Going beyond committees - an answer to @pennsif and @starkerzsteemCreated with Sketch.

in #steem6 years ago (edited)

Again, the SOS-forum was full of energy. Thanks to @pennsif, his engaged guests @blocktrades, @crypto.talk, @helo, @knowledges, @shredz7, @someguy123, @starkerz, @themarkymark, @therealwolf, @upheaver, @ura-soul and @yabapmatt plus an emotionally involved audience.

At some point @starkerz form @oracle-d brought up the idea, building commitees for several tasks, such as marketing or technology development should be a pathway to follow. And all of a sudden COMMITTEE became a buzz-word and for a short time it almost seemed to be the solution for everything Steem needs at the moment: bundling the power of the community, solving problems...

With a little bit time having passed by - maybe even some more Christmas carols - @pennsif came up with this phrasing for the challenge lying in creating committees:

In the decentralised, anarcho-capitalist, code is law world of steem the prospect of forming universally acceptable, centralised, decision making committees will be a challenge of the first order.

Further on he says: "The first question to answer is whether we need some formal decision making structure such as committees to move forward?"

My personal opinion on this: yes, we need some kind of self-governed structure. But no, I wouldn't recommend formal decision making strctures like committees. They are indeed much too formalized for a community: formalized in the setup, formalized in the connection to the organization they are embedded in, often even formalized in their internal way of working. Talking about committee leads to discussing voting procedures, procedures of defining the tasks of committees and a lot more tocome.

Why? Because they are decision-oriented and not action-focussed. Because they are political and not entrepreneurial structures.

Much less formalized stuctures could be the better way to go. To create a strong forward movement within Steem's community it's necessary to bundle forces and energy in some way, but this doesn't need any structures of delegation. If at the end there are two groups working on marketing - so what?! Wouldn't that be really great! Two sources of ideas and action - and no single point of marketing failure.

So here is a suggestion based on own experience in network governance and ideas from holocratic management. It mainly relies on informal procedures and social control with as little centralisation as possible.

SOS forums are an excellent place to identify urgent questions. Let's start with these and build circles of engagement, each around a bunch of questions. Everybody feeling so, may engage in these circles. If there are too many people in one circle, the circle may split up in a self-organised way, without further regulation of how to do so.

What is needed, is at least two persons in charge of coordination within each circle.

Let's use the SOS-forums as well to find these circle coordinators by acclamation. In such a public space with a lot of social control and really engaged people around, only people with the necessary knowhow and competence will have a chance to become a circle-coordinator.

As soon as there are several circles a minimum of coordination will be necessary with three tasks:

Identify shared topics of two or more circles and sort these operational questions out.
Identify strategic questions and set up a SOS-forum to discuss these in an open manner.
Identify governance questions and let a governance circle come up with ideas for a SOS-forum to deal with these.

Doing it this way, working structures would be very transarent and open. No complex delegation procedures would be needed. And the result would be quite the same - joining forces in a coordinated way.

I'm looking forward to discuss these governance questions further and would be happy to be part of a governance circle.

To combine dicussion threads, I put in everybody here, who already answered to @pennsif s post: @lordbutterfly @shanibeer @steevc @bluefinstudios @newageinv @imacryptorick @borislavzlatanov @skramatters

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Committees have a few distinct advantages over less formar gatherings, that I think are too valuable to give up:

1: committees brings people to the spotlight. Members have a tremendous incentive to be as productive as possible, since it will get them a decent amount of followers, upvotes, resteems and witness votes. Informal structures will bring less motivation, and thus will be less productive as a result.

2: certain things require funds. When the work is immense, people need to cancel shifts in their day jobs, and expect to receive some STEEM/SBD for their efforts.
2a: committees can take care of that, by posting progress reports, and storing all the author rewards in a work proposal fund. Informal structures would have a hard time achieving it.

3: yes, committees are meant more for figuring out the most efficient and productive way to achieve something.
3a: but maybe there should be a mirror taskforce (a new buzzword is born :P) that will focus on the action side of things.
3b: the mirror taskforce can have the same, or different members, and should post progress reports, both for the transparency, and perhaps to allow the community to reward its members with some upvotes for their very hard work.

4: formality isn't profanity. Things can be formal, yet very effective. As long everything is flexible enough, the fact that we will have specific times for public discussions, and internal (though still public) votes on which projects get funded, does not imply that a significant trade-off is made. Look at Facebook, it's a corporation with lots of internal bureaucracy, and yet they dominate the social media sphere. So formality & flexibility seem to complement each other, rather than contradict.

Feel free to respond to what I've said @impactn @starkerz

I agree that these are all great things about ‘committees’. I think they should be called task forces or something along those lines however. I like the idea of having a committe and a separate but aligned task force.

voting in my view should take place live on the radio show. It will be easier to spot skullduggery.

I am very cautious about formal structure in a decentralised network. Our strength is that we are decentralised and all the things that brings from our own currency, transaction times, transparency. We should try to set these groups up in line with these key strengths of this blockchain. It is surely the top down, corporate like structures of Facebook we are trying to move away from?

This raises a question, whether someone who is unable to make it to the public discussion forfeits their vote. If the answer is yes, then voting should be allowed only during the live discussion. Otherwise, an absent committee member may cast their vote up to a certain amount of time after the discussion took place, 48 hours sounds fair in my opinion. I'm OK with either option though, both seem to have similarly significant pros and cons.

Regarding the other issue. I think that instead of looking at this as formal/informal structures. Its better to look at two aspects which both of them have in common:
1: how flexible they are. How much can they change direction, when logic dictates to do so.
1a: for instance, if a work proposal turns out to be much less beneficial after work has begun. Can the committee realocate the funds elsewhere? To some extent it would be a good thing, sometimes flaws are noticed after a delay, sometimes circumstances change midwork, sometimes talents quit and a proper replacement is not found. Having things not set in stone is a plus. We can't anticipate everything from the beginning. So flexibility is important. But
2: predictability is just as important as I see it. A talent wants to know that if he/she completes a certain task, they will be compensated by a certain amount. This is the formal part. Partially rigid rules, that set an environment that motivates people to work. When people know what to expect, they are willing to make greater commitments. An informal structure doesn't, or bately allows that.

I honestly hope enough of us can reach a consensus already, so that we can start forming stuff.

I'll try to start a pilot vote via dpoll, to try to understand where most Steemians (among those who participate in the poll) stand on committees task forces and the like.

We have incredible momentum right now, I really want us to heavily capitalize on it.

Hi @imacryptorick Many thanks for your thoughts on this. Concerning the general direction I think we are quite on the same line:

Main goal is to identify tasks in favour of the steem ecosystem in a joint way and get them done.

Incentives are needed for this - for some this may be visibility, for others direct payment, and for even others advantages for their own business...

Some kind of formalised rules within a taskforce are certainly helpful to get and keep things moving. These rules could cover collection and distribution of funds, decision making within the task force, organisation of collaboration

Somewhat internally formalised structures are definitely needed.

Our main point of discussion seems to be: do we need voting or other formalised procedures to establish structures with a formalised mandate of the Steem community or not. I think we definitely should not go for a formalised mandate via voting. Why?

A task force established in consensus during an SOS-forum is just as formalised as a group of people being elected. The only difference - the procedure isn't as formalised as an election process.

Voting is not a very good procedure to find out where to go in complex situations. The SOS forums are a much better way to do so - exchanging arguments, collecting proposals and finally delegating a task - including open questions - to a task force or a circle of action or whatever... As long as these structures are open for engaged newcomers there won't be much arguments about their existence.

In a decentralised community voting leads to much more centralisation than delegating tasks to an open group. Because of this I think if we go for voting, we could get into very time-consuming debates concerning who has the right to vote, who defines what is subject to a vote, what power does an elected person have... .

What's the background of my proposals: I've been working with open networks for about 20 years now, and they work best, when they don't start with formalised procedures but with action. Going this way they'll identify, where formalism is needed. Very often the first step to formalise things is for example setting up a "code of conduct".

One last point:
Concerning the duality of committee and task force/circle of action: this is overdoing it completely. More structures doesn't mean the system works better. It just introduces more and more need to define who does what.
For visibility and progress reports we could use the SOS forums and the SOS daily news - we don't need committees for this.

I'm looking forward to further exchange on this topic wth you @imacryptoric @starkerz @pennsif

We can try to decide things on the next SOS forum. Although I fully prefer having an assembly to pick all the committee\taskforce members, set their obligations and limitations. And get this ball rolling.
I just hope we don't lose momentum until the next SOS forum, which is set in two weeks.
@impactn

Big like! We should stay away from centralised voting structures. It should be a scenario where the Person says “I’m happy to work on x anyone else with me?” And others can join. No formal leadership. Stays decentralised as far as possible. Over time as we work in this way, the wider community will decide the approach it prefers

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I like this idea as well but the concern is how to ultimately decide on the action. I have thought that many would independently provide the means to do so but many many hesitate due to the lack of support without a formal consensus process given that ultimately it is that weight of votes that incentivizes here in the ecosystem... However, I do agree that action>decision!

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I could not agree more!! I want to do everything possible to stay Decentralized and this way of doing it works better than committees!! I certainly would never want formal committees but instead action groups full of similar minded volunteers who want to focus on the goal of fixing a problem that was agreed upon as a priority in the sos live discussion format. This is a far more public, open and decentralised way of doing it than with formal committees!! Iove it!

I would like to add however, that there is also a requirement for ongoing community tasks such as marketing, project funding, curation, software development, content creation etc. There should be ongoing task groups set up around these key tasks, nothing formal, all voluntary, no declared leaders, but tasks assigned by the communities at the forums

This post has been included in today's SOS Daily News - a digest of all you need to know about the State of Steem.



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