We're pleased to publish an updated specification for the campaigner toolkit, following consultation with groups and including further changes.

There's been lots of useful feedback submitted by e-mail, twitter, blog replies, and in meetings we've had. These comments were turned into about ten pages of bullet-points (165 points!) for working into the spec.

Many of the points raised were useful points for clarification, or small new features, and a few raised issues relating to group structure. There were no problems raised with the substantive direction and nature of the toolkit.

The Description of the toolkit and what it will do is still available and has not needed to be updated. However, the full detailed functional specification has been updated and is below.

We were delighted to receive various positive comments which very much reflect our hopes for the system. For instance:

"One great advantage I can see is that it'll potentially help balance out the workload within our cycle campaign by allowing the latest status on any particular issue to always be seen on the system. Getting more campaign member involvement will also help with our committee's workload."

"I like the push/pull options of mail list and forum. Can't think of anything you've missed. I'm hopeful that this will encourage common issues to do with rules or conventions to float to the top and be tackled at source."

Things that have been updated or added in the spec, as a result of the consultation are:

• Clarification of the idea of a 'Library' of best practice
• Presence of tips to help best practice in campaigning
• Specification of the polls and petitions components
• Issues relating to federated/overlapping groups
• Committee privacy basis
• Notion of groups having democratically-agreed policy stances that members must adhere to
• Clarifications about grouping and splitting of threads
• Ability to involve elected Councillors rather than just officers
• Tightening of a few areas regarding mail integration
• Emphasis on outcomes rather than endless discussion
• Notion of cross-member 'recommended campaign' topics
• Daily digest
• Removal of the notion of a compromise objective, which could undermine a group's negotiating position
• Addition of avoidance of uploading very large volumes of documents, which could create costs
• And various other minor changes

The latest version of the specification is available. It is now a living document that incorporates updates in the light of implementation as we move into the coding/design phase.

A draft Module structure (work in progress) which describes an implementation of the functional specification, is being finalised. This will form the basis of the developers' work.