The one thing you quikly learn in actavisam is any thing that gets done, is done in a messy way. The process is meant to be messy, and there are no set laws or statutes, but instead a growing body of mythos and traditions that people can reference when making decisions. The model also includes the power of recall for both “The Voices” and “The Body” to ensure accountability and maintain trust within the community.
The structure is designed to be flexible, allowing for the redefining of variables and options to suit the specific needs of the community. The lifespan of “The Voices” is flexible, currently with options of 1 year or a rolling 6 month term, and members of “The Groups” can come from “The Body” and the original proposer of the proposal.
#OGB The proposed governance model is based on a combination of traditional grassroots activism and the fediverse experience of federation as a tool for horizontal scaling of social power. It focuses on “sortation” and “core consent” as means to achieve decision making and power distribution, and utilizes the concepts of “The Body”, “The Groups”, and “The Voices” to facilitate the process.
The specific process used to achieve core consent will be determined by the group or community using the tools and variables provided by the codebase.
#OGB “Core consent” refers to a level of agreement or acceptance reached by a group or community on a particular proposal or action. It is not a specific process or method, but rather a general principle that guides decision-making within the group. In the context of The Body, it may be achieved through a variety of methods such as voting, threshold, or other forms of consensus-building.
#OGB Community and the tradition of recall and dilution. The voices are representatives of the body, but ultimately it is the body who holds the power and makes the decisions. It is a delicate balance that is built on trust and tradition, and it is meant to be messy and not a traditional power structure. It is a “native” approach that is designed to work within the decentralized and disorganized nature of the fediverse community.
The groups and voices have the power to make decisions, but they need to work together to build consensus and make effective decisions. The model also acknowledges the challenges of dealing with a disorganized group of individuals and the importance of building a body of mythos and traditions to guide decision-making.
The proposed governance model is designed to be non-hierarchical. It is meant to work with the fediverse’s decentralized structure, and it is built on a long history of grassroots activism. It is not a traditional power structure, and it relies on consensus and recall processes rather than laws or statutes.
#OGB It’s important to keep in mind that this system is built on trust and collaboration, and relies on the stakeholders being engaged and willing to work together towards a common goal. The lack of a formal sense-checking step is intended to encourage decentralized decision-making and empower individuals and groups to take ownership of their own actions and decisions. The recall and dilution mechanisms provide a way for the community to self-regulate and course-correct if necessary.
#OGB The Voices have limited terms and can be replaced by the body, so their power is not permanent. Additionally, the groups and other voices serve as checks and balances on the power of the Voices. This is built into the governance model to ensure that power is distributed and not concentrated in one group or individual.
Messiness: The proposed system embraces the messiness of real-world governance and is designed to work within it, rather than trying to impose a false sense of order. It is built on the principle that power should be distributed horizontally and that decisions should be made through consensus-building and compromise.
#OGB issues:
Prioritization: The proposal system allows for prioritization by allowing the governing body to decide which proposals to take action on and which to ignore.
Spam: The use of standard moderation tools and community flagging systems would help to address the issue of spam.
Centralization: The proposed system takes into account the potential for centralization and addresses it by encouraging participation and blaenceing power to those who actively contribute to the community.
In summary, the governance model being proposed is based on a long history of grassroots activism and federation as a tool for horizontal scaling of social power. The approach focuses on sortation and taking power out of “power politics” by creating a modern take on classic social movement practices. The goal is to work with, not against, this history and avoid the pitfalls of “process geeks” coming in and damaging the movement.
I want to see if there are individuals here who have the skills and interest in helping to build the tools and processes needed for the #OGB project, and if so, to explore potential collaborations and partnerships. I also want to raise awareness and understanding of the project and the issues it addresses, and to gather feedback and input from a diverse group of people. Ultimately, my goal is to bring together a group to build this #OMN
This can be achieved by building bridges and fostering communication between different perspectives, rather than trying to control the outcome. The key is to find a balance between different approaches and allow for diversity of tactics in different situations.
It is important to understand that whatever process or governance structure is used, it needs to work in the messy reality of human interactions. We need to recognize that the need for control is to often a barrier to finding solutions, and instead focus on building structures and tools that allow us to navigate the mess and make decisions more collectively.
It is a way to empower the community and decentralize power, giving a voice to those who actively contribute and care for the fediverse. By keeping the system simple and easy to understand, it allows for more participation and creativity from users, rather than relying on a small group of individuals or organizations to make decisions. The focus is on the collective and community-driven decision making, rather than hierarchy and bureaucracy #OGB
The goal should be to create a system that is inclusive and that promotes participation, rather than one that is complex and exclusionary. The key is to strike a balance between simplicity and effectiveness, and to focus on the overall goal of empowering the community to govern itself.
It is important to keep the #OGB governance system simple and easy to understand for all stakeholders, as this allows for more participation and engagement. The focus should be on empowering the users and creating a decentralized system that allows for more voices to be heard and for the community to self-govern.
#OGB The lottery system would also help to distribute power more evenly among instances, as it would ensure that smaller and less popular instances have an equal chance of having a representative chosen.
Additionally, the use of human flagging as a way to address potential abuse of the system would also help to ensure that larger and more influential instances do not dominate the decision-making process.
The system would rely on a combination of automatic checks and human moderation to ensure fairness and accountability, while also recognizing the limitations of formal processes and the importance of trust and collaboration. The emphasis is on keeping the system simple, flexible and adaptable to the unique needs and culture of the fediverse community.
In summary, the proposed #OGB aims to distribute power among as many people as possible within the fediverse, by delegating specific tasks and responsibilities to individuals selected through democratic procedures, with the goal of preventing monopoly of power and promoting decision-making through consultation.
The approach is to empower people to take ownership of their governance, rather than providing them with pre-determined solutions. The goal is to create a flexible, adaptable system that can be adapted to the specific needs of different communities and organizations. Trust and collaboration are key elements, as well as a willingness to experiment and iterate. Overall, the main emphasis is on building a governance system that is grounded in the culture and realities of the community it serves.
The #OGB project is meant to reflect the practical, on-the-ground reality of horizontal activism and the fediverse culture. It is not based on idealistic or theoretical models, but on the lived experience of the community.
The development of the project would involve a production/coding team, funding, and testing with a real user base.
The process would involve a lottery system for selecting members, with checks for instance activity and human involvement. The goal is to mediate the shifting of power from the .01% to the 99.9% of the fediverse, and the approach is designed to scale horizontally for use in other democratic structures such as local street markets. The body would be moderated through flagging and standard fediverse moderation tools.
The proposed representative body for the fediverse would be a democratic structure that allows for the delegation of specific authority to specific individuals for specific tasks through democratic procedures. The body would be composed of stakeholders (instances), users, and affiliates, with a focus on distribution of authority among many people and rotation of tasks among individuals #OGB
In summary, the proposed #OGB allows for any user to submit a proposal which will be visible on the activity stream of the governing body. The body can then decide to take action on the proposal by passing it to a group or forming a new group to work on it. Prioritization of proposals will be handled by the body and the groups, with SPAM being dealt with by flagging and standard moderation tools.
It is important to note that the #OGB is designed to distribute power and decision-making among a diverse group of stakeholders, including instances, users, and affiliates. This can help to mitigate the risk of any one group or individual having too much power and influence over the fediverse.
Additionally, the use of sortition and flagging mechanisms can help to ensure that the voices of the community are heard and that bad actors are held accountable.
If people start to game the system, the solution is to get more people involved, which will dilute the problem. The lottery will shift bad groups out if fresh people of goodwill join. If a user has multiple accounts, it is up to them to resign some of them, so new stakeholders can be chosen.
However, this will be up to the group, as it is tradition. The default will be set, but it’s open to change.
The #OGB system that will allow multiple accounts from a single user to be included in the lottery for selection of representatives for the Body (OGB), as long as they are active and human. The idea is to keep the system simple and easy to code by relying on flagging for blatant abuse, rather than hard-coding restrictions.
When an instance registers, it would appear on the OGB’s activity feed, giving members time to flag or discuss it if needed. Overall, it is important to keep the system as simple as possible and easy to code.
#OGB The key idea is to empower instances to decide who speaks on their behalf, and to moderate as much power downwards to federate responsibility.
The proposed system includes automatic checks, such as whether the instance is online and has been used recently, and whether single-user instances should be counted. There would also be an option for user/stakeholder flagging to question if an instance belongs, based on terms of service.
The challenges of using formal processes, such as those used by #NGO‘s and cooperatives, in #openweb and activism projects. These types of processes can be a bad fit for the fediverse and activism, as they tend to be too rigid and not suited to the decentralized and dynamic nature of these communities.
Existing projects and resources that may be relevant to governance: Loomio, Decidim, Noisebridge, and Sociocracy. Tend to be based on formal consensuses, a bad fit for messy unstructured groups.
The system incorporates principles, such as the use of sortition to select stakeholders, users, and affiliate stakeholders, the use of a “Security Group” to detect bad actors, and “recall” process to remove individuals who do not align with the goals of the fediverse.
The system includes an option to aid/onboard new roles by having an overlap with the old roll-holder where they share the role and the use of tradition and workflow to mediate the “Allocation of tasks along rational criteria”.
“Tyranny of Structurelessness,” helps designing democratic and effective decision-making structures. By delegating specific authority to specific individuals for specific tasks, requiring accountability, distributing authority among as many people as possible, rotating tasks, allocating tasks based on rational criteria, and providing equal access to resources and information, the group can ensure that power is not concentrated in the hands of a few individuals #OGB
The #OGB achieves this by limiting the number of stakeholders and users by lottery, for example, 100 stakeholders and 100 users. This would be matched by a smaller number of affiliate, providing a balance of perspectives and interests.
It’s important to note that the number of members in the body can change depending on the situation, the admin group should be able to adjust the pool size depending on the requirement to try different approaches to see what works
The #OGB is representative of the fediverse as a whole, with stakeholders (instance operators), users, and affiliate stakeholders all playing a role in decision-making.
Based on the statistics of a population of over ten million accounts and more than 9,000 instances, it would be difficult for a body of that size to make decisions efficiently. A smaller representative body would be more manageable and better able to make decisions quickly and effectively.
The use of sortition to select voices, and the ability for other body members to flag bad voices, provides a way to detect and address any individuals or groups that may be acting against the best interests of the fediverse.
Additionally, the use of basic security checks to detect sock puppets and spammers, and the ability to “recall” flagged accounts, helps to ensure that the governance body is representative.
The #OGB has several mechanisms in place to mitigate the risks of capture by special interests or bad actors.
By allowing all members of the body to participate in the formation of groups and the formation of agreements, the system is designed to dilute the power of any one group or individual.
The consensus of voices, minus one, is what makes an agreement the “voice of the Fediverse” ensuring that the agreements reached by the body are truly representative of the fediverse as a whole.
Groups are formed around issues that receive a level of support from members of the body, agreements are reached through group discussions and consensus-building. Voices, which are a subset of stakeholders, have the power to both initiate groups and enact agreements reached by groups.
The number of voices is dynamic and would depend on the number of stakeholders, but a small number, such as 3-5, would be ideal to ensure that the system is nimble and responsive to the needs of the fediverse.
The power of the voice in this proposed #OGB system is distributed among different groups and individuals. Proposals come from anyone with an ActivityPub account, giving all users the opportunity to shape the direction of the fediverse.
It should be noted that the idea of sortition and open governance is not new, it is a way of governance that has been used in some ancient Greek city-states and it’s been proposed in modern times as well. However, it’s implementation in the #Fediverse could be a new and exciting way of ensuring decentralized and democratic governance.
Additionally, allowing stakeholders who were not selected by the lottery to still submit proposals for group decisions would ensure that the input and perspectives of all stakeholders are considered.
The workflow described is a way to ensure that the Open Governance Body i#OGB s representative of the fediverse as a whole, by giving all users the opportunity to participate in the decision-making process.
By allowing users to opt-in to becoming stakeholders, and then using sortition to select a representative sample of users to serve as members of the body, the system would be designed to ensure that the voices of all members of the fediverse are heard.
The use of sortition to select users to be part of the body would ensure a random and representative sample of the user base. And the dynamic balance of stakeholders and users would provide a check on the power of any one group.
The Affiliate Stakeholders would bring additional expertise and perspectives to the table and their members would have to be ratified by the Body to ensure that they align with the goals of the fediverse.
However, it should be noted implementation will be complex #OGB
An Open Governance Body #OGB, would be a decentralized and democratic system for governing the fediverse. The three groups of stakeholders, users, and affiliate stakeholders would provide a balance of perspectives and interests, with stakeholders representing the people running instances, users representing the people using the instances, and affiliate stakeholders representing other organizations and groups within the fediverse.
