Loomio
Thu 11 Jun 2020 7:49PM

Microsolidarity & CommunityRule

NS Nathan Schneider Public Seen by 80

Greetings—I've been lurking a bit in this group and really enjoying the conversations underway. I've been working on building a simple tool that might be of help to some emerging groups, CommunityRule.info. It's a whack against the danger of a "tyranny of structurelessness," enabling groups to easily create and adopt basic governance rules—and to share them with each other. In light of this, an offer and an ask:

Offer: My lab is offering free session to help groups use the tool to think about their own governance—particularly (but not necessarily limited to) mutual aid groups in the wake of Covid. More info and a sign-up form here.

Ask: Try out CommunityRule.info! Is it useful to you? What would make it better for your purposes? Are the Templates and Library helpful?

Thanks in advance for considering this!

RDB

Richard D. Bartlett Wed 17 Jun 2020 10:57AM

Also on the subject of sociocracy specifically, and 'patterns to avoid the tyranny of structurelessness' generally:

I loved this presentation from Karl and Leonie introducing their new community to a proposed set of organising structures (including sociocratic governance).

Their approach is very close to how I like to start: ie. a couple of experienced & committed people start by designing a "good enough" structure, then invite new people to participate on those terms, and then create spaces for community members to edit and improve the structure over time. Contrast this with another common approach: invite everyone in and start with a conversation "what structure should we use?"

NM

Nenad Maljković Wed 17 Jun 2020 2:42PM

Minimum Viable Stucture that gets tweaked if and when needed (usually after retrospectives) 👍

NS

Nathan Schneider Wed 17 Jun 2020 5:31PM

Thanks—agree with this. I'm really trying to think about how to make CR less about the latter, structure-obsessed approach. I think it's important for people to have some basic Rule, but that should be in the background of their work, not at the center. Here are some notes on that: https://gitlab.com/medlabboulder/communityrule/-/issues/43 I'd really love any more suggestions.

PH

Pascal Hazeleger Fri 19 Jun 2020 8:27AM

Thanks for this link. This will certainly be helpful to get our congregation going! 👍🏻

JL

Joe Lightfoot Thu 18 Jun 2020 5:08AM

Hey @Nathan Schneider I just visited your site and it got me thinking. Thank you, I think there is lots of value in the project of mapping out all the different templates communities tend to adopt and form.

NS

Nathan Schneider Thu 18 Jun 2020 3:03PM

Thanks! That means a lot!

JL

Joe Lightfoot Sat 20 Jun 2020 4:29AM

@Nathan Schneider , I recently captured the essence of a few different structures for making decisions in community. They are similar in nature to the Templates on your site, I'm happy to share them with you if you're interested.

NS

Nathan Schneider Sun 21 Jun 2020 3:54AM

Please do, yes! I also keep a catalog of related efforts here: https://gitlab.com/medlabboulder/communityrule/-/wikis/Points-of-inspiration