There are a few views on this issue, the “common sense” #NGO path, an example Presenting Fedi Foundation: Empowerment for SocialHub community 1

And the more “nativist” openweb path What would a fediverse “governance” body look like?

And then we have the #geekproblem path, which has been pushing the fep process the last 2 years, but I think they are avoiding the politics of actually touching this issue. Fair enough.

If the “native” openweb crew don’t move past their “left” mess issues then I think in the end the #NGO path will be imposed, It’s simply what happens, there is a long history of this outcome

The argument between structure and lack of structure is often a strawman. For example, the ogb project, that came out of the #EU outreach has a lot of structure Open-Media-Network/openwebgovernancebody: ON STANDBY due to waiting for funding – (OGB) This is a space for working through Governance of horizontal projects – using #KISS online tools. – openwebgovernancebody – Open Media Network BUT it is SOFT “nativist” rather than the HARD structure of the #NGO “foundation” people think of as structure, it’s interesting when people can’t see this, it’s a kind of blindness, and a hard subject to talk about.

Obviously anything that works has lots of structure, the more important question is about the visibility and “native” democracy of this structure. This is a hard argument/talk to have, and we do keep failing on this, what to do? Ideas please.

It’s interesting that formal coops almost never work in reality, and when/if they do work they tend to become shadows of the #deathcult

In contrast, activist aganising works, often badly. But over all, activist organising is more successful at being an Alt than formal coops, there is a long unspoken history to back this up.

BUT our #mainstreaming always talks about formal coops, if they talk about alts at all, because they can ONLY see this shadow of the #deathcult

Activist organising is always fighting the #deathcult, so it rarely functions as this shadow. The #NGO world is always this shadow.

OK I admit with the right/left mess, this is more of a mess to be composted, ideas please 🙂

————————————–

Current examples in the UK would be the coop supermarket, which got Tesco people in to make it profitable and has soviet design sense and staffing. And the coop bank, which is so bureaucratic as to be pretty much unusable. We have banked with them a number of times. On the positive side you had the co-op wholefood shops in the 1970’s which metamorphosed into the much more #deathcult health shops in the 1990’s. Just to touch on a few. Housing coops have an interesting history, quite a few stories to tell on these.

Don’t take me wrong, I like coops, but I don’t like #fahernistas pushing them over things where we have other forms of organising which likely work better. Diversity is good, just don’t dogmatically push crap that then needs to be composted, we have enough shit to shovel without this thanks.

As ever, “don’t be a prat” is the watch word.