Thanks @harryrobbins ry for starting this thread, I think a lot of good points are coming out of it.

I just wanted to clarify my position.

I am not coming to this as someone simply “interested in tech and coops” but someone who works in the space of “tech and coops”. I am interested in doing stuff in this network, not watching and chatting about it on the side.

I believe we should think of it as an eco-system of different players that can all contribute in their own way based on their skills and interests. Tech cooperatives are not only made of developers. They thrive on people that are good at selling, good at networking, good designers, good project managers, good facilitators etc.

If we are thinking of the CoTech as a co-operative consortium, then we should aim to include all these skill sets.

I can see myself for example tacking on some of these roles for the network, as well as offering my own services to the co-ops in the network (I have already collaborated with at least 3 of them).

My second point is that I think there would be added value in including what I would call “co-operative freelancers”. By that I mean freelancers, who work based on co-operative principles.
Why? Not everyone works at the same scale, so not every activities actually needs to/can be set up as a co-operative, at least at the start. That does not mean that those individuals do not fit in with the aims of CoTech.

For example I could see myself being passed on clients that need very basic websites that are not worth developing for the bigger companies in network, and vice-versa, when I get approached for websites that are out of my reach I could pass them on.

Also, companies are fluid entities, and employees move from one to the other voluntarily or because forced to. I would find it a pity to lose some people from the group just because they stop working for company X. I actually thought that the value in this network would be share resource between us, including people working on each others projects.

So all I am suggesting is the co-operative technologists also includes co-operative freelances that work in the tech ecosystem.

Hope that makes my position clearer.

Having just seen the test-website (thanks @amil !) , if it does make it easier, I wouldn't be against having a grouping called "CoTech freelancers", which includes people here who are not currently part of an existing coop, but are part of this network. Similarly to what Harry was proposing at the start of this thread, but without setting up another official entity for it. It would just be a grouping of the freelancers within the network, and whoever is in that group would be allowed to participate in the network as anyone else. Creating an official "freelancers coop" could end up being a product of the CoTech network in the future, rather then a per-condition for being part of the network.

I think one of the main purposes of this organisation is to encourage the formation of new co-ops. I believe Enspiral are heading towards something more like everyone being in a co-op with their "life pods" or whatever they're called.

What are the reasons that you don't want to start or join a co-op?

I think one of the main purposes of this organisation is to encourage the formation of new co-ops.

I guess that could be seen as a reason for including people who were trying to form a co-op, as well as those in a co-op.

Part of the problem here is the unhelpful ambiguity around the framing of the topic question. The answer, of course, is it depends what we mean by a 'network of co-ops'.

If we mean that we're creating a co-op of co-ops, then that sounds like a members-only discussion.

If we mean that we're creating a loose network of conversation between people interested in co-ops and tech, that sounds like a network discussion.

There's actually no reason not to have both. For example, We Are Open co-op runs two Slack channels (#solidarity and #backchannel) for those in our orbit, and two private channels (#members and #tweets) for members.

Loomio is great for decision-making, but there's better options for open, threaded, discussions (e.g. Discourse. Perhaps we need a mission statement here?

Hi Doug, i was trying to get at "who are the members of CoTech". I'd previously understood that the members are worker co-ops that sell tech/digital services and thought this had been clearly articulated but @vica had suggested that freelancers should be allowed to become members and potentially people would like to include other non-co-ops, or co-ops that don't sell tech services.

@dougbelshaw 'Perhaps we need a mission statement here?'

Indeed. Increasingly important to address (with specific reference to CoTech only at this point);

What is 'tech'
Who / what constitutes a coop

Well, it may be a cheap point, but I have to say anyone watching from outside who is familiar with the coop movement would say “here they go again, obsessing with definitions and structures!”.

Here's a proposal:

1. That we form a cooperative called Cooperative Technologists with coop consortium rules

2. That its objects are to promote and develop the use of the cooperative model in digital-tech-creative business

3. That anyone may join on these conditions:

a) They are working in digital-tech-creative and actively applying the cooperative model
b) They will actively support the objects of the coop and abide by a code of practice
c) They pay the membership subscription

Then I would propose separately that the membership subscription be set quite low, perhaps £50 per year.

Such a coop could additionally have a special interest group of worker coops working in digital-tech-creative.

If I simply put that proposal, now, would I be guilty of attempting a bounce/abusing Loomio process?

Hi Shaun,

as @graham2 and others have pointed out there are basically two organisations that are being discussed here: one like you describe and one more narrowly focussed that is a co-operative made up exlusively of worker-controlled co-ops that provide tech services. I think we all seem to agree that both would be useful.

I (and the rest of Outlandish I believe) are particularly keen on having the more narrowly defined network, though we're supportive of both efforts.

As we kicked this off and have invested somewhere in the region of £20k so far in making it happen, would it be reasonable for us to keep the Co-operative Technologists name, Loomio group, etc. for the narrower network we're keen to create and for the broader network find a new name, Loomio, etc?

I personally would like to join whatever the other group is as it's something I'm interested in. Perhaps you, @vica and others who are more focused on that organisation could get the ball rolling?

Many thanks,

Harry

Agree with Harry's two org description. I also liked the idea of a compromise with a (at first loosely-defined) freelancers coop, which can "sweep up" any individuals. But it all comes back down to voting and that's where I lose the thread of my argument. Surely if that freelancers coop grows to say 40, 50 people it will hold huge sway over the network, despite not sharing many of the networks concerns (as it has no organisational-level financial risk, employment issues, etc). That doesn't seem sensible to me.

For that reason (unless anybody can explain to me a solution that includes everybody, but doesn't disrupt the democratic balance), I am still in favour of an inner and out org.

Trying to borrow language from @shaunfensom's proposal, I've summarised where my head's at in the attached.

And if you are somebody reading this and thinking "here they go again, obsessing with definitions and structures!” may I suggest to you that you try creating a national network of organisations in a non-authoritarian manner and then re-read this thread :)

Here's the editable diagram: https://docs.google.com/drawings/d/1CUzip1mQuAgE7cNfFVb7vJE9tsGFkn9oy0BOAg0PcY4/edit?usp=sharing

I've already edited to "worker coops" in the inner circle.

Fair riposte :)

I think what Outlandish has done is fantastic. You have done what people like me merely talked about. And my anguish certainly wasn't levelled at Outlandish but at us all.

I think it would be a shame/mistake to have two organisations. One of them (the looser one) will die. I hoped my proposal might cut the Gordian knot.

@brianspurling sounds pretty sensible to me, and fully agree with the challenge to others to do it better :)

For what it's worth I'd envisaged that voting would be a consent-based process in which co-ops rather than their members vote. Co-ops could decide their own rules for how they cast their votes (consent, consensus, majority voting, etc). That level of detail is obviously something to be addressed at a later date.

+1 to the visual clarity of the diagram @brianspurling has produced. In any future version of this diagram, please can we retain the labelling of the outer rectangle? ;)

Thanks Harry.

If the co-ops have one "vote" each then the idea of one of many CoTech members orgs being a (at first loosely-defined) freelancers cooperative become much less problematic.

In Harry's opening gambit, in Vica's follow on points, and in my and others' comments, we all seem to agree in principle on participation from a "freelancers cooperative".

I think it's safe to say at this point that, if a freelancer coop already existed, CoTech would not block its membership.

Which is to say, I am now fully on board with my own diagram :), edited very slightly and re-attached for clarity.

I feel that leaves us with one outstanding question, which I'd appreciate @vica's thoughts on:

Can we move ahead with a proposal which would, in the short term, exclude freelancer membership, provided we include in the proposal a commitment to a) allowing membership from a loosely-defined freelancer coop ["loosely", so as to avoid having to go through a horrendous legal and organisational battle before it can join] and b) actively supporting the creation of such a body

?

We're all largely in agreement here, which is nice. In part I think the nuances of difference are perhaps a bit about semantics. @shaunfensom, myself and I think @brianspurling - judging by the diagram, are talking about a single multilayered organisation, one inside the other on the image, with all those in the green blob also being involved in the pinky-purpley blob, whilst the language from @harryrobbins speaks about two separate but linked organisations.

For me the key here is about the level and directionality of permeability of the membrane between the green blob and the pinky-purpley blob. And we don't particularly need to define that right now as it will change over time. But it doesn't hang together for me if it is two organisations, and will lose the added value that i hoped I'd made clear near the top of this thread.

Happy for them to be linked groups or concentric circles, etc. As long as one of the gross is a consortium of tech co-ops I'm happy.

I think @brianspurling has a good suggestion. I'll try to put some ideas/suggestions/options down and share them with the group.

Perhaps we could arrange one or more meet ups to discuss and revise. Happy to arrange the London one. Any one up for organising and hosting one in the North or elsewhere?

"level and directionality of permeability of the membrane between the green blob and the pinky-purpley blob"

Brilliant.

Can I suggest we slow this conversation back down a bit. Harry is an important voice in this conversation, especially given he opened the thread, and he is currently chugging around Vietnam on a moped. We're unlikely to resolve this before Christmas, and I'm not sure it would be a good idea to try. But we have made great progress.

Are other people happy to pause for a bit, allow some new or less time-rich voices to comment, and try to move to a proposal maybe in the new year?

Perhaps we could roll in here some of the discussion from the "Welcome" thread, to work in communicative needs explicitly with this discussion on who are our different constituent groups? A Venn diagram is a good start -- can we go on from there to a concept map, for example, illustrating the different kinds of relationship (etc., in a very broad sense) between different kinds of player? I think that would really help us to have more insight into the question of how to use which communicative techologies.

There's some discussion re mapping CoTech on Slack #onlineplatform 23/11. Be good to mash the two threads?

Isn't a Multi-Stakeholder Co-operative the answer here? There are two sets of UK model rules I'm aware of:

• Somerset Rules
• Co-operatives UK Rules

We could, for example, have two categories of members, Co-operatives and Associates and the organisation could be structured so that if anything came to a vote (I'd suggest we continue to try to move forward on the basis of consensus and only resort to voting if that fails) the Co-operatives have a total of 75% of the votes and the Associates have 25%.

Webarchitects uses the Somerset Rules, workers have a 50% say in the running of the organisation, even though there are only 4 of us, and the clients and partners have 25% (there are about 60 or so, members in this category -- a mixture of individuals and organisations) and investors have 25% (there are only a few members in this category).

My suggestion of Co-operatives and Associates is inspired by Radical Routes -- they have a core of full members and a periphery of associate members.

I think that something along these lines could work for Co-operative Technologists :smiley:

I put some notes together on the debate so far: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1HsCEhJG2kGgNEaH1u_r1xGVdsYrjysVvO0_noZjHfcQ/edit#

My main concerns with this approach are:

• harder to organise (if we keep it to just co-ops we can call all the members and have them sit around a table which isn't possible if individuals can join)
• a bit confusing and fractal - it's a multi-stakeholder consortium co-op made up of multi-stakeholder consortium co-ops
• is less directed (its beneficiaries are more diverse)

Can I suggest that we start with a co-op of co-ops but use a consortium model so that we can add other stakeholders later if we want to?

I'm very up for supporting the creation of a freelancers tech co-op so that anyone who feels excluded can still get involved.

Sorry - doc wasn't shared properly. I've shared it now.

Thanks @harryrobbins for putting this together. It reads very well balanced. Would you mind setting the permissions so we can comment on it? I have access as "view only" even if I'm logged into google. (please note, I might not be able to comment before the weekend due to travel commitments)

Thanks @vica

Permissions updated so everyone should be able to comment now.

Yes, thanks @harryrobbins for this very lucid exposition, which makes a lot of sense.
As I haven't been to any of the physical meetings, could I just ask for a recap, that the main purpose of CoTech itself is to "do" Principle 6? Or is there a clearer formulation of an agreed purpose?

Personally, I think it's easier to define meaningful membership boundaries based on clear formulations of purpose, than it is on formal status. The basis of implementing Principle 6 falls rather in between, because the purpose is dependent on co-op status. That supports Harry's narrow definition.

If the main aim were, on the other hand, to create "Enspiral UK" I for one would need to understand in more detail just how Enspiral works, and therefore who would be candidates to join under what conditions. The boundaries would be, I suspect, somewhat different. Some genuine Tech Co-ops might not want to co-operate in that way, but rather in some other ways. Other people might be eligible to co-create the organisation but not actually be tech co-ops.

So I guess I'm suggesting, as an evolution of this already very helpful document, to focus more on purpose (or at least, a more salient re-statement), and on the prerequisites to be co-operating in seeking to work that purpose out.

One broad purpose that I suggested at the meetup was "increasing the number of people who work in tech worker co-ops in the UK from ~500 to 10,000 by 2020 and to 100,000 by 2030".

I put my more immediate idea of the role/function/purpose of CoTech in a blog http://outlandish.com/blog/co-op-of-software-co-ops-arise-er-megazord/

Personally I think that Enspiral are an amazing and inspirational organisation but we should learn from them rather than copy them. They're currently trying to get everyone into 'life pods' or some such which are basically little co-ops.

I think I finally get what @vica and @shaunfensom have been getting at based on @vica's comments in the document I shared.

Perhaps this is an obvious win-win compromise:

(there would be many other bubbles within the broader "Enspiral UK" bubble such as services, coding schools and interest groups)

Enspiral have recently set up Enspiral Labs in the UK with the purpose of creating more Enspiral-like organisations. I suggest we approach them and ask if they'd be interested in "adopting" something like the above.

Just to chime in...

I'm in the "one org/ network" or "loose" camp :)

And I can't help wonder if the model Enspiral uses might be relevant again too...

Basically they have:

• Members (where ultimate legal power and authority lies)
• Contributors (not actual legal members but nevertheless still allowed and encouraged to participate in decision-making, including cobudgeting - because the greater diversity they bring improves the outcomes of such processes)

See this diagram and this page of their handbook for the difference.

As I understand it, in the Enspiral model, only actual people can be members of the Enspiral Foundation at the centre of it all, not ventures/ co-ops, individuals.

@harryrobbins seems to be suggesting (at least in earlier posts - I'm not entirely sure what the most recent "Enspiral UK" post/ image is suggesting/ proposing?) that a "restricted" Co-op Tech is basically a "secondary co-op" (i.e. a co-op whose only members are other co-ops) and only those co-ops (and not directly the people in them) will have governance/ voting powers.

That certainly could work, but is that what other people (or even @harryrobbins himself) in the "restricted" camp actually want? :) (should e.g. a two person co-op have as much power as a 50 person co-op? or will voting in the secondary co-op be weighted somehow?).

Anyways, leaving specific detail about voting rights etc aside for the moment, perhaps the Members/ Contributors model (much like the Members/ Associates used by Radical Routes and proposed by @chriscroome) is a way to combine both "restricted" and "loose" models?

i.e. perhaps the actual legal structure is restricted to just "tech worker co-ops" (however that ends up being defined) Members, but that a looser groups of Contributors (which could conceivably by either individuals or orgs) is also allowed to play and to fully participate?

I think that'd work for me (although if I'm honest I think I'd still prefer the multi-stakeholder co-op approach where Contributors are also able to be actual legal members too - unlike in Enspiral - but would be happy for Members to have >75% so long as Contributors have <25% so they can legally protect for rule changes that go against their interests). I wonder if it'd work for @vica too?

I guess it should also be noted that in Enspiral I think their participatory culture is strong enough, and contributors are involved enough in decision-making, that the fact contributors have very little legal voting power (none, as far as I can tell, but I'm not sure that is correct because they do delegate nearly all decisions to consensus by the whole network) is actually almost irrelevant.

PS UnitedDiversity LLP kinda already is a freelancer tech co-op (of two), who are at least as "tech" (actually much more so) as e.g. Calverts - can we play? :P

@josefdaviescoates said:

PS UnitedDiversity LLP kinda already is a freelancer tech co-op (of two), who are at least as "tech" (actually much more so) as e.g. Calverts - can we play? :P

I can't think of any reason why not and I'd love to have you fully on-board, so I'd suggest you add your co-op to the wiki ( I checked and you already have an account) and find whoever has permissions to add @uniteddiversity.com as an allowed domain for slack and shout when you want an account on the WordPress site :-)

A small observation as a marketer; if Cotech is to be, in part, business-facing - we pitch and work on commercial projects in the non-coop space under the CoTech brand - having a structure that is easily explained to 'regular businesses' and doesn't compromise our opportunities because we're seen as being organizationally overly complex or 'novel' will be important

Thanks @harryrobbins and @josefdaviescoates for your comments.

As I wrote in the google doc, I think I will keep out of the conversation for now, and let the current members decide what they think best. I don't want so much of the debate to be focused on me, this was never my intention when joining the group. I was simply surprised to be asked to leave after I had been invited to join the group on multiple occasions by different people and had been involved in conversations about it over the last year.

Having now joined, I can see that there are multiple ways this could develop and all have a lot of potential.

My stepping back is also due to the fact that I will be in NZ for 2 months, so there is not much I can lead on until I'm back in London in April.

The only thing I do feel I can offer remotely is a bit of help in facilitating the discussions that come up on loomio to help the group make decisions a bit more swiftly (probably only on the other threads though, as not sure I would be considered a "neutral" facilitator in this one!).

My experience of using loomio in various groups is that at least at the start this can be useful. If done in the right way, as time goes on and practices established, an external facilitator can become redundant, as all members become co-facilitators. A neutral facilitator can always be called in again for topics that become contentious.

Let me know if that's something you might be interested in.

As a minimum viable model (and this won't be viable without Outlandish), I think this is pointing towards a new coop whose objects are to expand the coop economy by e.g.

• taking business and workers from non-coops
• developing new socially useful products and services
• starting new coops
• converting non-coop projects and businesses to coops
• strengthening existing ones and
• anything else its members want to do, including propaganda and campaigning that are legal and in line with coop values.

A consortium coop of worker coops, other coops and individual cooperators (freelancers or supporters) with multistakeholder Somerset rules that give the worker coop members 75% of the voting rights. We could form as an unincorporated association on this basis, while we hammer things out, and incorporate when it looks like we're ready or we need to start trading (basically we would need weighted voting on Loomio).

I mostly agree with @shaunfensom and @graham2 but this has always been a worker coop initiative, and I think if we try to self-transcend at this stage, it will stumble.

I'm not too familiar with Somerset rules and have heard arguments from principle both for and against, but such a multi stakeholder would give significant ownership and control to non-worker tech coop members and individual cooperators (freelancers and supporters) while keeping it worker-based.

The real work, before and after we've put the rules away in the filing cabinet to gather dust, will be creating the culture, communication and commitment to make it work (i.e. bring benefit to the members by meeting their diverse needs and aspirations - financial, political, social).

There needs to be a membership fee and a clear description of what it takes to be a member. The process would be to write a manifesto/prospectus, kick it around, invite coops and individuals to self-identify as the prospective founder members, and get to work on the business plan. Not necessarily in that order.

This is linear and legalistic thinking I know - in reality it will always be an intersection of circles and interest groups.

On the subject of 'what do we mean by tech', see my comment today in the Welcome thread. I like @seanfensom and @brianspurling's digital-tech-creative formulation, partly because I think it will be elastic in practice and partly because it might get @josefdaviescoates off Calverts back :/

I always suggest to getting on and doing it and the legal model comes later, but If your looking for a legal model then Cooperatives UK is currently talking to the http://www.fairshares-association.com about taking on their society rules as one of our approved model rules (I think it looks better than the somerset rules).

Its multi-stakeholder model (producers, consumers, investors, founders) but with the twist that you can be a member in more than grouping and effectively get a vote more than once.

@johnatherton said:

Cooperatives UK is currently talking to the http://www.fairshares-association.com about taking on their society rules

Do you have a URL for these rules? I looked on their site and found the FairShares Co-operative page that links to a PDF from 2014 -- is this the set of rules we should be comparing with the Somerset Rules?

Yes, we are currently helping them review/update them but will likely be minor updates the core characteristics will be unchanged.

There is a rules generator for V3 of FairShares rules here https://sites.google.com/view/fairsharesrules although not all versions completely finished yet I don't think, I think the English co-op society ones are pretty much there.

Great to hear about this Co-ops UK & FairShares stuff :-D be really excellent to have Co-ops UK as a sponsor of their society rules (and helping them get them past the FCA) :-D

Any idea of the timescale for the Fairshares UK Co-operative Society model rules being FCA approved? I guess this is one advantage that The Somerset Rules have -- they could be used straight away...

No, but as I understand it Co-ops UK are currently going through them before submitting them to FCA... so I'd guess likely 2-3 months or something like that... or longer if Co-ops UK / FCA don't like bits of them... /me shrugs but yeah I've been waiting for FCA approved model FairShares society rules for a while (nearly started a crowdfunder a while ago to cover the FCA costs)

Can anyone link to an actual example of the FairShares society rules or Company Articles? Not everything I've heard about them is positive, and I want to check 'em out without having to fill in Mr Ridley-Duff's webform.

@sionwhellens said:

Can anyone link to an actual example of the FairShares society rules or Company Articles?

Since they are not yet FCA approved I'm guessing that there might not be anyone using them yet?

@harryrobbins said:

I still feel pretty strongly that if both CoTech and Outlandish have human members then I'd end up with a conflict of interest when recruiting people, etc.

Why, you can be a member of multiple co-operatives -- I bet almost all of us here are already...?

Might it be worth getting a bit of a sense of who's up for joining various different types of co-op too?

I still feel pretty strongly that if both CoTech and Outlandish have human members then I'd end up with a conflict of interest when recruiting people, etc.

@chriscroome I guess Outlandish's mission seems pretty similar to CoTech's - at least they overlap a lot.

When I talk to people who are talented tech people that want to save the world I generally try to recruit them to Outlandish. If I now have to explain that there are two co-ops they can join, both of which are consortiums with overlapping goals, different governance systems, etc. it's pretty complicated.

I also feel a pretty strong responsibility to make sure that people in Outlandish have a decent livelihood. Obviously I'm keen that everyone in each of our co-ops have a good livelihood but I feel that if we're all in our individual co-ops, which are in turn part of CoTech I have a reasonably clear responsibility to my fellow members first, as well as to the overall membership of CoTech.

If I am a member of two co-ops, both of who contain individuals looking for work, then I think I would feel that I should be looking for work for both sets of people equally, which sounds like a lot to take on at the moment.

Co-operative Technologists being in a position to employ people, or us even agreeing we would want it to, seems rather a long way off... or I'm I missing something?

I thin it's much too early to consider incorporating CoTech, which I see as an evolving network at this stage - however we could stay unincorporated and test one or more 'as if' CoTech constitutions. More important would be to set out what is the nature of the relationship between CoTech members and what the 'business' of CoTech would be. At this stage perhaps we should think of it as a 'secondary coop' providing services to its members that it's better placed to provide than the primary members themselves; for instance if we do joint marketing, we would anticipate needing a fair and transparent process for putting together member consortia to deliver projects that come through CoTech; and for identifying what opportunities came through CoTech, as distinct from projects that came to/through a primary member where they were looking for partners in the network.

Just (finally) got round to registering an account on The Hive https://community.uk.coop/s/ This is peer-to-peer support for co-ops. Not really taken off yet but it's young. There's an option to set up a group. Would it be worthwhile setting up a Tech group to attract people who might be interested in forming tech coops? If I set the group up, will some others join me in keeping an eye on it? - by creating accounts there? Apologies if someone has already suggested this.

Yep - I'd be up for helping out. Do I just create an account on The Hive?

I believe @kayleighwalsh and @matthewparsons may be interested too.

@harryrobbins @kayleighwalsh and @matthewparsons yes, just set up an account. I'll set up the group then.

I've just set up an account, my username is Kayleigh.

Hi Shaun, did you set up a CoTech group? Looked, not found (username royAB)

Also happy to help keep an eye on this Shaun. Username is PeteB

@roybrooks @kayleighwalsh OK group set up and you've been invited. @harryrobbins you don't seem to be there yet, but easy to find since it's the only group

Just logged in, I haven't received an invite...

Thanks Shaun

I've signed up now but can't see how to join the group.

Tsk, supposedly all three of you were invited. Slightly counter-intuitive UX (well, that's my excuse). Try now?

Plus @roybrooks

Would you invite me to The Hive group, please? account name (obviously ;) ) "asimong"

@asimong just invited a Simon Grant - assume it's you

Shaun could you invite Sion? Ta!

@sionwhellens Done. There seem to be two of you....

Earlier in this thread multi-stakeholder co-op rules were mentioned and although this is a little off-topic I thought I'd mention that the New Internationalist has adopted the Somerset Rules and rather than weighted voting as the Webarchitects version has they have a rule that 75% of the management board must be worker members. The New Internationalist yesterday launched a community share offer seeking £500k and in a day have raised over £73k which is awesome and I guess they might be heading to be the biggest multi-stakeholder co-op in the UK?

@marcd so far we've just adopted the broadest definition of tech/digital services which includes design for web/email, film/video that's distributed digitally and consultancy about digital services. There's no requirement that co-ops main output is tech/digital. Do you see an advantage in a tighter definition?

It's a good question. My immediate reaction is to keep it as broad as possible and let potential members self-define if they deliver a 'digital service'. And spend time on communicating the shared interest, aims and purpose of the consortium.

I am interested to know, have groups developing open hardware come up in conversations yet?

Will give some thought over the weekend.

OK, so, possibilities i can see:
1. keep restrictions as they are
2. open up competely
3. try varying the boundary criteria
4. do it by recommendation

To me, any clearly definable criterion (1, 3) is likely to have edge cases that fail, while complete openness (2) would require self-selection: how can we manage that? Would there be a possibility (4) for defining who is definitely in (as at present, perhaps) and then adding others by agreement of (say) at least two of the core constituency?

We obviously need to continue the thread on "how are we defining tech/digital services?", though personally I'm happy with the formulation of Co-operative Technologists -- I think that covers it.

And we need to continue to work out what, if any, formal structures we want, I'd suggest a multi-stakeholder model with the member co-ops having the majority (say 75%) and individual members having a minority, but I think we are only going to be able to make a decision on this when we next meet, at the earliest.

Regarding the poll to open this group up, I think that makes sense and if / when we have a formal organisational structure we can create new (more restrictive) forums for the decisions making of that organisation.

@aaronhirtenstein as suggested earlier by Sion this is no longer an appropriate place for decision making for CoTech since there are people who are members of this group who are not part of CoTech. The suggestion is that this Loomio becomes a place for interested parties, and CoTech gets it's own decision making forum (probably on the basis of one co-op, one vote - a la CoBudget).

thanks @harryrobbins I did read and understand what @sionwhellens said at the time but did not take it in! I will change my vote on that basis...

I should add that I'm not really convinced Loomio is the best tool for what people have in mind - some kind of forum/discussion software would seem more appropriate.

Also we will need a decision-making tool for CoTech. Are we imagining another instance of Loomio or something else?

This discussion has made me realise that I'm not really sure what the purpose and audience of this group is. Given that it sounds as though there are already non-CoTech members of this group then I can see two options: remove non-CoTech members from the group or open it up to allow anyone to join. I don't feel particularly strongly about either of those options so I'm going to abstain.

I think my preference would be to point people at the public mailing list for general discussions and support, and to use Loomio for collective decision making among co-tech members. I'd remove voting rights for non co-tech members from here (but allow non-members to observe if possible). If we are to use Loomio as a general discussion forum for anyone interested in this area I think there are better tools available for that.

This sounds sensible to me. However, I think the current "public mailing list" may be the email address used on the CoTech website for prospective clients / members to contact us. That doesn't seem like the right place for discussion either. It feels as if we need the following:

1. A decision-making tool for members of CoTech only
2. A shared email address for prospective client / members to contact us - only visible to members of CoTech
3. A public discussion forum open to anyone

We have a public email list and a separate private contact list already.

Ah. My bad. Thanks for the clarification.

It would help if some more people voted, we are on the cusp of the "open it up" vote being a minority:

• 9 Agree
• 3 Abstain
• 6 Disagree

18 out of 83 have voted so far...

Sorry for being late to this. Having taken in what others have said, I think I would have gone for making this a discuss-and-decide group for coTech and popose a Facebook group for the wider comoonity ...

why we cant just have the wider discussion on Facebook page?

One reason is that this would exclude people without Facebook accounts.

I'm please that the new proposal looks like it has more chance of achieving a consensus -- I really wouldn't have been happy if we had implemented the last proposal when there was so much disagreement. I think a open forum that anyone who is interested can join would be great, especially if we get people joining to ask questions like "how can I set up a co-op?" etc...

If we do as @josefdaviescoates suggests:

1. change the name of this group to CoTech too.

Can we also 4. Change the logo as well, please :smiley:

And it look like I might have to get my head around how to setup services using Docker, which should be fun... if this proposal passes next week then it might be another couple of weeks before I have an Ansible playbook I'm happy to use in production, perhaps this is something some of us could co-operate on using git.coop, I'm looking at @alexwa here :wink:

@chriscroome
Happy to collaborate on this!

@chrislowis from the Discourse website:

Mailing List Support

Opt into a special mode where all messages are sent to you via email, exactly like a mailing list. Start new topics via email.

Can we kick off a discussion about how to streamline comms? Can I suggest:

Mailman (email list) - keep this for announcements, old fashioned folks, etc
Discourse (forum) - use for discussions/polls/chats/etc.
Slack - close it (replace with Discourse)

Loomio (this one) - close/archive this Loomio - it's not currently great for discussion or decision making
Loomio (new one) - set up a Loomio along the same lines as the CoBudget - one co-op, one vote

CoBudget - keep for budgeting decisions

Twitter - keep for external discussions (maybe get it to auto retweet stuff?)

Yes please, the spread over platforms means I'm not sure where I should be putting my attention, and it's definitely getting in the way of how much I participate.

Might be worth including these in the comms list?

• The MediaWiki site
• The WordPress site (if the proposal to start using it to post blog / news item's to it in implemented).
• Google Docs (could we use the wiki for things that Google Docs are currently used for?)
• HackPad (we stopped using this following the Wortley Hall gathering when it was replaced with the wiki)

In terms of Mailman / Discourse / Slack I'd suggest we start using Discourse for a while before we decide what to do, it might become obvious. The open email list has hardly been used and Discourse claims to work well for email interaction. Slack is different in nature from a discussion board, it is more like IRC, I have found Slack really good when it has been used like IRC for sorting out the hosting for www.coops.tech and when working with people from Outlandish on some Ansible development -- a discussion board wouldn't have worked for that.

For a new CoTech Loomio group agreeing that each co-op has a vote is one way forward, but since people have individual Loomio accounts and we might not want to restrict access to one person per coop it might make sense to make it open to all workers in member coops but ask that coops have a single person who can cast their vote?

In reply to Harry's suggestions: streamlining definitely important. I still get more value out of instant messaging than forums, and still believe in the long term value of encouraging "real conversations" rather than a "talking shop". So i would be pro keeping slack and losing Discourse. But i acknowledge im on the losing side of that argument :)

I'm excited about Discourse. Any idea of an ETA @chriscroome ?

I feel we should co-budget some money to support Web Architects' great work hosting and setting up our stuff.

Roughly how long does setting up and maintaining a Discourse server cost?

Sorry for the delay on this, it was caused by getting a solid fortnight of work to migrate Co-op News from Apache on AWS to Nginx on one of our virtual server servers (and then the Easter holidays), the Co-op Press have been very supportive and have joined our co-op and also agreed to have the Ansible playbooks we wrote for them hosted on git.coop, so I think we should make an effort to also support them, they are launching a share offer soon and we could also help them with story leads when we have them?

Hopefully I'll complete the Ansible playbook for Discourse in the next week, the outstanding issue is sorting out incoming and outgoing email, everything else is more-or-less working.

Webarchitects still haven't managed to find time at one of our committee meeting to discuss contributing to any of the previous co-budget fund pots so, in my opinion, this really isn't something you should be worrying about. My time spent on this is useful learning -- I haven't set up anything using Docker before, and it'll only need a 1GB or 2GB RAM virtual server to run on so this is something that I feel we can easily carry as a contribution to the movement. The main way other co-ops could help us is with more work -- we could do with more sysadmin / devops type work setting up Linux servers using Ansible.

There is a test Discourse site up and running and it appears to all be working, I want to test it a little more and also solve the issue that emails sent out by Discourse have HTTP links and not HTTPS links (for example for account verification), but it's more-or-less at the stage where the scripts to generate the server are ready to be used to build a production server :smiley:

If anyone else wants to do some testing please sign up for an account and let me know so I can make you an admin -- there are no shortage of admin settings...

Good work @chriscroome

I registered but it didn't send me a confirmation link (I checked spam).

Excited about having this up and running.

Outlandish would be happy to put some cash towards supporting and hosting this stuff. What would be a reasonable estimate of the annual cost?

All the best,,

Harry

I registered but it didn't send me a confirmation link (I checked spam).

Oops, sorry, the firewall was too strict, outgoing email works again now. I'm intending to do some more checking of things this evening and perhaps I'll rebuild it from scratch at ansible.webarchitects.org.uk one last time before I create a virtual server at community.coops.tech. Feel free to test away :-)

Regarding money, this isn't an immediate problem, I'd suggest perhaps adding it to the agenda for Wortley Hall and including it, along with other issues, in the "shall we create a legal entity" discussion...

DTC sound great so so long as they are a proper co-op I'd've voted yes too.