Debrief—Use of Loomio

I think the combination of discussions (Loomio), email lists (interoccupy), and weekly conference calls (Maestro), serve us well.

However I also think the people who do technical admin and coding and other "black box" stuff -- since what they do is not in the open -- should do themselves a favor and anticipate that those of us not involved in the technical so much, can have legitimate reasons to expect accountability from the "black box". Let's not forget the issue of patriarchal control.

Please explain what you mean by “accountability from the ‘black box’ ”; anyone interested can be trained to be a TA or facilitator. I realize that, as you say, not everybody is technically inclined, but I think even without tech abilities one could facilitate—you would need a good TA to feed you stack, etc.

I liked Loomio - but I think @sea2 kinda ruined it with too many unrelated and misdirected posts that were too long and wide ranging to help us make decisions about this event.

If I were an admin worth my salt, I'd have been deleting them and posts that ripped at the fabric of solidarity by sowing mistrust.

If I'd done that pruning and cultivating- I would make myself the target of suspicion and personal attacks on my integrity and motivations - with that and in the interest of transparency I was hands off in adminning this site.

Setting out Roles and Responsibilities for Loomio Admins and discussion presenters would cut down on confusion and miscommunication and keep it more impersonal.

All in all Loomio worked far better than Facebook and email in keeping transparent and public and giving everyone a chance to propose things, decide together and make them happen

There is a way to admin and archive without shutting someone down; a way to suggest and guide without being dictatorial. When you get that, you will be a first-class admin! As admin, you have folks contact information; you can express your concerns directly to the individual. You can also post your concerns to the group to see if others agree, or if they find value in what you find distracting. At some point, someone moved a bunch of stuff to “old discussions”; that was helpful, but still left them accessible—I went there quite late to find information about food and to contact some folks whom I did not know how to get to otherwise (I forget specifics). It is not all-or-none; not black or white.

The possibility that an international group of people could use evolutionary/revolutionary tactics to end the reign of militaristic terror and corrupt corporate influence on our government. I suggest that we achieved a few key movements of pieces on the board. One was that we had the racism training and I hope that such will be considered the beginning of every gathering. Second we made a strong pro Palestinian statement, yet I feel that the way we did it did not antagonize pro Israeli people. Its been said that leftwing groups need to leave that issue alone. The other issue that the left falters over (gun control) was kept out of this Gathering however it was discussed in the planning process and so in the future we may be able to deal with gun control the way passed our Palestinian resolution. Our process of decision making worked as it now stands, and we recognize the need for a better process. We are learning to criticize each other by name, and that is the way of honesty. Its the way to keep our house clean. Our dependence on electronic media technology means we should remain vigilient, because just as a person or situation can go wrong, so we could get false readings coming through the cyber world as well.

An example of a misreading through cyber media, could be gauging how far we can push revolutionary tactics, or use evolutionary tactics. How far can we push the envelope. Could our collective successfully use both a non-confrontational educational celebratory approach, along with a protest approach that could involve non-violent resistance? Either side might see the value of the other and we as a collective might have a common understanding of how we can decide to use a particular tactic in a particular situation.