This sort of process seems little more useful in terms of investing one's time to help the world than is investing one's money on a lottery ticket to help their financial future. To a high degree it's an illusory mechanism at best.

I would prefer a lottery for the questions. At least then a "minority viewpoint" question would have a small chance of being seen. This way only the usual drivel, plus the questions that are on the news every day will be seen.

I'm afraid your experience was similar to mine, a week before the inauguration they had a similar -though larger question gathering and voting proceedure. The most popular questions were strikingly bizarre (like will you declassify the alien technology in area 51?). I don't think this sort of proceedure is valuable, beyond the PR value. The same sorts of information can be obtained more accurately from polling data.

Rather than doom and gloom, I think talking about prearations for BAU-lite has a better chance of getting through. And a good part of the preparations for BAU-lite are like th early phases of a more serious transition. But, getting heard above the rabble is difficult. I try via bloggers around the edge of the administrations circle, people like Krugman, and Brad Delong, are at least occasionaly consulted by the lower levels of the administration. These attempts at direct democracy don't appear to be viable forums for getting less popular issues raised.