Hi all. I'm in a conference tomorrow. Our call overlaps partially with a break so I will be on, but can only stay for 1/2hr +, from the start

Notes

• 1300 [5 min] ADMIN

  • Who is here? Caitlin, Marie, Kathe, Matt

  • Does anyone need to leave early?

  • Confirm our next call on 12 March.

  • Review recap from last call; anything critical that needs to be added to the recap? 

    • https://www.loomio.com/d/lHKSa7uA/organizing-circle-meeting-2024-13-february-tuesday-1300utc/6

  • Who is notetaking? Matt (Marie offered to take notes for a future meeting, based on recordings.)

  • Who is facilitating? Kathe

• 1305 [15 min] Check in:

  • How are you showing up today? What are you bringing into the space? [https://www.nycnvc.org/feelings]

  • When did you become aware of wealth inequality in the world? How did that happen?

• 1320 [5 min] Updates: What is the status of your to-do items? Can someone help you?

  • @Eduardo Mercovich has an identified contact @edsu to get a shared calendar on MayFirst and will get that sorted. - People  on OC can ask Ed for help getting access to post to calendar.

  • @Eduardo Mercovich and @Caitlin Waddick, @[email protected] will look at setting up a Sage3 board (https://sage3.sagecommons.org/) for brainstorming the answers to the above question. - No move yet.

  • @Eduardo Mercovich will look at 'hardening' wiki by setting up edit permissions for various groups; there are some prior experiences with spammed wiki pages that we are looking to avoid. - Eduardo has gathered info.

  • @Kathe TB will write up a recap and create the next agenda.

• 1325 [5 min] Updates from working circles

  • Finance - FWG will propose a budget, what is division of labor betw. circles? 

    • better for OC not to hold up other groups while we are getting ourselves organized

    • Observation: There is months-long engagement in Loomio on the FWG's posts about "Toward an Annual Budget". This engagement demonstrates that some Social.coop members know about finance issues. 

    • seems safe enough to try for FWG to propose a budget to group

    • budgets should be based on strategic planning, but for now, better to let FWG make a proposal... 

    • OC should be taking more responsibility, but not there yet; burden has been falling on Nathan S. Next year we can do it differently, but go ahead now, with FWG making a proposal.

    • DECISION: ask FWG to make a formal budget proposal for 2024-5 to the membership.

  • Tech

    • No direct update; some discussion of how to automate spam response

  • Community

    • Recent spam wave report (from two teenagers in Japan via Discord!!) -> on call mods were very busy. Thank you!

    • Is there a way to update the general server? Not directly. FYI via personal accounts. Could we make more announcements via social.coop? Good for individuals to post informal updates, tagging people so they get boosted.

• 1330 [5 min] Update: What was said by the group in active Loomio threads. Do we need to respond to anything or integrate something into our discussion?

  •  https://www.loomio.com/d/7fdFsRj2/social-coop-governance-scoping

  • https://www.loomio.com/d/xqw7FtUT/toward-an-annual-budget  (Notes above under Finance)

  • Bluesky thread -- so far, bluesky bridges are limited on social.coop, not suspended. 

  • How to block as an individual vs block as an admin. -- BACKLOG make short explainer on how to be an admin.

• 1335 [25 min] Formulation: Based on the identified governance values (transparency, engagement, equity, and simplicity) how will we address these core governance questions in social.coop? - brainstorming for now

  • What are the levels of social.coop member involvement and how do members move between?

    • six levels:

      • contribution to Open Collective: maybe half of people are contributing (We check to see if people have an account; we don't check to see if they've donated)

      • lurking/passive on instance vs generate-content/active on instance

        • Consider not using 'lurking', invisible users maybe?... visible vs invisible users vs inactive/unused

      • on Loomio vs active on Loomio (examples: "lurking" - invisible participation -  might be reading the posts and their activity is not visible; active might be entering an emoji response, minimally)

      • on Matrix

      • active in a working group or two (meet.coop...)

      • informal activity (falls between WGs)

      • active in other projects, e.g. reading groups

    • how do people move into more/less active roles? 

      • people are drawn in via personal connections

        • reading group

        • The Law of Two Feet: If a person is neither learning nor contributing, then move

      • sortition process can bring in people who were ready to participate

      • like idea of being part of a cooperative

      • Observation: The Loomio thread on Social.Coop governance was "Seen by 206 · Notified 395" 

      • what about inactive accounts? 

    • historically low barrier transitions in and out of visible participation

      • users can have any amount of investment or commitment to Social.Coop before they comment. Easy entry/low entry barrier for better (or worse) 

      • mutuality can suffer

      • communicating through conflict or consensus?

      • cooperative identity, culture, structure shapes trust and communication

      • conscious cultivation of trust and communication required

  • Who makes what decisions?

    • current

      • guided by loomio proposals and implemented by individuals and working groups, may deviate from initial proposal

      • some made in working groups: 

        • e.g. domain name change activity being handled by FWG

      • small no. of people currently involved

      • people with superknowledge (superusers)

      • some people have met in person

      • some people highly motivated in this area (cooperative social media and platforms), innovative and ambitious outlook of some people

        • e.g. use of sortition

      • possible proposal: report out structure, announcement/thread that would include all circles'/working groups' activities

      • modified consensus for Loomio votes (blocks can be overruled) (It is not majority vote.) 

      • individual members make moderation decisions "from below" (blocking, muting, how to communicate), e.g. bluesky bridges

      • people are building the coop because individual participants contribute to the culture and the discussion

    • what if decisions made by working groups are not populated? 

  • How is decision making communicated and integrated across multiple groups/individuals?

  • How are decisions and processes recorded and reviewed?

• [Insert instructions for Sage3 or Muro boards]

• 1400 [10 min] Decision: We are going to ...

• 1410 [5 min] Tasks: What are you taking out of this call as a task or todo item?

  • Kathe TB synthesis, recap, and new agenda creation

  • @Eduardo Mercovich task check ins [[to be filled out]]

  • Caitlin will ask FWG to go ahead with making budget proposal to membership for 2024, OC will consider more strategic guidence in the future

  • Matt dm "Dos EduarDos", Kathe dm Jon

• 1415 [10 min] Feedback: What worked well with this call and what could be improved? AND/OR Was there an agenda item that touched on your personal sense of purpose? Why (not)?

  • Conversation with how we talk about how we talk about members (esp lurkers as a negative term) was a good conversation

  • Not rushing it worked well

  • still scoping but entering into difficult stuff, still beginning. Grateful for Kathe's help with structure/facilitation creating a space for deep thinking without getting lost in details.

  • glad my PhD was useful!

  • good to go slow, fun to do it this way, gratitude all around

Backlog items:

The items below are not on the active agenda but should be addressed at some point in the future.

• How do we deal with liability as an organization? Do we need to consider some kind of incorporation or legal entity? If so where?

• Strategically, how do we provide a framework for the Finance circle to help manage surplus?

• Ask for training on 'what it means to be an admin' to orientate new admins.

Recap

In Organizing Circle on Feb 27 we had a deep discussion on how we talk about our members/involvement and how people have moved between membership/involvement 'types' and how decisions have been made in social.coop. We also touched base on todo items and tracked activity on different working groups and loomio threads.

We identified the following types of involvement with social.coop all types currently are open to volunteer entry.

• Microblogging - Mastodon server account: inactive, invisible, and visible

  • Entry: Required OpenCollective account, no mandate on contributing (https://wiki.social.coop/wiki/Bylaws)

• Financial contribution - OpenCollective account: non-contributing and contributing

• Strategic contribution - Loomio account: inactive, invisible, and visible

  • Entry: Required OpenCollective account, no mandate on contributing

• Operational contribution - Working group involvement and key role holders

  • Entry: social invitation, and sortition process

• Social groups - non-working groups: reading groups, Matrix discussion board

Decisions in social.coop break into strategic and operational. Strategic decisions guide operational decisions and are currently made via Loomio with a staged proposal process and modified consensus (https://wiki.social.coop/wiki/Bylaws). Operational decisions are taken on via working groups and key role holders, loosely by domain but often modified by capacity.

Updates

• Finance - Current working on budget proposal:  https://www.loomio.com/d/xqw7FtUT/toward-an-annual-budget (see ToDO)

• Tech - No direct update; some discussion of how to automate spam response

• Community - Recent spam wave report (from two teenagers in Japan via Discord!!) -> on call mods were very busy. Thank you!

ToDo

•  

  Kathe will post notes and create recap in meeting thread

•  

  Kathe will post recap in the general governance scoping thread

•  

  @Eduardo Mercovich will follow up on (1) hardening the wiki with admin groups (2) shared MayFirst calendar event for OC meetings (3) Sage3 board for brainstorming

•  

  @Caitlin Waddick, @[email protected] will let the Finance WG that they should go ahead and draft a proposed budget for 2024, Organizing Circle will consider drafting more strategic guidance in the future.

•  

  @Matt Noyes and @Kathe TB will check in with members who could not attend.

Backlog items:

The items below are not on the active agenda but should be addressed at some point in the future.

• How do we deal with liability as an organization? Do we need to consider some kind of incorporation or legal entity? If so where?

• Strategically, how do we provide a framework for the Finance circle to help manage surplus?

• Ask for training on 'what it means to be an admin' to orientate new admins.

Let me know if I missed anything in the recap! Our next call will be March 12th. Agenda and new discussion thread will be linked in here.

Session completely ran over. Only now breaking. Apologies

@John Allsopp Not a problem. Feel free to drop in comments here if you have thoughts you would like to share!