Commons Transition Wiki and Published Proposals

Sorry everyone, this closed a bit earlier than I thought - I must have made a mistake on the date.

Hi dear all,

I also have some (similar) questions in mind :

• Do we see the proposals as continuous work in progress (which ofcourse can be used at any given moment for a certain purpose) and how is this then fascilitated?
  Proposals can be published with a date, but then updated form time to time if work has been done on them? (or indeed if updating shows automatically)

• Should proposals not be clearly run by the whole Assembly before any publishing moment, for any comment possibilities? Proposals are published in name of whole Assembly?

Dear all,
I propose to publish the proposals that are considered "publishable" by the authors and to include version 1.0 and the date to indicate it is the first version. Based on my own experience in writing texts in a collaborative way (the FLOK Society initiative in Ecuador and this one), at the end it is just an small group that writes it and then there is no more contributions till the next round of formal review.
The draft version we published in Ecuador in June 2014 (see here http://floksociety.org/docs/Ingles/2/2.1.pdf) was never modified.
To support my rationale, I can tell you that nobody has reviewed or added anything to the Food Commons text to date and just one lady provided minor (but appreciated) editorial reviews to the Territories of Commons.

So, I support to upload the documents in the Commons Transition Wiki now. At least those that are regarded as "draft completed by the authors".

In parallel, and in case we want to reach a wider audience with texts become "fixed" for a while, I would propose to write a book with edited and peer-reviewed versions of the proposals. The thematic proposals could be accompanied by introductory and conclusion chapters (perhaps to be drafted by Bauwens, Helfrich and other theorists and some MEPs. That would leave a hallmark of the event and it would remain for even in the bibliographic world.

Best regards
Jose Luis

Hi folks, here are some comments/clarifications regarding the Commons Transition Wiki. In hindsight these should have been shared prior to the vote but I was on the road for most of last week.

Why publish the proposals in a wiki? Why the Commons Transition Wiki?

A wiki is an excellent data repository which allows direct hyperlinking to relevant sections. It is also participatory by nature. People can join, comment and add suggestions. Among other things, the Commons Transition Wiki is dedicated to policy proposals and ideas for action. We're currently setting up a multi-category search which would -for example- allow users to cross-reference the ECA proposals with the other commons oriented policy proposals available in the wiki (including those originally written for FLOK). We hope to have this feature available for the beginning of next year. Incidentally, if anyone wants to lend a hand or knows people who are wiki-savvy, we could really do with some help: please ask to join our Loomio group

At what stage do the proposals go in? What about further modifications, new versions?

I think that the proposals should go in when those who were actively involved in the writing feel that they're solid as they are. These have been available in hackpad for a while. Transferring them to the Wiki, in my opinion, communicates that the first phase of writing is over and these are ready to be shared as a package. Anyone interested can make a user for the wiki and comment on the "talk" page, just like in Wikipedia and modifications can be edited in easily.

How will these be presented?

I would clearly title the proposals as "ECA". If enough changes, updates are suggested, we can always archive version 1, and present a second version (while keeping a link to the original). I also agree with @joseluisviveropol in that we should use their actual names. Once we have most, if not all of them in, after prior consent, I'd like to create a "landing page" much like the one we did for the Law for the Commons Wiki. Note that we will soon upgrade de CT Wiki to be mobile responsive. Regarding republishing them in the Commons Assembly website, it's technically possible, but I don't know how we'd display them and it'd take away the possibility of commenting, linking to sections, etc. Personally, I'd have them in the wiki, preceded by a prominent link in the website. Regarding website changes, we should also clarify who is helping here and not automatically assume that invisible helpers make it happen effortlessly. Currently@maiadereva has been taking on most of this work and she, like anyone working on backend, could use some help.

I hope that these answers (and opinions) clarify some of the comments which have been made. If I've missed anything, please @+ tag me, I'm happy to help.

Using a wiki for storing proposals, and the commons transition wiki, is the right way to go.

In Lille's Commons Assembly we make heavy use of a wiki for collaborative documentation of all our activities. It produces many data, and need constant grooming, but anybody can join the process at any moment

http://assemblee.encommuns.org/wiki/Lille

Hi all, I didn't follow closely the discussion but there are a few things that come to my mind, and I quickly write them here just in case they help.

• I think that "living" documents should reside in one place. I don't think it makes sense to keep things "alive" both in the hackpad and in the transition wiki. And if you are proposing to abandon the hackpads perhaps this should be a collective decision?

• It is important to keep things as "neutral" as possible. For this, we should either "centralize" everything in an agreed "neutral" space or distribute . For example say that policies will be stored at the transition wiki, events here, something else there.

My 2 cents :-) (and apologies if I comment on things already discussed and agreed upon)

Hi again,

Understanding all the considerations made. I still standstill for a moment on the publishing process. I would like to see the policy writing part also as much as a commons as possible. Also as an educational process for all of us. Ideally, I would take the food as a commons proposals with me to my local assembly, and ideally perhaps especially food actors would have something to comment. I know.. , this might very well not happen, but I believe we should not a priori exclude this from happening and perhaps try to build enabling infrastructure to make this happen?

This ofcourse also brings to the questions of relation of ECA to other processes, like other local assemblies, or like solidarity economy processes. Do we just function seperately? Or do we develop mechanisms which promote processes to feed into eachother, synergy etc., even if this might no (straight away) happen much etc?

These were also questions I had in mind prior to ECA, and well, there was so much to talk about :) Not wanting to overcomplicate things either, but just wondering..

Hi everyone, the wiki is fine to put the proposals once people are happy about publishing them. But I think we should also aim to publish them together in a more visible accessible way, in the sense of design. Maybe the commons assembly website is the best place for this. I do understand we cannot just exert make and javier to take care of it though!
For this we would also need to have the proposals be more alike, follow a sort of template. They do a little bit already but could be much better. Also, right now the 'proposals' are not really proposals. They are more political statements with a few recommendations. Which is fine, but we should understand them in that way. Some have more specific recommendations then others and some have very little concrete to say about EU (or national )policy.

In response to formatting the proposals and making them visually appealing, I think @staccotroncoso was imagining something attractive and standardized on the wiki itself (i.e. it won't just be the typical wikipedia style black and white text). But I could be wrong, maybe he was just thinking about an attractive landing page...

Anyway, if the formatting on the wiki is attractive then I agree that there is no need to publish through the website. It would be better to just link directly through to the proposals. Double publishing just creates double the work and maintenance.

We, cecile and me, will take a stab at the Energy proposal and Digital Commons proposal (which also needs more contents work) in collaboration with the people who worked on it. With a bit of formatting and design, to have these positions in the various fields of policy where we feel the commons approach has something to offer, coming from the ECA should be really good. @staccotroncoso
@joseluisviveropol I also like the idea od some kind of book eventually :)