Exciting news: dev.coops.tech is ready for your input!

I have sent a follow-up email to identity.coop pointing out that several of the co-ops listed on their approved spreadsheet are involved with Co-operative Technologists, specifically:

• Agile Collective Ltd
• Altgen
• Blake House Filmmakers Cooperative
• Brighton Digital Exchange Co-operative
• Calverts
• Gildedsplinters
• United Diversity
• Wave Design Ltd
• We Are Open
• Webarch Co-operative Ltd

Did I miss any co-ops approved to use the Co­operative Marque?

Well, without wishing to reopen the what sort of coop debate, Brighton Digital Exchange (a consortium rather than worker coop) is approved to use coop marque.

We have been approved to use the co-op marque :-)

So we just need to get the text for the site agreed!

I used "that are run and owned by their workers" as opposed to "worker co-ops" because I thought it did include Webachitects - apologies it didn't work.

How about adding a line to make it explicit that Webarchitects and similar organisations are welcome. Something like

Membership of Co-operative Technologists is open to all co-ops that sell technical/digital products or services that are run and owned by their workers. Secondary co-ops and multistakeholder co-ops are also welcome so long as all they (and their members) do not generate money for investors by exploiting their workers.

That phrasing does allow Webarchitects to join but not consumer co-ops or secondary co-ops made up of exploitative businesses (I hope).

Thanks @harryrobbins, I think that covers it and have added it to the wiki version of the page :-)

You have been absolutely consistent on this point @harryrobbins

I don't want to slow things down but I feel a strong urge to make a couple of points:

Consumer coops - The Phone Coop being an obvious case in point - would assume that the definition is open to them since they don't "generate money for investors by exploiting their workers". We can have a debate about whether they exploit their workers (I shall remain silent). We can also have a debate about the enrichment of executives. However no one can argue that any exploitation, whether there or not, is for the enrichment of investors. It simply isn't. Not in The Phone Coop, nor in The Co-operative Group.

Secondary coops - by which I assume you mean consortium coops - in the case of the Brighton Digital Exchange, most if not all members would qualify. They are tiny, flat teams of people who are more interested in what they are doing than the money. If you asked them whether they exploit workers to enrich investors they'd laugh. The point I'm making is that the language wouldn't make sense to them. If we are going to be outward looking, spreading the coop ideal to other digital-tech businesses (which I think BDX does) then we need open, accessible language. The notion that capital expropriates value from workers is completely valid. But it's not great comms.

In my view.

@shaunfensom can you suggest some alternative wording and ideally edit the wiki page with it?

@chriscroome I'll have a go. Difficult because I don't really agree with the limitation in the first place. But will attempt something that @harryrobbins and others with the 'worker coops only' view can accept. In the spirit of compromise!

TBH I'm fairly sure phone.coop employees are paid more than we are at Webarchitects... so I wonder who is most exploited... my main grumble with them would be that they mostly resell other peoples things rather than host their own services, for example email...

@chriscroome totally with you there. There was a time when it ran multiple servers, offered co-lo etc. Just a retailer now.

@shaunfensom I think I'm gradually softening :-!

I'm not trying to say that we should never have consumer co-ops etc. Just that we should start with a clearly identified group and work outwards rather than starting with something loose and watching them drift apart.

Do you think the members of Brighton Digital Exchange would be interested in converting themselves into co-ops? I've got a target to make 20 new tech co-ops by May so any leads greatly appreciated.

RE: The Co-op - do they not pay their checkout assistants something close to minimum wage (below the average wage) and redistribute it to the consumers (who have closer to the average wage). I'd see that as redistribution of money from poor to rich and as a form of exploitation.

@harryrobbins I have sympathy with the idea of controlled growth (also softening!)

I can think of at least one member of BDX that might consider converting. I don't think that's the point though: BDX introduces a different form of B2B value exchange using a co-op model. Less 'exploitative' if you like. Asking how these small businesses operate internally is a bit like asking whether the members of a coop are individually racist: it's important, but the impact of the coop is not (directly) at that level.

You are right that the Co-op group underpays its staff, along with the rest of the retail sector. However, whether that is a transfer of wealth to better-off customers is a stretch. After all, they'd just take their business to Sainsbury's or whatever. Do all CoTech members have to sell to customers worse off than their workers? It certainly isn't a transfer of wealth to investors which is the language you used.

Anyway, not advocating that Co-op Group joins.

@chriscroome @roybrooks the Manifesto has been completely changed since @roybrooks raised that. It might still be an issue, but worth re-checking. It does specifically address people who might want to hire us as well as join us now.

@harryrobbins I realise that, it was more the first sentence at the top of the front page -- it seems more aimed at people in existing co-ops and those who might be encouraged to join or set up co-ops, perhaps missing a possible audience of potential clients?

Strengthening the cooperative movement by working together through local, national, regional and international structures.

Don't worry, it's not a big deal.

I think the only key thing that needs addressing is the blue on blue text for the input fields on the "Get in Touch" form when using Firefox and the white on white for the input fields on the "Join Us" form. I could have a go at fixing that by adding CSS via the theme web interface if nobody has a chance to edit the CSS in via git?

Also perhaps we need to hide the co-ops who haven't added any details to the site?

RE: editing CSS - I believe Matt Kendon is doing some work on it. Drop him an email or slack. Changes made via web UI will very likely get overwritten I believe.

@harryrobbins adding CSS to the theme via the web intreface does work, it is added as inline CSS at the top of the page, I have fixed the black labels on the front page form by adding this:

/* Front page form */
div#wpcf7-f1463-o1.wpcf7 form p label {
  color: white;
  background: transparent;
}

However I haven't been able to make the front page form input fields change -- the Your Name and Your Email fields are still unusable with Firefox as they are blue text on a blue background and on the join form the same fields are white on white.

I have raised this quite a few times in Slack and it is at the top of the wishlist on the wiki -- I'd class this as a blocker to the launch.

div#wpcf7-f1463-o1.wpcf7 form p label span input[type="text"] is set to background: transparent'
from what I can see. Maybe change that to background: white; or somesuch might do the trick?

@graham2 I have tried setting it to black and white and even red I think, nothing changes apart from the cursor colour...

I can get the background of the fields to change colour, but still can't see anything I type into them.

@graham2 exactly, this is the problem, you can't see what you are typing.

The 'Your Message' field works. Not sure why the other two don't.

@chriscroome re: The strapline on the homepage

I agree that this should be focused our broader aims rather than just the co-op movement. How about something along the lines of

"Building a tech industry that's better for it's workers and customers through co-operation, democracy and worker ownership"

The previous about page is also currently quite inward facing - I've had a go at a new version of the about page which hopefully addresses some of those concerns.

@harryrobbins thanks for the updated strapline, I have created a wiki page for it and made the suggested edit.

@shaunfensom thanks for clarity. I would indeed prefer not to loosen it to that extent for now but very happy to keep discussion going about how to involve/interact with the broader co-op movement.

I'm very much not saying 'i will never be persuaded that they should join' but I currently feel that 'co-operative principles' are too broad for effective action - hence The Co-op, Co-ops UK and Phone Co-op not setting something like this up despite their considerable resources and long existence.

Chris has updated the text to the "very least" version you've suggested. Thanks very much for raising the issue here rather than getting into an editing war on the wiki. Perhaps we can discuss further at the CoTech launch on Thursday?

Indeed. I didn't see my thoughts as wiki-ready.

Alas I can't make it on Thursday. Hope it goes really well.

But, yes, let's continue the discussion.

To confirm before I make any observations, this https://dev.coops.tech/manifesto is the latest/current iteration of the Manifesto?

@roybrooks no, we are working on a copy of it on the wiki.

Ta Chris

Changed.

• to reject the assumption that tech companies must be multinational conglomerates or private equity-funded startups.

for
- to reject the (false) assumption that only multinational conglomerates or private equity-funded startups can be great tech companies.

Syntax/punch

Sounds good to me - add it to the wiki.

x

Changed;

Technology is the lifeblood of our future not a gravy train.

For

Technology is the lifeblood of our all our futures, not just a gravy train for the (fortunate) few.

Punch

Changed:

plays it part

For

plays its part

Sp

Should we hide the co-ops who haven't yet edited their pages?

• https://dev.coops.tech/co-op/altgen/
• https://dev.coops.tech/co-op/cbn/
• https://dev.coops.tech/co-op/founders-and-coders/
• https://dev.coops.tech/co-op/software-coop/
• https://dev.coops.tech/co-op/we-are-open/

What's ETA on getting access to the source code? Many of us could help fix these issues.
cc: @amil

I have set the co-ops who don't appear to have edited their pages to Draft, so the pages still exist but are not public, they can be changed to Published if the co-ops edit them.

Just an NB on the Manifesto - anything I added in (brackets) is for (emphasis) - in or out depending on how strong we want it to read. Strong - leave in, remove brackets. Less strong - remove

I agree whole heartedly with the sentiments expressed in the manifesto and would (and I guess will sign up) but without wishing to sound critical/dismissive, I think we need to get real. To take money out of the hands of the rapacious capitalists, ensure our members earn a decent living, redistribute technological wealth and resources, etc, etc; we need to be able to compete and demonstrate that we provide a compelling business benefit to potential customers - over and above the conventional suppliers. Maybe this manifesto isn't the place to address this. Maybe it's taken as read by us - in which case will we build a customer facing site to get this message out?

I guess CoTech is not actually a thing yet and so can't (and maybe never will) pitch for work - e.g. we're not a client facing brand in that sense. It's our individual co-ops that need to offer the compelling business case.

Personally I think the about page is the more moderate 'why you should hire us or work for us' page and the manifesto is something more political and aspirational.

I think most people in the network would prefer to work with the sort of clients that would also sign up to the manifesto.

It includes the line

"We call upon consumers of digital products - including trades unions, charities, governments and private companies - to reject the (false) assumption that only multinational conglomerates or private equity-funded startups can be great tech companies. Technology is the lifeblood of our all our futures, not just a gravy train for the (fortunate) few."

And that

"Our individual workers co-operatives have shown that workers who collectively own their companies and control their destinies make better workplaces, better suppliers and better digital products."

Other than showing our clients, size, expertise, etc. do you have a view about what a "compelling business benefit" would be?

I have copied the latest versions of the documents on the wiki to the site and also moved it to a live server (the dev server didn't have reverse DNS setup and some mail servers wouldn't accept email from it causing issues with password resets for some people).

I have also given up trying to hack the CSS to get the input fields to display -- I think this might be a JavaScript issue rather than a CSS one, so since the forms were unusable I added this CSS via the web interface to hide them:

/* Hide forms while they are not working */
form.wpcf7-form { 
  display: none 
}

div#wpcf7-f1463-o1:before,
div#wpcf7-f1484-o1:before {
  content: "Contact us at: contact@coops.tech" 
}

This can be removed when they are fixed.

Typo in https://wiki.coops.tech/wiki/About_CoTech:

"democratically run by it's workers" should be "democratically run by its workers" - elementary!

https://wiki.coops.tech/wiki/Join_CoTech really should change "Secondary co-ops and multi-stakeholder co-ops " to "Consortium co-ops and multi-stakeholder co-ops " as I suggested. Secondary coops by definition only have co-ops as members.

We should discuss at some point but I can't see the difference between a consortium co-op made of private businesses and any other capitalist business. Co-ops should be made of people or they're just consortia with seven rather vague 'principles'.

I've offered several times to help those that want a broader group to help set one up but no one seems to be interested/willing/able.

Yes @harryrobbins your kind offer is welcome. I am still interested and willing to help with a two-tier structure as has been suggested and discussed. So are others. But I agree that the priority is getting this done first, and I am not voting against.

Just for info, I could be wrong, but I think that technically We Are Open Co-op who are already involved is actually a Consortia Co-op whose members are non-co-op private businesses. @bevangelist @dougbelshaw @laurahilliger am I right? Sure I read that somewhere.

If they have humans employed directly by the co-op, or by their member companies who are not eligible for membership then I don't think it's right that they should be part of this.

That said, there are only six members of Outlandish at the moment as the vast majority of our workers (all but one) have not clocked up the 240 days' work required for membership.

Then again, we don't take dividends and the members all put what was previously their money into the co-op so anyone who's worried that we're extracting surplus value is welcome to come and audit our accounts.

Can I just chuck a little spanner into the works for the manifesto and propose that we ditch the brackets around (false) and (fortunate) as I feel they soft-pedal the matter and reduce readability for no significant improvement in clarity.

@chriscroome Shall I just dive in and make this change?

Roy put them in to show that he was suggesting optional bits of the text.

Either remove the brackets or remove the words + the brackets. I believe it's your call as you're the first to flag it.

@alexwa sure :-)

From earlier;

'Just an NB on the Manifesto - anything I added in (brackets) is for (emphasis) - in or out depending on how strong we want it to read. Strong - leave in, remove brackets. Less strong - remove'

Just to clarify above points from @harryrobbins and @josefdaviescoates, it's, er, complicated...

So, according to our articles of incorporation, we're not a consortium of limited companies. However, for our first six months of operation we acted as if we were, restricting membership to limited companies. They are:

• Visual Thinkery Ltd. (Bryan)
• Dynamic Skillset Ltd. (Doug)
• Go Fast Turn Left Ltd. (John)
• Zythepsary of Thought UG (Laura)

The only other person employed by these companies is my wife, who does admin and finance for Dynamic Skillset Ltd. She is also We Are Open's company secretary, but she opted not to be a member of the co-op itself.

In the last few weeks, prompted by the joys of German tax law, Laura's decided to move from being a limited company to a sole trader. This, in turn, has meant that we've decided to allow both individual persons and limited companies to be part of our co-op.

I hope that makes sense to someone! :)