Using Sociocracy

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A proposal for everyone to review:

A Proposal that we use Sociocracy as a Decision Making Structure

This community will soon see more individuals administering the forum to advance education that develops a culture of positive resistance against digital capitalism. The increased number of people opens up questions of power, for example:

  • Given a reading group or project, who has the ability to send notifications for that group or project?
  • Who can create categories or subcategories and to what extent?

To answer these questions and similar questions in a consistent manner, we need a governance model. To that end, I propose that we adopt sociocracy.

A thorough definition of sociocracy would be difficult to read on a forum post. The thorough definition I have in mind is the one advocated for by Sociocracy For All in their book Many Voices One Song. The text for this is available on Libgen. I will, instead, summarise some decision making procedures that I propose we adopt:

  • A domain is a set of resources and abilities.
  • A circle is a group of people with a common aim.
  • The circle is equipped with a domain. The circle’s members have the ability to work towards their aim, using whatever comprises their domain.
  • The members of a circle agree to a new member joining them.
  • The members of a circle agree to walking away from an existing member (i.e. asking the existing member to leave the circle); ideally, a circle only asks someone to leave, if the someone is consistently acting in a way that prevents the circle form achieving its aim.
  • Given a proposal before a circle, the default method of agreement for every circle is consent. To “consent” is to agree that the proposal wouldn’t compromise the aim and carries the potential of advancing the aim. A proposal passes if and only if all members consent. If someone objects, the circle modifies the proposal (e.g. reduces the time period of the proposal; attaches some metrics) until the proposal is consent-able.

What does this mean in practice?

  • If someone wants to conduct a reading group or project over the discourse, they can become an admin. They can become an admin if the other admins agree.
  • The admin can post anything they want in the notification channel (with the obvious assumption that they don’t spam it).
  • The admin can create their own categories with discussion from the other admins.
  • The admin can customise the discourse in any way with discussion from the other admins.
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Okay, I’ve set myself up with a minimum of 30m per week on locus in my resolutions :smiley: but I am also a chapter into Many Voices One Song so that the theory stuff ends up in there too.

Having prior experience of a (non-functional, admittedly) company/charity which was using sociocracy I would say that I am for this, but that I also think it behooves a few of us to properly engage with that book just because, as you say:

This being said, I don’t think we need to hold off on implementation providing we’re all consenting to this method going forward. I would also propose un-staffing this proposal and putting it in the main channel for any non-consents to come forward, treating anyone here as a part of the first ever circle before the responsibilities are split up.

What say youse?

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100% in agreement, let’s do it.

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