What Hannah said!

I'd certainly agree in that I'd like to see as many people as are keen to participate be members of the loomio. Yes I'd like to do that if we can figure out how to seperate that from voting.

When it comes to actually voting on decisions however I'd like to see us sort out a fairly simple and robust mechanism for making decisions now that can sort us out nicely for at least a few years into the future, and I don't think 'anyone who wants to can join and vote' is a good longer term rule as its obviously very open to last minute ballot stuffing.

Not facing up to this now feels to me like leaving undone important foundational work which may trip people up in the future when they might have other more pressing issues to deal with.

We could have "anyone can join but only up to two people from any given timebank can vote on any given proposal" rule? How about that?

One thing to keep in mind is that we currently have 20 invites left, which is a fair few but we'll need to get the limit bumped up a little soon.

However I really feel like anyone who is invited should be able to vote and I don't think we should cap the number of people available per timebank because the people it would leaveout will have really important parts to contribute to the overall TBANZ.

Like @hannahmackintosh said I think if someone wants to be involved their voice should be here.

Hmm.. just noting the (perhaps not so) subtle difference between 'anyone who is invited can vote' and 'anyone who wants to join can vote'.

Incidentally I'm sure we'll be able to get a few more invites from loom.io if we need them. Yeah?

Inicdentally, I raised the idea of adding a feature to loomio to support counting votes differently for more binding resolutions and received what I thought was encouraging response from Richard Bartlett. Not that it would be added next week or anything but its got him thinking. We could probably get by on just an informal agreement in the meantime though if we wanted to go that route.

Yup I've talked to the rest of loomio and we can get more invites when we need them so... that's not actually an issue.

I'm starting to see a trend where for the bigger decisions it seems like having a representative from each timebank having a "binding" vote while still allowing anyone who's interested or effected by a decision to weigh in?

I think right now an informal agreement is the way to go with the idea that once we've got the feature we can go that route?

Like the thought of everybody that wants to contribute can. Would like to see some form of voting process that fiar and easy

Following from Hannahs comment "I think the more people who want to be involved at decision making at a national level the better." Can you please clarify for me how does someone get on this Loomio group? is it anyone anywhere in NZ with any sort of interest in timebanking and do they just ask Hannah or Paul and then they are on or is there some vetting process as in do they need to profess to stand by the 5 core priciples and 1hr for 1hr?? Or do they need to be actually a participating member of a timebank? sorry if this was discussed elsewhere but I missed the conclusion

One thing I'd like to point out is the assumption in some of these comments that decisions will be made by majority-rules voting. I would advise against this. Loomio allows us to develop robust consensus processes, which address any concerns or objections by tweaking or rethinking proposals until unanimity is achieved.

If majority-rules voting is to be used, it's important to define what sort of decisions require a majority. Under what conditions would it be necessary to overrule the objections of a minority? Would they also overrule a group of people who feel strongly enough to block? Also, is a 51% majority enough to overrule the rest of the group? 2/3? 90%? How are majority-rules votes called for, and who gets to vote?

Perhaps different kinds of "decisions" need dfferent polices. Some decisions relate to a real-time event, such as setting the date and location of a hui. For this a definitive decision is required within a specific timeframe, especially by the participants who intend on going.

But other types of "decisions" are open-ended, they reflect a policy or consensus, and these policies and consensus will evolve as the membership evolves over time, They will remain in flux. For these I'd would like to see voting to remain open indefinitely, and members able to recast their votes and change their minds. A histogram or graph could be used to see how the consensus has evolved over its history.

My suggestion:
- that anyone from TBANZ, sufficiently interested in national issues should be able to join the loom.io group and contribute to discussions and vote on some proposals where they are not flagged as binding issues
- for 'binding' issues (where we felt that a decision should be binding on member timebanks) we would agree to restrict it to 'up to x votes from each timebank' (where x is probably 1 or 2)

To pull that off, we would have to do this by informal agreement but in a separate discussion it seems the LoomIO seem to be contemplating the idea of building this into the software.

As regards consensus I think its an important goal that we should reach full consensus on most decisions, which as you say is one of the advantages of the way Loomio is built - so the proposal can be changed and then people can change their 'votes' too. I think however that majority vote is kinda implied by the software though, don't you?

The ability to 'block' is another I think really great and interesting feature of a more consensus decision making process and I think we will all need to learn and discuss how that works. However I'm a bit cautious of being too heavy on the 'process' stuff so early in the piece so I guess I'll leave my thoughts on that for later discussion.

@richardbrown as regards the time limit on proposals I must say it does appear to be an area that needs work. The default is that they 'close' in a few days after you post it - which is not usually what we want, and then also there is a question about 'quorum' for proposals, that is I think we need to agree on what percentage of people need to respond, yes, no, abstain or block before the decision can be considered to be of any use. Few things to work out to be honest ;-) I guess we should just take them one by one. Currently top of the list 'how many people from each timebank'

BTW "blocks are generally used when someone feels so strongly about something that they would leave the group if the proposal was passed."

@richardbrown
The decision about where and when to hold the next hui should be made at the hui. If it needs to be changed, as it was this year, this can be done by consensus, as it was this year.

@milesthompson
"I think however that majority vote is kinda implied by the software though, don't you?"

Not at all. What makes you think that? The software is explicitly designed to facilitate consensus. This is why is says "State your position" instead of "Vote", and there are the usual range of positions used by consensus-based group, instead of the "aye" and "nay" used by majority-rules groups.

Again, I strongly advise against trying to make majority-rules decisions online. If you must make "binding" decisions, I suggest they are made at the hui, not on Loomio.

@milesthompson
"I think we need to agree on what percentage of people need to respond, yes, no, abstain or block before the decision can be considered to be of any use."

I'm not sure there is a useful one-size-fits-all number. The limit of having one proposal at a time in each discussion keeps the number of proposals under control, and in my experience it's usually pretty clear from the discussion thread whether a representative number of people have participated in the discussion.

IMHO the use of subgroups (either one per TimeBank, or as topic-based subcommittees, or both) is the best way to reduce the number of proposals which need input from everyone.

@strypey i hear what you are saying about making 'binding' decisions only in person. Certainly once we start throwing that word 'binding' around I guess it does make sense. However it's also worth noting there was 100% consensus at the hui that we should use loomio to 'make decisions' at a national level (when that is needed). Also here on loomio Hannah put this up as a proposal and everybody voted yes. Personally I can see a lot of advantages to being able to 'make decisions' without having to wait for the next hui or all get together in person.

As for the time and location of the next hui, @benedictmchugo put his hand up on behalf of Otaki timebank and offered to host the next hui and was accepted by the group that was there. Of course Kapiti and Wellington groups will also try to help out where we can.

Final point, I think its worth noting that there are not actually very many timebanking decisions to make at a national level, as we are mostly just a bunch of independent local groups.

I agree the more people sufficiently interested to participate the better, but wonder if the discussion will be insufficiently focussed if it includes those who do NOT share the core values. They have to be fundamental to our way of thinking.

@joybells - in answer to your question. At the moment only Paul and I can add people to the group so that means that we can monitor whether people who want to be in the loomio group are affiliated with a timebank.

This will have to change in the not too distant future at which point we'll have to decide who we want as admin of this group.

@Hannah thanks that was helpful info

I agree with Miles' comment "that anyone from TBANZ, sufficiently interested in national issues should be able to join the loom.io group" however my concerns are over decisions that might be slanted by the opinions of only "tech savvy" people. A lot of people are completely overwhelmed by the idea of this type of communication. I'm thinking 1 vote per Timebank no matter how many members with the voter being charged with gaining a consensus decision by other means for their TB. A big task but important for some issues.

Strypey
@milesthompson
"there are not actually very many timebanking decisions to make at a national level."

Exactly, and most of them are about online collaboration tools, which ones to use, and how. As for how "binding" decisions can be, TBANZ has no power to force individuals or affiliated TimeBanks to do anything. All it can do is give a particular course of action a stamp of authority - 'done by consensus of TBANZ affiliates via Loomio'. The purpose of TBANZ, as I understand it, is not to regulate TimeBanking, but to facilitate it, according to a shared definition of what it is (1=1 etc) and why it's a good idea.

@yvonnedemille
To participate in Loomio discussion requires being able to type a comment, and click 'Post comment'. It's not exactly computer science ;) Can you please explain to me how having majority voting stops the tech savvy people from dominating the discussion? Sure it is more effective to let the discussion continue until it sorts the wheat from the chaff? In my experience with consensus, when everybody understands the issue at hand, based on the facts and arguments which have been presented, and any concerns and objections, the sensible course of action emerges organically. A good example is the consensus to use Loomio for countrywise decision-making, and the decision to use CoActivate for shared documentation. If you disagree with these decisions, the discussion about them can carry on, on the same discussion pages where the propsals were made and got consensus, and a new consensus reached to change course.