[sudo-discuss] Gittip spinoff seeks advice on democratic governance & bylaws for web applications

Sun Jul 27 13:13:04 PDT 2014

About this "not very invested" thing, I mean:

-- In large democratic organizations, participation can be low even though
decisions affect all the participants.  This happened in the Berkeley
Student Coops, for example.  How can everyone be encouraged to participate
and be informed when that takes time and effort and wading through lots of
boring stuff?  And problems can happen when suddenly the other 90% of
people show up to vote during a controversy but they're under-informed, but
of course we want their voices too.

-- If democratic participation requires a large investment of time (going
to all the meetings, reading every email), this disadvantages people who
don't have the privilege to spend all that time because of childcare, jobs,
etc.  How can they become informed and listened to?  The Gittip spinoff is
trying to focus on marginalized people and this issue has been mentioned a
few times already.

I expect that, like with a credit union, the vast majority of users of a
website like Gittip will just expect it to be well-run by other people and
won't put any effort into participating.  We want to make sure that there
are obvious on-ramps to participation and that participation is possible
for busy people.

More practically, the question is what legal and governance structures meet
these goals?  Who gets votes, how are they counted, etc.  Should people who
are receiving more donations through the site get more votes because they
might be depending on that income?  Can people create 50 accounts to get
more votes?

I'm only slightly involved in this project; just signal boosting for them.
 If you have ideas or resources or want to get involved, share them with
the people on IRC at freenode.#atunit

-Rabbit

On Sun, Jul 27, 2014 at 12:51 PM, Sonja Trauss <sonja.trauss at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Hi that's fine!
>
> What you're describing isn't what I would have thought "not very invested
> in the project" describes.
>
> An example of what you're describing sounds like someone who is in fact
> "invested" in the project - uses it, has ideas about it, is affected by
> various possible configurations, HOWEVER, is dissuaded from giving input.
>
> Is that right rabbit?
>
> from my examples before you can tell I was thinking "not very invested"
> meant that the person wasn't affected by decisions about configuration,
> hadn't spent (invested) time on the project, doesn't have ideas about the
> project (didn't invest time in thinking about it), and doesn't have any
> financial investment in the project or its outcome.
>
> Now part of the reason I asked is that in some systems, say, a
> neighborhood, you might have a class if users each of whom are only in the
> geographical area for a short time - transients. I think you could say that
> any one transient is "uninvested" in the neighborhood, however, a
> neighborhood can be more or less comfortable for transients, so if one is
> interested in protecting the interests of that class, she would have to get
> information (and self advocacy) out of a population made of individuals
> - each of whom does not consider herself "invested" in the particular
> neighborhood. ("What do I care, I'm leaving soon.")
>
> I was wondering if there is some analogous group for something like gittip
> or task rabbit, looking for a description of that dynamic.
>
> Thanks
>
> On Sunday, July 27, 2014, Jenny Ryan <tunabananas at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Thanks for responding, Sonja, and sincere apologies for the targeted
>> inquiry on my part for the sake of proving the point. That is, all forms of
>> participation comprise the social dynamics of any given system.
>> Understanding all of these forms of participation (or lack thereof) reveals
>> inbalances, power structures, and opportunities to iterate on the current
>> model.
>>
>> I think what Rabbit is speaking to boils down to the problem sudo room is
>> tackling in its own offbeat experimental way, which is, how do we develop a
>> culture that encourages especially the disempowered to feel they can be
>> equal participants in and take ownership of the community? To not strive
>> for individual profit and power over, but rather, to endeavor toward mutual
>> aid and self-motivated responsibility? It is a very hard problem, because
>> most of us have grown up embedded in a culture of hierarchy and oppression.
>>
>> We need to develop better models, and open source software communities
>> are a fascinating grounds of experimentation and exploration in that
>> regard. Really excited about this project. Thanks Rabbit!
>>
>> On Sun, Jul 27, 2014 at 4:16 AM, Sonja Trauss <sonja.trauss at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> I participate in the part of the community called "the mailing list."
>>>
>>> I never comment on the threads about sudo room mechanics - I chat on
>>> threads about general interest topics - porn, gentrification, now this
>>> mysterious line in the gittip email.
>>>
>>> I don't think the analogy is sound. What rabbit was talking about was
>>> "what if the users of task rabbit owned it," yes, sounds good.
>>> Now I know there are lots of people who have signed up for task rabbit,
>>> but never got around to using it. They have a log in, they forget what it
>>> is. Those people sound "not very invested in the project." My question is,
>>> why would you need their input? They never log onto your site. Or take a
>>> less extreme case. Someone who uses the site, even regularly, but is "not
>>> very invested in the project." This person doesn't actually care what
>>> happens to the site, they has some other site they also uses, or they is
>>> about to move away so they doesn't care... Why do you need this person's
>>> input?
>>>
>>>
>>> On Sunday, July 27, 2014, Jenny Ryan <tunabananas at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> I might ask the same of you, Sonja, wrt why sudo's mailing list would
>>>> need input from people who don't really participate in our community?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>  On Sun, Jul 27, 2014 at 1:53 AM, Sonja Trauss <sonja.trauss at gmail.com>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Why would you need input from people who aren't very invested in the
>>>>> project?
>>>>>
>>>>> On Friday, July 25, 2014, Rabbit <rabbitface at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Hey all!
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Recently there was a controversy at Gittip which resulted in a
>>>>>> project to fork or rebuilding it with better governance structures and more
>>>>>> focus on the needs and safety of marginalized users.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> They are figuring out how to run a web application in a cooperative
>>>>>> democratic way that focuses on the needs of the users, as opposed to a
>>>>>> TaskRabbit like model where a central corporation controls or extracts
>>>>>> value from their users and makes unilateral decisions.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> They're working on bylaws and legal structures for this, and would
>>>>>> appreciate advice or connections to people with advice.  Talk to them in
>>>>>> IRC at #atunit, particularly @adrienneleigh, or send me resources to pass
>>>>>> along.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> This is an exciting frontier for the cooperative movement.  What if
>>>>>> TaskRabbit was owned by the rabbits?  Websites have very concentrated power
>>>>>> structures compared to the number of users; what are effective ways to get
>>>>>> input from so many people who might not all be very invested in the
>>>>>> project?  What other models can we draw from -- credit unions?  What
>>>>>> lessons can be learned from Wikipedia?  Etc.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> This especially matters for this particular use case, recurring
>>>>>> donations, because some people will be making their living off of proceeds
>>>>>> from the site and it's important that their voice is heard.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Sudoroom may be one of the largest users of this site when it
>>>>>> launches, like we are now with Gittip.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> -Rabbit
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> sudo-discuss mailing list
>>>>> sudo-discuss at lists.sudoroom.org
>>>>> https://lists.sudoroom.org/listinfo/sudo-discuss
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>
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