Planning for Decent Social 2023
Matt Noyes PublicSeen by 12On Feb 5th we talked about doing 2x 40 min sessions during Decent Social.
One session will be for folks from the social.coop instance to share about their operations
Another session will be for a facilitated discussion about folks who have some democratic or collectively managed aspect to their instances, as well as folks who want to move towards this types of organization
After corresponding with the organizers Danny learned that they are not setting these sessions in advance. Rather they will allow 1min/potential session for a pitch during the opening (1PM EST in the Americas room) then we can claim a slot via a collaboratively edited spreadsheet. No need to have a big description or anything, seems like 1-3 sentences is more than sufficient.
#DecentSocial, #DecentSocial2023, or #DecentSocialTopics can be used this week to chat with folks, throw other ideas around, and invite them to the conference. Particularly if folks are able to publicly invite admins or members identified by the lists we brought together in the Participants thread and indicate that you reached out to them on the Cryptpad that would help draw more attention to this event.
Gathering @ Decent Social, Feb 11
proposal by Danny Closed Mon 16 Jan 2023 1:01PM
5/11 who were invited to vote participated which seems good. I typically interpret those who did not vote as either not familiar with the voting system in Loomio or not paying attention. If it's the former I'd just like to add that It's OK to say no or abstain if you are not interested in a poll and it really helps organizers feel like they are capturing the best feedback possible within the group.
Nobody seem to think this is not a good idea. So the next steps would be to throw some ideas around about what we want to try and plan for in terms of Decent Social on Feb 11. And I think when we decide on what we want to do we can determine if we need/want to meet beforehand. My suggestion is that we leave comments on things we want to do for Decent Social, or questions we might want to pose to the organizing team.
As some may have already heard there will be a unconference held online on February 11th about the decentralized social web called Decent Social. I propose that we set this as a date to organize something about democratically run instances as a goal from which we can plan backward to set up other gathering(s) in anticipation.
At the moment I'm imagining that we would gather a week or two beforehand to chat in a minimally structured way to identify folks who are able to be on a panel discussion that we run, as well as to collect some questions we would want to ask at the unconference. But that's just me and I could imagine a variety of forms that our contribution to Decent Social could take as well as different approaches to prepare for it. Indeed, we could simply decide to have an open gathering at the unconference.
So what do you think? Shall we set Feb 11 as a date to do something @ Decent Social?
Results
| Results | Option | Votes | % of votes cast | % of eligible voters | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Agree | 5 | 100 | 45 |    | |
| Abstain | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||
| Disagree | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||
| Not voted | 6 | 55 |    |
I like the sound of this and support the idea.
Love it! Thanks for proposing this. I like the idea of working backward from that date (which isn't so far away) and having one or two discussions.
Meeting this weekend to discuss Decent Social
proposal by Danny Closed Sat 4 Feb 2023 4:01AM
Matt reviewed the crab-fit poll found a time on Sunday Feb 5th and posted a link to the Mastodon thread with a link to the room and the consensus time. Text copied here:
Let's meet at 9am PST, 10am MST, 12pm EST, 6pm CET here: https://socialcoop.meet.coop/mat-tof-czj-liv
Matt Noyes tagged some of us on a toot asking if we wanted to meet this weekend to discuss Decent Social (which is happening in a little over a week). Tod made a poll to get our availability. Putting it here (and in matrix) so folks can participate if they want to and I can post the decided time in the outcome.
Results
| Results | Option | Votes | % of votes cast | % of eligible voters | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| I will try to make it | 4 | 100 | 36 | | |
| I don't have the avilablity to meet this weekend | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||
| Not voted | 7 | 64 | |
Being a Cooperative: Introduction to Social.Coop
time poll by Matt Noyes Closed Wed 8 Feb 2023 7:02PM
It looks like we need to follow the same approach Danny outlined for the gathering of democratic instances. I can be there at the opening session and will try to coordinate with Danny and others. Maybe we should use the room on Matrix for coordination?
Scheduling the first of two 40min sessions we are organizing for DecentSocial on Feb 11th. There is a separate time poll for the second session.
Results
| UTC | Votes | | | | |
Sat 11 Feb 2023 6:40PM | 3 | ||||
Sat 11 Feb 2023 7:30PM | 3 |
These times are both great. I can't participate in the unconference at all, but I can help organize/promote these sessions this week. (I did register for DecentSocial!)
Gathering of Democratic and Collectively Run Mastodon Instances
time poll by Matt Noyes Closed Wed 8 Feb 2023 7:02PM
3:20PM (EST) time slot is for the gathering of democratically/cooperatively run instances
It's a wild schedule! I'm going to keep this time open for at least 10 minutes and I pitched it as a sharing circle on the topic of democratically/collaboratively run instances to the opening group. We're going to be in Session 3, Room G. Here's the link again.
This is a time poll for our second session at DecentSocial on Feb 11th.
Results
| UTC | Votes | | | | |
Sat 11 Feb 2023 7:30PM | 3 | ||||
Sat 11 Feb 2023 8:00PM | 2 | ||||
Sat 11 Feb 2023 8:20PM | 3 | ||||
Sat 11 Feb 2023 9:10PM | 3 |
These times are both great, generally. Unfortunately, I can't attend on the 11th at all (My family is day tripping, and I think I can't get away or won't have connectivity.)
@Matt Noyes I think it's good we're asking the thread about times they are available because it will let folks who are attending the Opening session to stake a session time then. I will make sure to be in the Opening to do that based on the outcomes of the polls.
Sorry I missed the conversation over the weekend, I'm circulating with our mod team to see if there's interest in the second session. Is there a way to invite some of the mod team in here?
Yes one should be able to invite them to the thread by using the invite button under the context (see image). If you think they may want to inhabit this Loomio subgroup for a longer period then I'm also happy to add them to the subgroup (you should also be able to do this, but I'm happy to do it too if you provide their emails)
The raw notes can be found here and below is an edited version
Who is present and what is your relation to democratic/collectively run instances?
Danny Chan (Scholar.social; DC) Not on a democratically run instance our instance is all about relationship with admin. However there is a conference we run (#SummerSchool) on Fedi (Mastodon) that has more of a collectively run organisation
Hamish Campell (campaign.openworlds.info; HC): We need tools for pushing new methods into something, by organizing the people who do things... Users need to take control. Current systems are all basically feudalism
HC: Ability to form instances allows for democracy -- scale by sprouting new instances.
Mastodon typically is a money loser for admins, if you give users control you can get more resources.
Leo Sammallahti (social.coop; LS): bargaining position of the users is higher due to exit option, if we combine that with democracy we give users more power. One barrier to this is founders, who are reluctant to surrender control...
Dick Hardt (verified.coop; DH): run two instances, running on AWS, motivation proof point for identity... another instance is press.coop, send only instance, news sources unsure if this will ... read only... email for feedback...
Jaz-Michael (toot.wales; JM): US-based, 501c3 to own and govern instance... only moderator with 3 volunteers, but then November, and people started sending money to support the instance...
People are willing to donate, how best to manage and govern that?
How to grow mod team?
JM: Community council to advise, code of conduct, mod processes, messaging... Now seeking to compensate moderators for their time... We took on Loomio (saw it in social.coop). Goal is community management. Board of Directors is hands off, community council, moderators execute, others set policy...
How to cede control to community at large?
JM: hachyderm has an interesting model... Git.hub, Loomio, looking for ways to get full membership consulted.
Charles Lehner (woodbine.nyc; CL) no explicit democratic control, hackerspace nested in community center, do-ocracy... Mobilizon for geographical basis for organizing...
Steve Ediger (social.coop; SE) Chicommons—starting to provide last mile internet service in Chicago, with community owned and operated servers, multi-stakeholder coop. worker/consumer members. We would be interested in producing activitypub or social web protocols for time-banking. Asset Based Community Development methodologies and resources... ABCD looks at community from assets. We provide tools, training, recruit kids from neighbourhood to run servers. Not sure Mastodon is the vehicle we should use.
Moderation
Scholar.social — use mastodon tools, reports or DMs. We comply with admin policies, red flags, rules
Toot.Wales — Jaz write policy, vetted by community council, moderators use moderation process manual (happy to share), Do as much as possible within Mastodon tools for moderation... We record content that is deleted, audit trail... use notes feature for DMs... use role-based account for communication about moderation
Social.coop — Community working group was set up after a near collapse in 2018 with a influx of Twitter users. This is when a code of conduct and conflict resolution doc was created. It covers abuse off-instance as well. Ops team is elected and they execute this work as well as build strategy. This is a large task. Moderation is approached as a communication process. Further discussion may happen on Loomio.
Scholar.Social — aggressive suspending policy to deal with other instances lowers the burden of moderation -- no CoC or open registration leads to suspension or block. Also has a role-based account for communication about moderation
SE: we want to avoid "no" moderation like NextDoor in their potential future instance... we want to balance ... seeking to serve folks who are not empowered within society, so want people's voices heard, community vote on a post could be a good system
Maybe need a new term: Moderator -> Facilitator
Final words
Social.Coop members eager to help others start up instances.
Thanks Danny! Excellent facilitation, by the way.
Feb 5, 2023 MEETING NOTES
2023 Gathering of Cooperative and Democratic Instances planning meeting
Participants: Danny, Matt, Leo, Caitlin, Kevin
Notes
Two sessions:
Intro to Social.Coop [better title]
Gathering of Democratic Instances
Decent Social Conference Feb 11th, https://decentsocial.net/
time: ?
what it's about, how it works
do a session (40 mins)
agenda / questions
facilitated discussion
intro
3 mins each: What are the democratic and cooperative practices of your instance? What challenges have you encountered?
describe your instance:
how is moderation done?
how is tech work done?
how is work coordinated (how are decisions made)?
how is the instance paid for?
how is the culture?
fill in a simple matrix (do like PeoplesHub style)
possibility of thematic breakout rooms
by issue/theme
people to recruit
diversity/inclusion
Next Steps
Gathering of Democratic Instances session -- reach out to conference organizers, give them a description and a title -- Danny
Do time polls for each session -- Matt (make public)
Is there anyone with facilitation experience that could be part of a faciltiation team? -- Kevin
I have facilitation experience (Matt)
1. Social.Coop Session (earlier session) Leo, Matt, [Emi], Caitlin
Decide time on Loomio
2. Running Democratic Instances (later session) Danny, Kevin, Matt, Caitlin
use https://crab.fit/ to find a time for many instances?
Title: [meet and greet] Meet and Greet for Democratic and Cooperative Mastadon Instances and Wannabes
https://codeberg.org/fediverse/fediparty/wiki/Collectively-owned-instances
Link to social.coop infographic:
https://www.canva.com/design/DAFZueJbTGc/cGrIubZIJYf4-EBHUg9MjA/edit?utm_content=DAFZueJbTGc&utm_campaign=designshare&utm_medium=link2&utm_source=sharebutton