Introduce yourself to the Loomio Community

Hi @hannahsalmon, I am a coordinator in a local Green Party loomio group as we are experimenting with online democracy! So far, all in all a success story! Great what you guys have developed!

Welcome @pabloabelenda!

I am a sysadmin looking for poll software alternatives...

Care to tell us a little more about yourself?

I am from Galicia and I am looking for some software to support decision making processes on my company. Loomio seems to fit, but I want to be sure.

BR.

Let us know if there's any way we can help you be sure, Pablo :)

Welcome to the Loomio community @lukehilarityflegg! Care to provide us with an brief introduction?

Hi, I'm Alex - A software engineer of sorts.
Currently working on http://meshdemocracy.org - a trial of Liquid Democracy, though, tempted to drop it and see if I can get the best features into Loomio (or Represent.cc or vocaleyes)

Amongst other orgs, I work with @lukehilarityflegg on ChangeTheFuture

Kia ora @alexpb and welcome to the Loomio Community. It's a bit off-topic here, but I'd be curious to know what motivated you to create your own Liquid Democracy software instead of joining the LiquidFeedback team. Feel free to drop into the Aotearoa General Assembly or the NZ Pirates groups to talk more about the pros and cons of the different platforms.

Welcome @benhsieh!

I'd like to contribute to open source.

Thank you - we would love that! @jameskiesel is our open-source coordinator. It sounds like it would be good for you two to have a chat :)

Welcome @julia57!

I'm learning Rails at Dev Bootcamp, and for our final project, my team decided to learn about and try to make a contribution to Loomio.

We're really excited to hear that! I believe you're already in touch with James. Please make yourself at home here :)

Welcome @gustavovalerin! Care to tell us a little about yourself?

Welcome to @genevieveparkes! Genevieve is a member of the wonderful Enspiral community - care to tell us a little more about yourself Genevieve?

Welcome @sergiominni! Thank you for providing us with an introduction:

I am working as translator, I would like to deepen my involvement as a social worker and informal researcher about politics and online democracy

A big welcome to our newest community members!

Welcome @nolandarilek!

I'm a developer who has been peripherally aware of Loomio for a while but am now wanting to help out and contribute.

@jameskiesel is our open source coordinator - perhaps you two should have a chat :)

Welcome @fabioballi!

a free mind using loomio with critical but constructive eyes

Please make yourselves at home!

Hey @nolandarilek , feel free to reach out to me at james at loomio dot org if you're interested in making a contribution :)

A big warm welcome to a new community member! Welcome @marcbraun!

I just started a new project and think Loomio is a great tool

Care to tell us a little about yourself?

Welcome @stevebosserman!

I have met several members in other Loomio groups and enjoy the topics they explore and their conversations about them. Perhaps I can contribute to the exchanges...

We would love to have your contributions here! Please make yourself at home.

Welcome new community members!

Welcome @mihaibucur!

Hi, I m an open engagement fan from Romania, trying to better understand the platform.

Welcome @hangya!

Member of the Hungarian Scout Association

Welcome @wikihouseharry! Thanks so much for providing us with such an awesome introduction!

Hey Loomio community, I am from New Zealand where I lived in Christchurch for all my life. I studied JAAAZZZZZZ. I then lived through the earthquakes and started playing less jazz and instead contributing on fun projects like FESTA (Festival of Transitional Architecture), Gap Filler stuff (who didn't i guess!?), Exchange Christchurch (event and rentable maker/workspace), Neat Places (new post quake businesses or old ones reopening). I also started some of my own projects usually in the event space. I'm passionate believer in creativity and collaboration (yes those two buzz words the mean something different to everyone), im also passionate about good mental and emotional health which I think is HUGELY vital in community and work involving collaboration or just other people. Recently I moved to London where I landed at WikiHouse Foundation as their community host/guy/moderator/whatever you like. Since then everything I have done has been thrown into thinking around larger scale social movements and human behaviour, big fan of engagement (at one point I thought I was going to be a social media marketer HA), also big fan of openness and for anyone to have the ability to work with everyone on anything. I am currently introducing WikiHouse to Loomio with the hope that it may be the perfect tool for our growing community of members and 'chapters'. I also hope we can be a part of the Loomio community throughout this process as we all learn and share how to do things... well... better!

Thanks @hannahsalmon look forward to being part of it and also introducing my team to it!

Welcome @whit537! Thanks for providing us with an introduction!

Greetings! I represent a payments company called Gratipay, and to be honest, I think Enspiral/Loomio and Gratipay should be friends and partners. Over at Gratipay we're starting to think more seriously about our formal governance. Loomio is a tool we're considering adopting (https://github.com/gratipay/inside.gratipay.com/issues/420) and Enspiral is an example we're considering following (https://github.com/gratipay/inside.gratipay.com/issues/72#issuecomment-159727340). My immediate purpose for asking to join this group is to lurk and observe Loomio in action. May I? :-)

Please make yourself at home :)

Thanks @hannahsalmon! :-)

Thanks for sharing those github links @whit537. I'm working with WikiHouse Foundation and we're very much in a similar position, looking at structure and governance as the project grows.

A big warm welcome our newest community members!

Welcome @1807! Would you care to tell us a little about yourself?

Welcome @renato! Thanks for providing us with an introduction :)

Hi there! This is @Renato. I'm a Portuguese-BR translator with Loomio and probably will lurk much more before 'talk'.

(Asking to join the Community only in order to interact when 'needed').

Welcome fellow Enspiralite @ahdinosaur! Would you be interested in introducing yourself to the community?

meow. :cat2:

Lol

Welcome @jeromelaval! Thanks for providing us with an introduction!

I'm Jerome, from Montpellier, France. I'm here to check how Loomio can help my organisation, Autour.com.

Please make yourself at home :)

Welcome @rest! Would you care to tell us a little about yourself?

Thanks for welcome @hannahsalmon.

I'm web & backend developer and product manager in Korea. Currently operates two organizations such as UFOfactory and parti.xyz. UFOfactory ( http://ufofactory.org ) is a tech agency for social sectors (NPO, Social Enterprises) in Korea and parti.xyz ( http://parti.xyz ) is company developing better democracy platform. I'm very excited to meet all of you who has been worked for better democracy. :)

Thank you @rest! @richarddbartlett, @benjaminknight and I were lucky enough to meet

Ohyeon at Camp By The Crowd on Jeju Island. Please make yourself at home Ohyeon. Happy to answer any questions you may have. Looking forward to collaborating in future :)

Thanks, Harry. Are your internal discussions somewhere public? I'd be interested to compare notes. :-)

Not really. This is very much our problem. We have a 'google forum' (dare i say it) but have full intention to move into a much better space using platforms like Loomio etc.

Hi folks, I'm from Rio de Janeiro, Python/Django developer and one of the Loomio admins of Brazilian Citizenhood Movement Raiz www.raiz.org.br

I am here to share thougths and suggest API to integrate Loomio to our site. As I don't know Ruby/Rails, my contribution will be restricted to improve portuguese docs.

Health and freedom to you all!

Hi Josir! It's a neighbor from Rio (Copacabana) here! Maybe we know each other if you participated some day in OcupaRio, OcupaCâmara and/or numerous popular assemblies and rallies around our city since 2011. Anyway, if you're interested in direct democracy we, at least, have friends in common. Glad to see one more carioca in Loomio (our people must learn how to use this amazing tool instead of keep trying organize protests and decide important issues via facebook). Looking forward to properly dig into your website as soon as possible (as an independent activist the making of a political party in Brazil doesn't seems to be a good idea, even with all your good projects; but as a carioca its understandable to see people who wants to participate in politics avoiding so many anachronistic parties; anyway congrats for the initiative). If you want you can also see my portfolio as an author at arenato.com. See you!

Hi Renato. I know your work! Your ebook is on my "virtual desk" to be read :)

Probably we've already met on those rallies and had shared the same gas bombs smoke :))

We are half movement/half political party and we want to aggregate those who don't want/believe on politic parties but has common beliefs mainly on the ecological and direct democracy matters. People can participate and vote and don't need to be "filiated".

We are great experiment on Direct Democracy. All our decision-making are made on Loomio!

This thursday we will meet on the Journalists Syndicate here in Rio. Be welcome to meet us and know our project.

Health and freedom!

Nice to know it all, Josir! Still reading the texts on Raiz and so far it's very interesting! Take a look at the system which some independent activists and others were/are trying to make in Rio's streets and plazas: AutoGov and some of its resources at OpenSource. Believe it or not, all what you'll see, including the spreadsheets and the legal procedures as OSCIP (the web portal isn't ready to be launched yet), still doesn't make much sense while it's only me working on it (our fellow Cariocas appears to be lost when we talk about online popular organization outside facebook -- can't wait for it to be changed). So, feel free to do what you want with the material (your party must jump on it; some already are).

Even though the tear gas in Rio are now mostly expired :P after 5 years it was time to come back home :) in order to keep independence from the politicians trying to surround me (and our people stop to centralize around/ be independent from me).

Anyway, as it's an area specific for introductions, please take note of my e-mail address: info@arenato.com

Also please tell me (via e-mail) the time of your meeting next Thursday; maybe will be there to personally know its members and certainly wait for nice conversations, specially about the 'progressive consensus as it is (very well) described in the 7 pages 'guide'; affiliate never -- it's Brazil, bro, and my focus is on a city (any city) level connected to the world.

And as you expressed interest, you'll receive an invitation to collaborate in the ongoing process of Loomios' translation to Portuguese-BR (you have to get a free account in Transifex; and you can already join the Loomio Translation Community); improvements are very welcome.

Hugs!

A big warm welcome to our newest community members!

Welcome @toupeira!

I'm a software developer interested in collaborative decision-making software like Loomio and DemocracyOS

Welcome @jordankamin!

Hi! I'm Jordan and I'm a teacher and rails developer. I've been teaching at Dev Bootcamp San Francisco for the last year or so. I heard about Loomio from a group of students who contributed to Loomio as their final project, which was really cool! I'd love to contribute some features and work with the community to help improve loomio.

@jameskiesel, maybe you and Jordan should have a chat sometime soon (if you haven't already).

Thank you both for providing us with introductions! Please make yourselves at home 😃

Hey @jordankamin, more than happy to have a chat about how best to contribute! Feel free to reach out to me at james@loomio.org

Thanks @hannahsalmon, I'd like to expand a bit on my terse introduction which I didn't realize was going to be posted here 😁

I hail from Switzerland and make my living as a software developer and sysadmin, but I've also long had an interest in collaborative decision-making, fueled initially by youthful daydreams about anarchism, then by my experiences working at a Swiss open participation startup, and lately more by things like Agile project management and forms of peer governance. My current job is with a developer agency and we've been trying out Agile methods for doing collaborative company development (similar in concept as Loomio's Away Days), which got me back to kicking around an old idea I've had for something very much like Loomio. After some research I quickly discovered this active community, and now I'm glad I can just contribute here instead of starting my own project that won't go anywhere 😅

Something else I was wondering, our company recently joined forces with Impact Hub and we founded a new co-working space in Zurich together, and they seem to have very similar goals as the Enspiral Network (spreading collaboration and social entrepreneurship). I'm sure you're aware of their spaces, but have you ever talked with them about working together more closely on other projects? If you're interested I'd be glad to ask around for a good contact person.

Haha it almost sounds like you are a Swiss version of me!! 😜

Let me know if you'd like to get on a call sometime: rich@loomio.org

lol Swiss is now officially Ⓐ part of my personal anarcho-map : ) welcome, bros.

@renato actually I recently learned that after the First International in Paris, the anarchist groups met up in a small Swiss village for the First Anarchist International ;-)

A Swiss friend searched for two weeks and didn’t find a documentary on the First International Anarchist : ( Then she was invited to this conversation, but she said that has nothing to collaborate and her family business is already consensual : D So, my explanation is that the reason why her country is already under Direct Democracy is because its people live freedom in the present rather than talk about its pass. Too simplistic explanation, but her country mixed economy (participatory and with strong governmental regulations) is so far advanced in comparison with the rest of the world that it’s hard to accept that other countries can’t do the same. Instead, there is a widespread misconception that Swiss is some sort of free market economic capitalist paradise lol for those who don’t read even a WikiPedia page.

@renato there's also this widespread misconception (especially among the Swiss themselves) that Switzerland has "achieved" direct democracy, but our system is still very much a representative one at its core ;-)

You’re right! According to WikiPedia itself, the Swiss confederation is a semi-direct democracy (representative democracy with strong instruments of direct democracy). Not there yet ; )

@toupeira I am a Loomio team member based in the US (Providence, RI) and I will be in Zurich briefly next week on Monday 15 March. Are you around for coffee? Cheers, MJ

@mjkaplan very cool, we can meetup in the early evening at Impact Hub Colab if you like! Is that Monday 14 March or Tuesday 15 March? ;-) You can reach me at mak@panter.ch

@toupeira Hi Markus. I'm only in Zurich briefly tomorrow (Monday) and could meet in the morning or lunch but then will be heading out. It'd be great to meet if you're free.

Welcome to the Loomio community group @scott21!

Care to provide us with an introduction?

A big warm welcome to our newest community member @simonmisanthrope!

Hi I'm with a London citizens' platform called Take Back the City. I'm pushing for us to start using Loomio to organise better, so now I'm here myself trying to get to grips with it.

Sorry about the delay, Simon! Thanks very much for providing us with an introduction. Please make yourself at home and let us know if we can answer any questions 😃

Thanks @hannahsalmon! At first i was looking for more details on the price plans, but i was told on Twitter that a new Price Plan page is coming.

Now I'm trying to work out how i can make my subgroups open to all members (but only members), and threads private. It seems like i can only have private threads in subgroups members must request to join, or public threads in open subgroups. What am i missing? :)

Thanks for the warm welcome, really looking forward to learning more!