Participatory budgeting process

Meta: is there a method in Loomio for a sort of gut-check, room-check sort of "how are we feeling about this?" poll prior to formal proposals?

@Aaron Wolf the proposal is for a collaborative process in an open Loomio sub group that irons out the details (without having to involve/notification spam the full membership) and comes up with a structured process thats brought before the membership. This proposal comes out of, and builds upon, 2 previous discussions/proposals linked at the top of the thread.

Yes, but the language says decide on projects to support and run a dot vote, and putting that under "I'm thinking something like" is not content I like to have in a proposal. It's either noisy or too pushed in that direction already. I'd suggest rewording. I noticed that the other disagree vote came from someone who actively thought this was already deciding to donate funds.

I support the intention of the proposal, and I'd agree with a reworded one. Sorry for the stickling. I do think clear proposals are important.Perhaps "allocate 600 pounds to a participatory budget process, using a Loomio subgroup open to all interested members, allowing that subgroup to determine how to do the budgeting" or something like that which makes it clear what will happen and who will decide how it happens.

You are very welcome to suggest how it could be more clearly stated. I did best i could with my time/energy/skills available

Perhaps something like "allocate 600 pounds to a participatory budget process, using a Loomio subgroup open to all interested members, allowing that subgroup to determine how to do the budgeting" or something like that which makes it clear what will happen and who will decide how it happens.

To be clear, I'm saying I support a participatory budgeting test, and I'm not sure about it being already set as donating to outside projects.

Also, I appreciate your efforts. I don't mean to discourage you. I simply think doing the best you can and then getting feedback like mine is a normal part of the process. And you asking for concrete suggestions is perfectly welcome. This is the process by which we all gain skills in cooperating. All the attempts and trials mean we're acting and adjusting and learning and things are happening. Much gratitude to you for engaging in it all.

The idea is it builds upon whats gone before. If yiuve not already, if you read those conversations it will hopefully be more clear why I made the proposal as its written.

I made the suggestion, you dont like, so people (who may not be familiar with common participatory budgeting processes) could better understand what type of thing is being proposed

I don't mind the inclusion of examples, they just need to be very clearly listed as being just examples and not part of the proposal itself.

I don't know if Loomio allows proposals to be edited after being opened. I think there's a way to have a potential proposal which can get edited after getting feedback on the wording and then a post can get turned into a poll.

Perhaps a new poll could be posted with clearly delineated examples.

As it mainly feels like a problem of presentation, without a significant change in what is being proposed, I can just edit it to make very clear its an example. i.havent got the energy and I feel posting more polls would get messy/confusing and doesnt respect the time of people that have already participated

I understand. This stuff can be and is tiring.

I support this sort of editing rather than the noisy, overly-pedantic idea of opening a new poll. I do have a remaining concern/question:

Assign £600 of our funds to be distributed to support software (or other) projects via a participatory budgeting process which, to avoid notification overload, will be developed in a new Loomio subgroup open to all coop members.

Is the proposal strictly that these funds will be donated to outside projects? That is the key point and also, determining the projects will be through participatory budgeting? Or is it more about participatory budgeting of this much money, with the possibility of using it in whatever manner (donating to outside projects being just one example option TBD by the subgroup)?

I feel like I'm a weak support here. I like the participatory idea, I believe in supporting infrastructure we rely on.

When thinking about external funds I always like to think about money. I don't have a clear sense of how our overall finances look in terms of how much surplus we might have to disburse. I have looked at Open Collective and it feels like we are in a healthy place, but we are also in a time of change and this might affect costs (and income, of course) in the coming year - more users, more use, more stuff to federate, more mod load. and all that might translate into greater or new costs. Many unknowns here... £600 seems reasonable I guess, for a first trial run. I agree with Matt's suggestion of a review point.

Longer term we might want to think about what things we want to support with surplus (other co-op projects, open source, etc etc) and how we divide up whatever allocatable-surplus we feel we have to such projects (perhaps by percentage), rather than doing one-offs.

For those concerned that this proposal is premature, just a reminder that we already have a lengthy thread discussing the general topic. There were lots of proposals in lots of directions, and I think @Django is doing us a big service by offering to take the lead on an experiment that we can all learn from to develop a more informed program in the future.

Also, please keep in mind that proposal-making is work, and it is hard. When you raise criticisms, I encourage you to also suggest alternative language, rather than risking discouraging our fellow members who have volunteered their energy. Being too demanding about phrasing and structure is a way of gatekeeping, and can introduce class or cultural bias. If you have good advice for proposal-makers, I encourage you to add it to the wiki for all to see here.

cc: @Ana Ulin @Aaron Wolf

FWIW, I see issues with the wiki now and intend to help edit. For example, it says to take a poll about how people are feeling before making a formal actionable proposal, but there's nothing in the wiki explaining how to do these things and how to mark them clearly. As with the rest of this, we all have limits to time and energy. Not sure when I'll get to wiki edits.

Ideally, I'd like to see a policy that we allow a level of human, less-bureaucratic editing of open proposals. There's always the risk of editing that changes the meaning or understanding and yet votes have already happened. However, I think better to allow some messiness than to be pedantic about proposals being absolutely stuck. Edits should simply be acknowledged in case people want to review their votes.

Overall, it will help to have clear how-to guides for making good clear proposals

Interesting. You're right that there's no clear policy on amendments. In the past, I've slipped in some friendly amendments to proposals I've made based on people's comments, with a clear indication of what was edited.

I think I'm inclined toward a model where the proposal retains control of the proposal, because that fits Loomio's permissions model and it ensures all amendments are "friendly." But it is a bit weird because someone may vote for a proposal, then it gets changed in a way they don't like, but their vote sticks.

For now I will add my amendment practice to the wiki, though that is subject to change.

Maybe there's a way to extend the deadline for polls whenever there's an edit? People can change their votes if there's time.

Also, I noticed in another thread that votes on temp checks can be like "seems good", "not sure", "have concerns". The capacity to do these informal polls before doing formal votes is really nice. I would advocate for some language like "whole body yes", "mixed feelings", "constricted" — though that's a whole big separate topic I hope to eventually bring up.

Let's continue this discussion in the wiki matrix:) https://app.element.io/#/room/#socialcoop-wiki-builders:matrix.org

Seems reasonable to at least prevent very last minute amendments—and perhaps to require the standard 6-day period to restart on all amendments.

Being too demanding about phrasing and structure is a way of gatekeeping, and can introduce class or cultural bias.

I thought this was a very important point from @Nathan Schneider - and wanted to just raise that up a bit, so it doesn't get lost in the detailed technical process discussions, which I think is what along the lines of point was trying to make!