the state or local level.”