Loomio
Sun 4 Feb 2018 9:30AM

Who has voting rights?

K Kay Public Seen by 375

The invitation link to Giveth Governance Loomio has been posted into a public channel (#giveth-governance:matrix.org). This enables everybody to join as a member without any additional barriers. Please note that the loomio itself is public, but voting is reserved to members. Everybody can apply to be part of the loomio, but then they need to give a reason and introduction.

I wanted to hear some reactions first, that is why I did not make a proposal immediately.

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Vojtěch Šimetka Sun 4 Feb 2018 9:57AM

IMHO this needs to be solved after problem occurs. So far we don't even have all Giveth members here.

YM

Yalda Mousavinia Fri 9 Feb 2018 7:30AM

I think that sub-groups should be created based on the type of votes, and depending upon what type of contributor you are to Giveth, you'd have specific voting privileges in those groups.

I assume you have to be sensitive to votes that relate to: salaries, contributors becoming full-time, partnerships, establishing new working groups etc. I assume you can have some more public groups to gain the community insight from new contributors etc, yet have some votes that the primary stewards of Giveth that have committed the most to it have the ultimate authority over.

What would be great though are establishing processes so it's transparent to community contributors what it would take for them to have equal voting privileges on sensitive decisions. As Giveth grows, both financially and in membership base, if the growth process is defined and outlined then I think it will be easier to find contributors that are value-aligned.

YM

Yalda Mousavinia Fri 9 Feb 2018 7:35AM

In worker-cooperatives, they call the period of limbo between when you can vote on important Member-matters a "candidacy period". Here's some stuff we wrote about the Cooperative I am a member of:

"A candidacy period is normal for all worker-owned cooperatives. Having a candidacy period is important because we are evaluating if you are a proper fit to our Board of Directors (since all members at the moment are on the board). During your candidacy period, there will be a midway check-in point with the Candidate Coordinator to ensure things are moving in the right direction.

After your candidacy period is over, current Space Cooperative members will conduct a vote. The candidate will become a member if there is 75% approval. Although, typically we aim for consensus and hearing out members that disagree."

We started to create a helpful check-off list (see attached) so each onboard knows what we are all about and is aligned with our mission, etc :) Then after going through this period, they can vote on matters involving finances and other things.

If you're curious about our questionnaire: https://goo.gl/forms/xZugfYVx9DQ8jcMm2 - We created this as it helps set up financial expectations and values of potential members.

So some ideas for Giveth can be as follows:
* Once you earn 'x' points over a 'y' week period, then you will be able to vote on 'proposal type'.
* Create sub-groups per proposal type
* This suggested procedure then becomes the "bylaw" that can later be upgraded using the the voting rules of the working group.

I understand that Giveth doesn't necessarily have an official corporation, but I think being an org that will eventually fully operate on smart contracts, the bylaws and processes would have to be more clearly defined at some point! So I am curious about hearing how some of Giveth's governance will ultimately be rolled into the smart contracts to scale to much larger organizations, or if the idea is to keep all of the groups quite small (like under 20 people) yet to create a network of those? Then still, there would need to be some parent governance.

K

Kay Fri 9 Feb 2018 7:36AM

Awesome contribution to the discussion yalda ... We are indeed in the process of writing out those rules. As for quorum - I rather like the idea of 'Advice Process' that provides a framework for the whole process of decisionmaking from first idea to finished thing/decision.

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Grace Fri 9 Feb 2018 4:51PM

I think voting rights should go in line with the Development and Adoption of GIveth. Looking at the purpose of implementing the use of this platform, there are 4 distinct objectives:
1-To gauge the pulse of the Giveth Community
2-To submit proposals to the Thursday governance meetings
3-To debate strategic decisions for Giveth's path forward
4-To deal with general Giveth admin issues
1 and 2 are related to ADOPTION and community oriented and everyone who is a contributor to the Giveth community should have voting rights.

2 and 3 are related to DEVELOPMENT and strategy oriented and are meant to define the Giveth roadmap - I believe that a different voting right should be applied in these cases as it also makes the members that voted on this matters accountable for the decisions. Accountability is ultimate essential to hold the value of the decision in any organization, initiative, community or group.

K

Kay Fri 9 Feb 2018 5:21PM

Thank you everybody for your input. The way Loomio works is pretty nice. Unfortunately there does not seem to be an 'auto-accept' invite function, but if you come to a loomio via the invite-link you don't have to ask for permission to be a member.

The structure is that we have one main loomio - giveth.loomio.org - and every circle has its own subcircle, where the active members can decide themselves how they want to handle things.

So lets start to build this community - please spread the link

Join the Giveth Loomio at: https://giveth.loomio.org/

KI

Kris is Sat 10 Feb 2018 11:41AM

I think no voting is 'binding' at this moment, it just gives a feel of the current mood and proposals that need to be discussed in the governance meeting or other circles. Most logically participants of the governance meeting (where proposals are tabled or passed) will focus especially on the opinions or votes of people who are 'in the know' and are contributing on a daily basis to the giveth 'ecosystem' (which is more than only the DApp)

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Quazia Sat 10 Feb 2018 4:28PM

I have the same understanding as Kris, we're essentially using Loomio for harvesting sentiment. Currently, since all funds are within a multi-sig the real "value tied voting" occurs in the multisig. Unless assets are actually being dispersed I think generally any poll is just used to collect advice and to consult with people who would be affected by a decision so as to avoid conflict. I'm all for implementing an actual voting system but I'm not sure we've scaled to the point where this is needed and I would stray away from any 1 person 1 vote system for decisions that only affect a few people (which is most decisions).