Create a database with built-in elements that monitor the impact of collective will from and about issues all over the world, based on support choices made [using prayer, healing thoughts, etc.] and outcomes over time.   

          On the one hand I am tempted to wonder, is there a simple way this can be done so the choices are double blind?  But I wonder if there can still be high quality experiment if this is not the case, so people's empathy and interest can truly be engaged, which means they know something about their targets' plight.  [And what will we use for controls???  would we always pair what we pray for with similarly compelling incidents we do not add to the list?  Is there a way to automate this?  Or, could it be set up so pray-ers themselves input the items into the database, but with some provisional control and ability to monitor on admin end?  The choices are, once accepted, made instantly available to everyone.  These cannot be 'for my Aunt Sally who is ill' kinds of things [or Can they??].  They must be national / international news.  Maybe it can be set up so input items can be run against an auto checker that gets its key words from various international news agencies.  If the item is not accepted through this system, the pray-er can suggest them, at which point a live person would need to make that choice and either add or not to the list.  It will be understood that the requester may get either an auto response or no response directly.  They must depend on the results of the item either being added or not, within, say, a day's time.

 

CONTROL OPTIONS 

          How about for each choice to pray, pray-ers must chose (and understanding why) between 2 topics of similar weight?  The same choices will be provided for all to consider.]

          OR:  Pray-ers can only choose up to a certain number out of the total, and those selected will be weighed against those that are not chosen statistically, taking into consideration outcomes over time.  

 

OUTCOMES

          We could every so-many weeks/months give a brief topic summary of the current situation in each case and ask pray-ers their assessment of how successful our prayers were or not [using a scale system, e.g., 1-10].  .  We will keep each item in this recurrent process up to a year [or?] after the affecting incident/s first documented.

          To do this right, would need to ensure pray-ers choose prayer topics and also vote on the success rate based on a participation agreement.  They would also need to agree to the use of cookies [or?] and would have to have a sign-in name and password.  ..

          One way to offer this is to 'members only' of whichever subweb we assign this to.  My vote is for the LLR in this case, so the most people can be exposed to the whole concept and outcomes.  We could also ask for and use some personal information, such as birth year and month, gender, [ha!..] gender preference could be interesting .. but probably would offend too many to make it worthwhile, some questions about spiritual/religious, such as their belief in the efficacy of prayer, how important to them is their spiritual/religious life, whether they consider themselves spiritual, religious, agnostic, atheistic, or what ..

        ==  Rough Notes:

Blog and/or Static Page/s

          Describe this as experiment and also as co-creative project, one all participants and co-creators will monitor together. 

          This will be representative of pure democratic process of choice and we will all observe the outcomes to see how or if they reflect our choices.

         We will chronicle results of our efforts in terms of any impact on our targets over time.

          Together we will provide an ongoing list – somehow very simplified/elegant, so can be quickly scanned by viewers and all options visually look ‘equal’.  In other words, someone making a particularly impassioned or lengthy plea for one possibility in contrast to another who is not nearly so verbose or eloquent but whose suggested need is every bit as important – this will not happen. 

          The data fields will be set up so entering the data will be as concise as possible -- e.g., use meta sentences with very explicit options from drop-down menus and possibly very explicit fill-in options where drop-downs will not suffice. 

          At the same time, it must be done in such a way that you don’t end up with 5 or even 200 choices that just don’t fit for someone!  So how to walk this fine line?

 

 

Participants and Co-creators

        Automate to reflect date/time/timezone/place in world [country at least] on 

        and from data-entry computer [participants and also co-creators].

Co-creators / those who enter incident / place to be focused on

Set it up with optional point/click map to define location of crisis [etc]

For each focus, include:

        Dropdowns:

                Country

                City/district

Desired outcome* [leadership, healing, end to conflict, human rts, disaster relief, ..=keep adding to list as new suggestions come in] 

        Write-ins:

                Issue* [will probably mostly be write-in / title]

                Person [write-in = limited space]

 

Ground rules for co-creators or those who input incident options:

          Meta-analysis along the continuum of explicit dates relevant to incident/need [1 day; 1 week; 1 month; 3 months; 6 months; 1 year].  We can always renew any given item at the end of a year. 

 

What Is To Be Monitored

•           Number of participants and from which countries/dates who responded for any given entry [automatic]

•           Actual outcomes, usually from reliable national/international news source.

•           Was thinking there could also be the option to add names of persons known by the participants/co-creators who would not show up in news, but this may be impossible to do non-news entries, especially if a LOT of people regularly participate in this.  COULD do this with a lottery like choice:  Maybe 10,000 people for a given day add name of person or family or group they want to highlight that is not in news.  But only 5 are chosen for each drawing.  Every week, 5 will be added.  Entries will automatically be removed after one year.  Extenuating circumstances and a request to have them continued can be an option if circumstances strongly suggest this is making a difference, blog-to-hearts.

          The last contributor entry includes a specific assessment of outcome – on sensitive scale chronicling success; with a brief written description [up to so many words] 

 

Participants

•           Click options they will focus on / pray for [encourage only topics their heart clearly relates to. 

•           Should participants choose as many as they want or should their number be limited for any given 24 hours?  If their choices are limited, this means they are more likely to think about their choices and less likely just to click down the page.  Also explain this and say also this does not mean they should feel limited in their activities of this nature, but for our ongoing experiment, it could be easier to track data if people have to choose for this purpose.

          Always include news LINKS for any given incident, where possible, which should be nearly all the time.  People can then read about the choices.

 

                    One of BLOG topics:  how people prefer to focus – what exactly do they do?  Pray?  Visualize a certain outcome? Hold in their hearts?  How much time do they take with each one, roughly? [Think of better questions!]  Could make this discussion, also do actual survey and feed this into the relational data and let’s see if there’s any relevant patterning that comes up.  Can include a number of things in this kind of ongoing exploration of what we are doing together.  Even ask participants for ideas or to feel free to make suggestions ..

Ideas

          As many languages as volunteers will make happen.

          Wonder if it would help in any way to include color coding in some way for viewers?

To sign up as participant/responder, no signup required, but they can only respond once in any 24-hour period.

          To participate as contributor of items to be considered, including individuals/non-news items that are chosen through lottery, co-creators must signup [username-password]; must click agreement to carry through with a certain responsibility over time:  to provide accurate information and also accurate outcome information as that changes over time [they can volunteer whenever they choose; they will be prompted or reminded at end of one day, one week, one month, 3 months, 6 months, one year]; one possible outcome could be the situation is resolved and will thus be removed from the list, which could happen at any time, say, if same result 3 times in a row [stable or improved or success].

          The numeric results are automated and always in ‘real time’.  If there is a time lag, this will be explained.

          Should be set up so can see clearly over full extent of response and outcome data across time.  Should be explicit, visible also how long each item has been in the database.

Maybe could click for a graph showing number of respondents for a given incident relative to reported development over time.

          Maybe viewer/participant can designate how to view/prioritize data with degree of flexibility – examples:  by order of most-to-least respondents; of most successful outcomes; of different countries’ most-to-least responses, etc.

 

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*  [add 2 options:  n/a ; other = write-in.. only works w/ ‘other’]