Loomio
Thu 14 May 2020 1:45AM

Feature request: Interaction between groups

JC Jaimie Cosmia Public Seen by 79

I think it would massively increase the utility of the platform to enable complex interactions between groups—namely:

1) the ability for one group to draft and send a message to another group

2) the ability, by vote, for two or more groups to temporarily federate for the purpose of a single vote or discussion

3) the ability, by vote, for two or more groups to permanently merge for all votes and discussions

4) the ability, by vote, for two or more groups to permanently merge for agreed-upon categories of votes or discussions (this would require the ability to categorize proposals, which is a feature I’d like to see in its own right)

RG

Robert Guthrie Sun 24 May 2020 5:22AM

I would love to know if you have involvement in a group that would use this.

JC

Jaimie Cosmia Mon 25 May 2020 2:42AM

I’m an IWW member, and I think this sort of capacity would be useful for us. But mostly it’s just that I believe that the world is in dire need of a digital platform for radical democracy that is useful at all scopes of organization, and that is the source of my interest in Loomio. If a platform were to be ambitious in that direction, these sorts of capacities would be necessary for complex, efficient, horizontal governance.

Loomio’s aims seem to be more modest, which strikes me as a tragically missed opportunity in a world spiraling ever deeper into inequality, fascism, and ecological collapse.

RG

Robert Guthrie Mon 25 May 2020 3:00AM

It's just that building something complex rarely works first time, and technology is rarely the main problem in decision-making and governance.

Often people use Loomio to prototype a process, then we improve Loomio to be better suited to that process next time.

I understand it would be great to have a solution like what you're talking about, but there is a reason why it does not already exist... and a reason why Loomio does.

I'm not refusing to do as you request, I simply don't understand it well enough and only have a limited amount of time.

JC

Jaimie Cosmia Mon 25 May 2020 3:12AM

I’m coming to believe that technological facilitation is one of the very biggest pieces we lack, but I understand that there are limits to what any one team can do. And all of my suggestions still fail to tackle the biggest problem: adequate security and decentralization, so that groups are truly free from the threat of powerful people throwing the killswitch.

That’s a hard problem. But I’ll be developing my skills so that I can do my own part to contribute in some way to the viability of digital democracy.