AP Letting go of the requirement to use Loomio for decision making

@Daniel KleinI think what happend is that the discussion on Telegram was going well (actually moving stuff along), day to day doocratic discussion. Then there was a kind of announcement- 'Theres a meeting on Monday about a specific working group' which people said - 'the community should know about this'.

Who is meant to communicat these small decisions to the community, and where is the community?

I think for sure people can get on with doing what they want, wherever they want, and then when it looks like it needs "everyone" to know about it e.g. 'will we move site to option B', we bring it here.

@Daniel Klein Without Emily there would be no celtic burn at all, so please check yourself before you wreck yourself.

I wasn't aware there was a comms role. since I have not seen any comms about a meeting last night or otherwise.

a part of organising a burn is to create accessible, democratic, open and transparent processes for collaboration. we are worldbuilding. it depends on those who care enough to go through the terrible faff of using a project management platform to manage this project across countries as a team.

it's not complaining to disagree, especially when the ideas come from experienced event producers who have been building this community from scratch for many years. all ideas are welcome, debate is inevitable and decisions will be made by the engaged collective.

(Ugh, I had typed out a long comment but accidentally clicked back and lost it… hence another difficulty I have with Loomio.)

I was going to say I agreed with Sam B about Loomio being clunky and preferring something with an app, as Loomio requires me not missing updates in my messy email inbox (my problem but I would find an app much easier).

Also feel that big decisions should happen in a singular place and that people should not have to wade through tons of chat for it. and agree with Adele’s point about the opinions of those not willing to put in effort. Thus why I feel it’s important there is clarity on where to go if it’s important to people to contribute on a given issue.

@Rachel I have the opposite problem wrt email: i don't want another separate app that i have to check all the time. I rely on the email notifications from Loomio to let me know when there are new APs to discuss and to give me a weekly summary of ongoing discussions otherwise.

@Burning Hedgie fair enough, but you can get email notifications for activity within an app, so it could functionally be the same and you wouldn’t have to check the app if you didn’t want to.

I also still find it quite frustrating losing my typed out comment due to loomio only being accessible on my browser and thus there being more chance for an accidental click meaning anything written is lost.

I think the "directing to Loomio" that has been happening on Trello has been a bit over played. I don't think big decisions are being talked about there. I dont think everyone has to "be there" to be involved with whats happening.

The last thing that happend was that we said- let's have a meeting to get the ball rolling on site search. I didn't think to "advertise" that meeting because... I dont use the other place anymore (FB). But I think that's kinda fine because site search feels more like a working group. When we have a propper comparison, then the decision should come the the wider comunity.

Fox, you and I started Telegram group as a Scottish Burner community tool, to be a place where the "comunity" could be and organise easily.

We don't really have centralised "coms" to get messages out there to the "comunity" in many different palces. I like that someone doesn't have to do that job. But it means that we need a third party place that the decisions take place at. I want to keep this way of working - a specific place that's seperate from advertising, or coms, or chat etc for decisions, especialy big ones. We tried to get everyone at least signed up to Loomio to find the ticket purchase link.

Coms'ing out newsletters is a bt clunky and requires a job to be done and updating mailing lists etc. Telegram is too chat like, unless theres a new dedicated CB AP group, but still, making more phone use- bad. Is there a good mobile Loomio like app? Trello could have a AP decisions column, but we kinda made the distinction that big community affecting decisions and day to day shit should be different. I'm even thinking the dreams platform could go and come to a Trello column...

Big values for me:

There's an online place where local community can be that's not FB. Telegram is working a dream for that.

People can get stuff done when they want to and not everyone thats ever thought about Celtic Burn has to see it and vote on it.

Everyone that likes Celtic Burn can easily see whats happening and follow if they so choose.

Link to what our laws say, especially the bit about big vs small decisions - https://docs.google.com/document/d/1NiQDR9zmb__a1s5HoW1uFAn59hsdqFB6fPvja_ExLNc/edit

The problem with organic discussions happening elsewhere is that when they impact the wider community they need to be presented to the whole community for discussion. We have a designated process for that, and it seems to have worked for organising CB two years in a row. I'm disinclined to "fix what ain't broke", and I think the benefit of using a community organizing platform over a corporate social media site that folks might have ethical objections to participating in (FB, Telegram, Discord, whatever) speaks for itself.

I agree that there's a fuzzy boundary around when something needs to escalate to an AP versus the day-to-day process for organizing, but I do think the distinction is important. The community has all read one document explaining how and where decisions get made and they shouldn't be blindsided by decisions being made elsewhere (something which has not happened yet, i think, but could happen if we don't maintain clear documentation about how and where decisions get made)

I don't necessarily like Loomio but for accessibility Loomio sends me an email digest which I find helpful. It's once a day so I only check it once, input if I want, and that's me.

Other platforms can become continually reactive which can be overwhelming and thus for me, greatly limits my engagement ie I barely look at it once a month.

Since this decision hasn't been made yet it's also news to me that other conversations are happening around these decisions elsewhere. They should be here (not general views I know, but information that's helpful to others related to said decision) to allow others to not repeat themselves, and see what other ideas are being posed to form their thinking.

Does Loomio also have the advantage of being more easy to see previous decisions and how they were reached?

For me it's also that Loomio is just for CB, for me anyway. Telegram, fb and everything else I have other interactions with groups/friends on which adds to the overwhelm when I open it.

Was it ever considered to use Trello for decision making? Or is anyone aware of something else that would maybe be more easy to interact with than Loomio but is still just ideally a standalone for decisions?

LB x

I am certainly not a loomio evangelist! It's far from perfect. But for me the biggest question is: what is the alternative?

Telegram - I very firmly disagree with all organisation running through it. It's not suitable for big conversations, especially for record-keeping - no one wants to scroll for ages to find a record of an important conversation. Also, I agree with others who fear the tone could be more reactive. I think responses would be less considered. I've sat down with a cup of tea to write this out and have properly thought about it - on a mobile phone chat group you'd hardly ever really think it through to this point and typing it out would be a pain. Also, for me personally I was hesitant to even get it as I am struggling with having my mobile phone be less of an umbilical cord for me and yet another chat group adds to the struggle. It sounds like others also have the same experience - the level of noise on that kind of media can be very overwhelming.

That said for organic chat flow and generally connecting people Telegram seems to be doing a fab job as we are getting some things moving way out of season - including ironically this loomio thread which I think, hilariously, is a great example of when a platform such as loomio works quite well - email notifications, easy to read responses, no nonsense posting platform.

As I said above in response to a different thread - why can't the two coexist? They are not mutually exclusive. Loomio feels like a bit of a neutral discussion place seperate from other big platforms.

Issues with Loomio - 100% exist as others have said so won't bother repeating. Personally I despise slack so wouldn't be too keen on that, I don't think it would help. We could see if someone would make us a custom, simple website with in-built message board (or even just link to loomio, although the linktree is kind of that) - which would make it easier to find and therefore engage with. Discord is an option but also kind of annoying. All alternatives are a fair bit of work though and I'm not sure the system is broken - engagement has gradually crept up over the 2 years of the event and we've settled a few big decisions on here.

I guess the TLDR is I like the low level of "noise" that loomio has - discuss a big decision or GTFO. Perhaps it can even synergise with new comms platforms for the group i.e. telegram to massively boost participation. If there is a convincing alternative I am interested to see it but so far I am not aware of one.

Yeah I think it's mainly the difference between chatting/overall scottish burner community comms and project management for the event itself.

I'm not on scottish burners telegram and i dont need to be because I dont live in scotland and I dont need noise pollution about everything thats happening over there. I'll just get fomo ;)

but when it comes time to organise the event itself we need a high functioning tool like Loomio that allows for proper knowledge organisation.

we'll get there! but yeah i dont feel as an event management tool its broken really, just a bit annoying like all decentralised project management.

side note ive just heard there was a celtic burn meeting last night... i was not invited, what happened there? Where was the meeting decided upon/advertised and why weren't core members of the organisation team there...

i feel like posting on loomio, facebook and telegram and maybe sending out an email could be a good way to reach everyone

im happy to draft & send email comms at any point to past members if we have important comms like an event-wide meeting.

@Adele Meower I feel like implying that it wasn't pre-anounced and posted on all of those places is an invalid rhetorical device. Because it certainly was-

Loomio: https://www.loomio.com/d/purJvP1U/meeting-about-celtic-burn-2024-24-07-23

facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/celticburn/posts/1319411348648459/

Telegram: https://t.me/c/1570315314/1092/2045

Email: would that the power to send emails to the mailing list were more distributed and shared, but alas.

@Daniel Klein touché I didn’t see any of those but I’m just returning from a production in turkey so wasn’t up on all the chats!!

I do think it would be more accessible to post these at least a week in advance/plan meetings several weeks in advance to ensure everyone can receive the meeting invite, it can be promoted across channels. weekend announcement for a monday night meeting is a quick turnaround.

i do appreciate moving finding a new site along !

@Adele Meower

It's worth making the point that the meeting was arranged on the telegram group without any intention of sharing more broadly. If I hadn't added to 2 threads on loomio and made the recommendation that it be shared on FB I don't think it would have been shared on either of those platforms. It was posted there because I made a big deal about people not on telegram being ignored.

@AllanThanks so much for that, yes I think its a good instinct if there are meetings to advertise them:

on loomio

on facebook celtic burn group

on scottish telegram

and if possible an email sent out to ticketholders (for those meetings that take place after tickets have been sold that year)

at least a solid week but ideally more in advance so that people can save the time.

I didn't check my email on a sunday and then rolled into work monday not noticing it had been posted on saturday night. but thanks for looking out for those who dont do group chats.

its really more of a sinktrap as ultimately like not everyone will be available or receive comms in time especially in our community where people are all over the place in terms of organisation. but worth trying to make it as accessible as poss!!!

My 2 cents is that an easy to read platform that enables a longer discussion point is helpful. Where you can see points easily and comment if needed in a clear thread. When MicroBurn was in its infancy we used FB group and meetings, we then migrated to Slack and I'm not a huge fan of Slack as it can feel a bit like a message thread. I think having a clear and separate platform for critical decisions is important whatever that may be.

Using the telegram, even though I am in it, does not make sense to me. I have had to mute most of the channels in there already as keeping up with so many messages is overwhelming. Important messages could easily be missed unless you set up a totally different channel where you broadcast and people can comment underneath and you still see the main post. I tried this method for a 25 person event I organised last year, however it wasn't perfect and people do not get notified when others respond apart from the admins. I am not sure I would do it for a larger group, especially a regional burn.

Organising a co-created community across so many cities and countries is always going to have its imperfections and 'clunkiness'. However I do feel it needs to be as clear, accessible and open as possible. Loomio doesn't have much footfall currently, however I have personally found it a less overwhelming experience to keep on top of. Is there a way to promote the use of the platform, or find a similar alternative? However I am not sure what difference the alternative would make if it serves the same function as this one does currently.

I appreciate the desire to include others, but if you also want to be a part of decision making about your burn, it is not that difficult to join Loomio and attend online meetings, in my opinion. People also have to show their own willingness to be involved.

Sending love x

For me having a separate place where decisions are presented and discussed is important for maintaining the integrity, function and co-created aims of the decentralised organisation that Celtic burn has been built on.

This discussion is, in my view, currently very close to pairing two separate problems that deserve two separate discussions. One part is disputing the efficiency and ease of using loomio as a tool, the other is calling into question our decision making process on the whole and the perimeters and functions of how that process works.

Personally I dislike loomio, but we haven’t yet found a better alternative. A group chat is not specific enough to steward good decision making process.

Comms and decision making are separate.

Tools and processes are separate.

Organic discussion in group chats is great and can lead to creative collaboration and quick problem solving.

Detailed and considered decision making processes are great and empower the whole community to be involved. Documentation of decision making is important and loomio currently allows for this.

Loomio is not ideal for ease of use but it goes a long way for the purpose of decision making and documentation, telegeam is, for this purpose, worse by all accounts. So if the question is using telegram instead of loomio to make decisions, I would strongly oppose this decision.

I think it’s also important to note here that decisions can’t be made by one community member without actively and thoroughly integrating the information from an advice process into the proposal before re-proposing.

Although I feel Loomio has it's limitations, I don't feel a single thread chat platform such as Telegram is practical for the many facets of organisation that Celtic Burn entails. Would be interested to hear if any of us have organised a burn on Telegram?

I am not part of the Scottish burners group and don't feel I need to be part of the chat for general Scotland based community activities, and would like this to be separated from any decisions and discussions regarding Celtic Burn.

I would also ideally like a bit more notice before any future CB meetings regardless of the delivery method, as I appreciate the idea of considering a new site. Also if there was a poll for the meeting date, I don't see this as a 'concession' but rather as a fair alternative to 'railroading'.

@Carole Billingham I feel like you and several others here are misunderstanding the point which I'm getting at with this AP.

I don't want to be told where and how to talk / have discussions - I want eveyone to be free to choose where and how and what they say! I don't want censorship, and I don't want to feel coralled. Please.

When I volunteered my time and effort to help @Sam Lee organize a meeting to talk about organizing a Celtic Burn site-search team - I did not want a two-week turnover and a bunch of additional work for the tiny task of determining the date for said meeting.

I don't appreciate being told-off for the way that I choose to gift my time and effort. Especially when I am already making concessions and doing extra-work to accomodate a conservative "this is the way we do things around here" attitude.

I'm not trying to single-handedly take Fateful or Irrevocable Decisions about the Future of this Community or Event. I am rather acting and working in (what I want to believe is) good faith with the community- while also being my "do-ocratic / get-shit-done / pragmatically-operational" self. If this/my style is anathema to your wider sensibilities, and my further help is unwanted- please make this clear in simple language, and I'll withdraw from further orga efforts in this community.

Also, btw, Telegram is not a single-thread chat platform: The Scottish Burners group currently has twelve separate (and separately-mutable) sub-threads ("topics"); and you can easily create any additional topics as you wish/require.

@Daniel Klein no I'm sorry Daniel, I think you're misunderstanding what we are saying. No person is telling you what to do, it was agreed that all things Celtic Burn was and still is organised through the channels pointed out. Scots Burns is an off-shoot community that has naturally occured beautifully from the burn created 3 years ago through the efforts of many and it was decided then how, as a group, as a community of people much like you, doocratic/get shit done people, would go about making decisions. This is the platform the decision process happens on. Maybe this is an issue the community as a whole has to address which is communication on how current systems are run but nevertheless that is the way of it as of now. Should we wish to change that then we go through the processes in place, that was agreed at its genesis, to change it. As a community it is welcomed should anyone want to do this because it is a flat system and noone, not even the creators of Celtic Burn has power or preference over anyone else. As far as I see it the only conversation we should be having here is if we would like to move the Celtic Burn decision making platform to somewhere else. Weather you have an issue with being told what to do then that's a different matter but probably not one for this platform as this is for Celtic Burn decision making.

@Daniel Klein

I have been thinking and have some thoughts and observations in response to some of your other comments and replies on this thread that are not strictly related to your proposed advice process. Feel free to disregard any and all of what follows if it’s not of use or interest to you.

Celtic burns processes have been created by many members of the community putting over a year worth of work into designing them, along with many years of experience planning and organising other burns, activist work and other volunteer based work. The processes are definitely not perfect but they have been designed with specific ways of working and ways of power dilution in mind. They can be changed and moulded by the community too, they are not set in stone. We just care about stewarding a decentralised operation where power is shared.

Being directed to the processes when people feel like they are needed is part of how we currently work. I would hope that the people pointing you to using the processes that are in place and have been agreed upon when you opt into being a part of the event / community are doing so for this reasons and not that people are actually aiming to censor or corral you. If they are, this is a problem that, in my opinion would be better solved either by communicating directly with the person/ people you feel this way about, or if this doesn’t feel comfortable for you, by instigating a conflict resilience process.   

I can understand how the way we work at Celtic burn being so different to other burns that you have a hand in organising may colour how you work or how things are perceived. I can understand how being frustrated with process can be transferred into being frustrated with the humans working with the process. But they can be kept separate and we can solve problems without things reaching interpersonal conflict.

If you’d like to talk more about this, or if you’d like to start a conflict resilience process, feel free to contact me directly and privately about this.

I hope you’ve had some time to rest post nowhere!

Niamh

Mm, not quite sure where the telling off occurred but your petulant teenager response is certainly making the prospect more attractive.

I have communicated my thoughts regarding the use of Telegram as requested and continue to advocate a poll for meetings on additional platforms. Not sure why this would take two weeks but as Celtic Burn is still nine months hence, I don't see that as a problem.

I feel that if your 'time and effort', 'concessions' and 'extra work' is so precious to you, then maybe reconsidering your volunteering 'orga' efforts should be an option?

I also do not think it is appropriate for you to contradict anyone who does not happen to agree with you as part of the AP process.

the intensity at which you are coming for some of the most treasured members of this community, frankly from way before you were even a blip in the burnosphere, is not cool. Take a breather, no one is trying to disrespect and no one will accept disrespect here. all support and work done for celtic burn is helpful and appreciated, but never lose sight of the fact that this is supposed to be fun. everyone here works hard, can and will produce many burns with and without one another.

it's a voluntary thing and the feeling of overwhelm from contributing is very, very well known by everyone on this thread. thanks for the elbow grease you've thrown in the pool up to this point but please take a step back on this front, as it seems unanimously clear by a dozen or so responses that loomio will remain the event management software for 2024.

Hi guys just thought I would pitch in my opinion on the loomio cull. Shamefully I haven’t been a part of it in previous years but I am going to get more involved this year. My thoughts are telegram is a wonderful tool for keeping the community together outside burn planning mode. I have personally been to around 10 events off the back of the telegram chat. I also view it as just that to have chat about things. I don’t think it has the formula for properly storing information albeit important (burn busines) I feel that the starting of Celtic burn and the 2 very successful burns so far are a credit to the planning from wonderful people. Using the current platforms. I think if we are talking about a new site then it would be not in the burns best interest to change the structure we have been using up till now. Too much change may upset the balance of things.

I also am hearing lots of opinions that a very large group chat is not where people want to be. I get this as it can get overwhelming sometimes and right now ignoring the monster group chats worst outcome is missing a pup meet up not an important point about the burns backbone decisions.

I vote to retain Loomio for decision-making. Ill highight that it was intended to be used when the decision being taken affected the whole community, to allow for transparency and to keep it all business. It means that people dont need to cut through all sorts to find the upshot. Organising a meeting doesnt fall under this category as its not a decision per se, rather a vehicle for discussion/decision but i think the point that was being made was that the meeting should have been shared across all platforms with plenty of notice, as Telegram isnt the only place where celtic burners coalesce.

I think this discussion has shown that we need to dust off the process and broadcast it so that people are aware of how we are currently communicating and making decisions as a community, and its also shown that some of us dont vibe with Loomio. Until we have a suitable alternative though, we should continue to use it. Thats part of the AP process as well, to propose a plan/alternative and to integrate the thoughts of all who participate. So its good to come with a plan to an AP as an alternative.

Its also highlighted that we may need a conflict resolution framework for when things get personal.

Some of my thoughts:

• I enjoy the inclusiveness of Loomio, everyone can participate on here by logging in, without the need to have a mobile phone that supports apps, or to check it regularly.

• Telegram, or any other messaging apps are very good for banter & general chat, not good for decision making or finding what was previously said. Even with separate channels it's so easy for points to get lost in the noise. They also encourage immediate responses which isn't good for consideration and deliberation. By the time others have fed in & you're ready to post a considered response you have 500 messages to go through, the discussion has moved on to something else, you need to go up & down to try to quote people so your points make sense. It's just a hassle. It's so easy to miss things too, which isn't the case with a platform like Loomio which tends to be more focussed & consise - people will post one or 2 times, not 20 or 30.

• I don't like the feeling of needing to check messaging apps for fear of missing something important. I'd much rather not use them. If there's a relevant (focussed) discussion fine, it's easy to check but most chats aren't focussed. For decisions it's so much easier to get an email saying - discussion on this, decision to be made on this by X date, weigh in.

• I don't like to have to read through things on my phone, for lots of text and back and forth discussions, especially where I have to go back up the page to re-read or quote things I prefer a computer. My eyesight isn't great and a little phone doesn't help at all.

• Use of chat groups, especially ones with multiple channels means some people will miss things. There's a dozen Scottish burners channels, I have most of them muted as they're irrelevant and I don't have time or inclination to deal with them. Frankly it's too much to keep on top of. If decisions suddenly start being made through those channels people (often with valuable insights & opinions) will be left behind.

• Not everyone wants to be on another chat group or messaging app (and many at burns, holidays or festivals will leave their phones behind or switched off anyway).

• We've organised 2 Celtic burns using Loomio and Trello. There's been no major splits or arguments about people being excluded from the decision making process or arguing over what was decided or how it'll work. APs and Trello cards are easily found & consulted (eg we used '22 cards to inform '23 process on parking). That says to me it's a proven decision making and decision recording structure that works. We can't say the same for Telegram.

• The decision making process we have on Loomio is more inclusively considerate and anarchistic in structure than Telegram, it relies on giving everyone time to feed in their thoughts, informing them that there's a relevant decision coming up & keeping the discussion focussed on that AP/decision. It allows discussions to flow better than a message chat - with branching sub-points in replies. As everyone is informed (if they set their settings right) they'll know about upcoming decisions/APs and know they're important, whereas with messaging apps you have to check the discussion every time it beeps to see whether it's relevant & important or just chatter. That ensures important decisions aren't made without everyone in the community having a chance to weigh in and have their say. No one gets to make decisions that affect others without letting them have a say & listening to their opinions.

• Loomio also I think minimises the issue on Telegram of voices being drowned out by those who speak the loudest and most frequently (as it's possible to branch off on separate points by replying to particular comments & the context bar & thread tabbing shows such branching points which are getting a lot of discussion. So you can reply on them or ignore them after seeing what it's about.)

• The decision on whether to use Telegram or Loomio for decision making is different to the decision of whether we inform all of the community (on the whole range of platforms) of upcoming meetings or whether we only inform users of one particular platform. I feel any meetings should be advertised on all the platforms we use to ensure everyone is informed and has the chance to participate.

Thanks to everyone who weighed in on the topic, [redacted]

Taking all of the above into consideration- it seems, for concluding this Advice Process, we do -- 'Nothing' -- No changes to established norms, no overturning, modification, or adjustments to standing protocols; no amendments of past decisions. No guided evolution.

I'll not close the AP just yet, as @Sam Lee said that they may soon follow with a summary of the good points brought up in this AP ^^