And - correct me if I am wrong - “the CWG died off bc all active Members moved to the Ops team”. Guess why? You need an independent, democratically legitimated 2nd board to hold the exec accountable. Otherwise People drop it once they understand the game. It is interesting to follow this discussion. Possibly the distrust goes both ways?

First of all Id like to say that I really appreciate everyone who has put in time helping to organise or otherwise put time into keeping social coop running. Both the Matts who have presented this idea have put a lot of hours into doing stuff for the coop for years and I am truly grateful

Over the weekend I looked and noticed theres some stuff about the Organising Circle minuted from the Community Working Group Operations Team (CWGOT) meetings in January and Feburary. Minutes are in the Community Working Group Loomio. You have to be a CWG member to view these but any co-op member is free to join CWG (may have to wait for an admin to approve a request to join ?) , theres no work expected if you do so. Generally I try and take a look at both CWGOT and tech working group (TWG) minutes but had missed some the last few months.

Issues

I list here, and comment upon, a number of issues which are identified in the original post, also some others I think are worthy of consideration.

Video call meetings

can be very valuable and Im in favour of video calls being used for coop stuff. Theres often better more deep understanding that can be gained hearing a voice and seeing someone as they explain stuff.

Video meetings can be problematic for some people. Having to be available at an agreed time with a good enough connection is a higher bar to participation than asynchronous text discussions. A video (or audio) recording of a meeting is not as easy to search or, for many people, as quick to digest as text presentations or discussions (maybe the odd diagram?).

Due to personality type, command of language etc. some people will be less comfortable than others discussing issues via video. CWGOT and I imagine this suggested circle would be meeting via video call.

Structureless

Despite some comments in the original post above,that kind of makes hints otherwise, we are not currently structureless. We have a reasonably well defined structure

See this diagram (it wouldnt upload and embed here)

>also see bylaws,& wiki (or could check out our new wiki under development). We dont always follow/work within the defined structure, but as long as everyone is happy I dont think that is a bad thing.

CWGOT overwhelmed

I would suggest CWGOT gets some more members and/or splits off some of the workload elsewhere. Likely both is best if we can find people interested in helping.

Why did they take on co-op strategy? This was never their remit - of course its fine for anyone to chat about that stuff.

They were always supposed to be working in tandem with CWG. I was always a bit disappointed that they didnt really attempt to work along with the CWG structure, but have always been happy and grateful for everyone that took on CWGOT work. I was always somewhat concerned with how their work and decisions were often opaque to the rest of the coop and pushed hard, for months, for minutes to be published and have often made efforts to share them with the rest of the coop.

Inter Group Communications

Ive been active in TWG and CWG and tried to keep up with CWGOT & TWG work. Ive not noticed any major issues. Its easy to post in the appropriate working group in Loomio, message known working group/ops team members on Mastodon, or post to the appropriate matrix group (the matrix tech working group chat feels a lot like its home)

I think (and even modern management theory would agree) theres value in having a multiplicity of places where people from the coop can chat about the coop, whether thats Mastodon, Loomio, Matrix, email, video meetings, real life meetups /conferences or their local coffee shop. Its likely not necessary, desirable or possible for anyone to know everything about the coop.

Suggested structure

Im worried about adopting a structure which may not address current issues the coop faces but will cost money that could maybe used more effectively elsewhere (e.g. more money towards the stuff CWG ops team have been doing).

Its a load of work! People would have to go to the Circle meetings and Circle members would likely be spending time outside meetings learning about all kinds of areas of the coops work, without likely ever having as good an understanding of the issues involved as the actual people doing the work.

TWG payments

Tech working group folks tend to have well paid jobs, the money offered to them is comparitively insignificant. I get the impression that generally they'd rather see it spent elsewhere.

Do-ocracy

This suggestion could equally apply to the proposed structure. Despite at least a couple of "elections" of groups in the coop, I dont think we have had any where we had enough people step forward as candidates/volunteers that we ever had to vote. So we'd likely end up with something like a more formalised and closed do-ocracy anyway. Only those prepared to take on the work involved in the circle get powers to vote on some things.

Exclusion

I think it would be valuable to make efforts to help avoid exclusion. Encourage and maybe offer to pay some folks from marginalised groups to participate more in the organisation and governance of the coop. We can do this anyway and I suspect there would be strong support from members.

Ongoing participation

There have often been problems with levels of participation. People drop out of roles they have been doing, dont attend meetings, dont get involved in Loomio (CWGOT) or matrix (TWG) discussions. In a recent Finance Working Group (FWG) vote to approve an expense (pay rental costs for our server conputers) I was the only person to vote and Im not even officially in the FWG (I was let into their closed Loomio group to discuss a financial issue). Its likely a new closed Organising Circle would also suffer.

Closed group governing the coop

The proposed structure could lead to an additional number of people participating more in organising the coop because they feel they have a responsibility to do so, as they have taken on a role and are getting paid . They would also get privileges/powers over the coop other people wont have.

Personally I find it a bit sad we cant spend some efforts to find a way of making it more easy for/inspire people to step up and help out anyway (this does happen a fair bit in the TWG which is an open group happy and welcoming to new participants)

I know most people are pretty familiar with operating within centrally organised hierarchical structures with a closed group leading things. Apparently many here feel comfortable with the proposed structure. It makes me sad to see repeated attempts to push this type of structure onto the coop.

I haven't spent much time working within such structures. It doesnt feel comfortable to me. I have been largely involved in numerous, (I guess somewhat unusual?) groups, coops, projects, living & working situations over the years with participants numbering from 2 to tens of thousands. From squatter camps (Ive spent a number of years "officially" homeless - the squatter camps were often lovely communities, often very happy homes!) to open source software projects, to renewable energy coops, to community farms, to community land trusts.

Often they have not had strong formal (or any) governance structures. Ive lived through a number of terrible Tyranny of Structurelessness type experiences, but its not always that way. Often I have operated within very horizontal governance structures and my experiences over the years have shown me people will participate (look how far social coop has come!). Obviously organisers will come and go and sometimes projects will come to a natural end, but stuff can work pretty well without adopting a hierarchical organised structure.

We can create any or many different structures and processes through which members can participate with organising the affairs of the co-op, exercise their agency and take on their responsibility as owner members of the coop.

I worry that voting for Organising Circle members will, as often with other representative democracies, discourage people from deeper participation and interest in the organization/governance of the coop - vote away their responsibilities!

I think we would have much better societies if more people actively participated in the organisation and active governance of their housing, workplaces, communities, communication systems, energy & food supplies etc.

I think its valuable for many more people to hone the skills to effectively share the workload and responsibility of doing so together.

I think it would be better if we looked at our problems, we could maybe list them out somewhere, open up discussions to find solutions, rather than present a "solution" and make a list of problems that may justify it (I kind of get that feeling here)

Theres more I could say, including suggestions for some ways we could try and organise/improve stuff, but I'll leave you with this huge wall of text for now!

Thanks for that insight, Darren! Just to make sure I am getting you right: you are fine with social-dot-coop being the benevolent dictatorship of a clique? So, the only difference to other instances is just that there is a team playing around with advanced group dynamics?

Edit:

Comments on Darrens stance:

1. Option to join the Community Working Group: very welcome, who are the admins?

2. Video call meetings: pro, as an add on, with minutes at least. (I am honing my skills in making transcripts atm... possibly I would volunteer). Best practice: have them relate to the asynchronous text discussions.

3. Operations Team Integration: pro recruiting volunteers. Pro focussing on day-to-day business. Pro taking strategic questions to a more appropriate circle. I strongly recommend to improve transparency on all levels.

4. Thanks for pointing me to the possibility of just joining the groups - there is in fact a threshold for the newcomer that could be lowered by fleshing out the invitation to do so. Comment: agree to "not necessary, desirable or possible for anyone to know everything about the coop." Yes, not everything.

5. A budget would be great.

6. Education and learning is within the scope of coop values... some persons like it, others not so much.

7. See my provocative question. Strongly disagree with a closed do-ocracy. We need transparency as a prerequisite of democratic control. Without that "democratic" is just a hollow label.

8. Participation/Passivity/Apathy: I calculate 5-10% active members from experience. It is not clever to design more seats than you can have occupied. I see that it usually comes down to a small group of notorious active persons. I believe it is crucial to stay welcoming and cultivate openness in that situation.

Suggestion: re-activate the Community Working Group to prepare structures as suggested for the Organizing Circle. Big Picture: active members use the Community Working Group to cooperate. Develop an "Organizing Circle" or whatever the name is, within this structure, with proposals, feedback and vote, to overview operations, prepare strategic decisions of the plenum and what else comes to your mind.

I think it is time to give you some background information about me, skip this, if you are not interested. I was chair of a works council at an integration company for mentally disabled persons before I retired. That is why I compare the Operations Team to the companie's leadership. We had the role of representing the interests of the employees whithin a frame of co-management that excluded economic decisions. This kind of checks and balances is at the core of democracy imho. There are always persons who own the buttons. If they are clever, they welcome some supervision. So, that is where I come from. Thanks.

Hey @tanoujin thanks for your inputs

Thanks for that insight, Darren! Just to make sure I am getting you right: you are fine with social-dot-coop being the benevolent dictatorship of a clique? So, the only difference to other instances is just that there is a team playing around with advanced group dynamics?

I'm not at all sure you are understanding me, how our governance currently is structured and/or if we just have significantly different opinions. Maybe you are and we do.

In an attempt to further clarify my position -

I dont see a closed group structure - where a small group discuss and make decisions on significant issues concerning the coop, as being more democratic and less of a benevolent dictatorship clique than how our governance is currently structured where issues are (should be?) discussed and even voted upon in working groups open for any member to join.

Especially as the people within that closed group, at least for the foreseeable future, would only receive token payments for their time, so would effectively be people with the time/inclination to put in significant volunteer efforts.

Compare this to what we have now where members can (and do) dip into involvement with issues and voting depending on how much time, experience or interest they have.

Whats really gained?

We can create better rhythm to our governance and lines of communication without having to create a closed group to rule over us.

Sure whats been happening at times can be a bit messy or protracted, sometimes theres low participation, I think theres a lot we could do to improve things.

Personally over the years Ive learnt a whole lot during various conversations in the Loomios of Social Coop and its working groups. Its been a joy (although not always easy conversations) to hear from a big range of voices, and to see the votes start to stack up, when we've been dealing with issues people have felt strongly about.

Finally Im not sure its your intention, but your comments here can at times feel a bit unnecessarily abrasive. Sure I can cope.

Yes, Darren, I think I got it more or less by now, your post was helpful to learn a few more things about the coop, thank you.

What I see here reminds me a bit of a tribal structure with plebiscitary elements. You see, I can accept your experiences are leading to different conclusions compared to mine. I also accept this state of affairs as a not-so-bad starting point. I think there would be a lot to gain, but possibly it needs much more time. One important example: escape from the dependency on the engagement of the founders to create a project that is able to survive multiple generations of agents. There is much more, but this is not the place, it do not want to derail the debate.

I do not question your intentions. I am sorry to have caused irritation. I can be a little erratic sometimes. I am working on it.

You know how it is: the dogs are barking, but the caravan moves on. No doubt, the proposal discussed here would imo raise the standard to a level that could motivate me to really engage as an ordinary member.

Anyway I appreciate the instance as the best I can get in terms of social media, and I want to take the opportunity to thank everyone who took part in establishing and upkeeping it.

I need a walk through on basic knowledge to improve the quality of my contributions, as already stated elsewhere. I will enjoy reading you and be back at a later point in time.

I'm glad that you apologized to Darren, Tanoujin. I'm not sure exactly where I come down on the issues being discussed (honestly not sure I follow it all!), but the meanspiritedness of some of your comments really rubbed me the wrong way. Seeing nastiness in a policy discussion makes me feel wary of engaging, and I imagine there are others who would feel similarly.

Surely deterring people from engaging would not be good for democracy.

I think the things that the OC can close the meeting for should be clearly defined, with a clearly defined process for changing the scope for why the OC can run closed meetings.

Yeah, ditto -- while I enjoy this sort of process-wonk work, the reality is that I'm over-committed to my eyeballs right now (something like nine positions across six organizations), so I can't volunteer in a responsible way this year.

So while I don't want to see social.coop become too autocratic at any point (although, I question how realistic a threat that is), I also don't want to see it languish for lack of clearly articulated structures for governance and participation, so the "unspoken" structures don't come to dominate. And on that account I guess I lean more towards, "let's lay down some clear, if imperfect, guidelines now, along with some mechanisms to improve them over time" as opposed to just "let's see what happens", if that makes sense?

I really, really do not like the idea of yet another group I'm in creating a final decision-making small and closed executive council, yet branding it as something new and different through language that appeals to people trying to avoid these classic top-down structures. I wish by my age that I knew how to communicate more gently, as I like everyone in Social.Coop, and I do not believe that anyone is doing any coopertivewashing / solidaritywashing intentionally, but this is very disturbing. Having arrived late to the discussion, I understand that my feelings on this will likely not be noticed or given much consideration, as there's so much fervor expressed here to get to work on this and tweak a few items, but I do not feel it would be ethical to just roll my eyes and not say that this is absolutely not what I believe we should be replicating if we do indeed see ourselves as building and showcasing an alternative vision for the world. Will go through some components in the next comment, as I cannot figure out how to do 2 consecutive line breaks in an edit field.

@M. Page-Lieberman - jotaemeisocial.coop It took me ten minutes to figure out how to reply to you. I so appreciate what you have shared here. I hope you will be among those who vote to contribute critically to the discussion.

I'm aware of sortition being used for gigs nobody wants and gigs more people want than there are spots available. In both cases, it's supposed to be an equalizer, but I really question this belief. In the case of using sortition for elite spots at universities, to sit on executive boards, or win the lottery, there are going to be many, many people who are told that by the luck of a draw, they missed out and cannot participate or have access to those opportunities. As Social.Coop is a digital space, I really do not understand why we're considering adopting this idea of sortition at all or placing numerical limits on participation in any body made up of volunteers. We're dealing with dilemmas of people being burnt out, and some taking on too much of a load, while others are left out of the loop, and an ostensibly concerningly low participation rate, so we decide to create a new executive committee where 99% of the membership cannot via statute participate in the ultimate decision-making? I do not understand. If we want to make sure that all the work gets done that needs to be done, then that's where sortition makes sense. No one would be excluded by not being picked. They would simply be fortunate if they lucked out from doing the undesirable work in a given week - but maybe not the next week. If we want to be fairer still, then we should use rotation of who has to do the undesirable work each week. The most disturbing element of this proposal to me is that the executive committee would be able to reject the recommendations of another body after the latter had done their due diligence and work and determined who they believed needed to get the boot for unacceptable behavior. This is how the gods awful Boston DSA I briefly participated in operated. It's how the mayor of my city operates. The big boss boy or big boss girl or non-binary big boss takes recommendations under advisement from the commissions that do all the work researching the topic and should be trying to figure out who they would like to add to their bodies. Yet, this is what we believe is part of the sociocracy model? Just a quick review, via Wikipedia: "Each circle has the responsibility to execute, measure, and control its own processes in achieving its goals." I do not know if we need to find some clarity on this, but sociocracy is not just provisional consent voting in round-robin, and it doesn't just mean having subgroups, but which are referred to as circles. One of the critically important ideas behind sociocracy is that it enables groups to move forward without all of the bureaucracy and confusion about how and where to go, and it creates less friction and barriers for those who are most engaged in specific work without their needing permission to proceed on the matters that they best understand beyond all others who are not engaged regularly in that specific work. We are a digital space though. Groups can be as big or as small as they believe they themselves may be to get whichever task done - but most importantly to not exclude anyone! If we want to see more people participate, then mentor, mentor, mentor! If we want to see some more tasks being done, then invite, invite, invite! Groups should be open and regularly letting the community of members know which jobs they could use some help with. If the only invitations that are ever sent out are for people to vote on another big idea proposal and comment on it, then naturally, that's the only kind of wide participation that we'll see.

@M. Page-Lieberman - jotaemeisocial.coop

Thank you for posting all this. I am quite new, and am still learning and listening. I'm a big fan of consensus, but have really only "done" it before in a small living co-op of 8-10 people.

I'd love to hear what solutions you have to what I think are pretty clear problems with the current setup.

From my perspective as a newcomer, the big problems seem to include 1) maintaining social cohesion as the group grows (resulting in lack of trust), 2) fatigue in the governance bodies, 3) unclear expectations about the responsibilities of general members, 4) fragmentation of information and conversations across multiple platforms, 4) general onboarding process, 5) lack of clarity on how decisions get made.

I posted a thread asking about how proposals get made, and although I got some helpful responses back, I still don't actually know the answer. At first someone posted a document explaining that proposals should be reviewed and discussed by the appropriate working group, but later someone else posted that they hadn't even known that that document exists. As far as I understand it, it seems that technologically anyone can make a proposal with or without a deliberative process beforehand, and that makes me worry that our written policies could quickly change in ways that don't reflect our collective values, simply based on a motivated person doing an active PR campaign.

Most members don't vote on most proposals, and I don't know whether this is because they don't care, don't know the proposals are being made, don't happen to be online that week, are too busy to keep up with everything that's going on on Loomio, or what.

What I'd like to know is that there is a clear process in place that everyone understand and is on board with. And democratic participation should be easy, not a source of stress.

What do you think we should do?

@M. Page-Lieberman - jotaemeisocial.coop Thank you thank you, I did not find time to read all the backlog, and I just want to echo that everything you're saying matches my concerns. I strongly support your points about making sure this doesn't turn into another level of hierarchical entrenched power and exclusion. The best way to be sure of that is not to simply be confident that the people working on it have good intentions but for everyone to recognize that pitfalls are likely and watch out for them proactively.

@Dynamic As I read it, @M. Page-Lieberman - jotaemeisocial.coop is making several suggestions:

• don't use sortition for any body made of volunteers

• an organizing circle should be made up of volunteers

• do use sortition to distribute work members don't want to do

• let working groups/ops teams operate as sociocratic circles, with autonomy to make decisions that are part of their work (e.g. let CWG ops team have final say on moderation decisions)

• do lots of inviting and mentoring to help get people involved in operations work

Is this accurate? Please correct so we can think about how to address these concerns in a proposal.

@Dynamic Hi! First, please pass to me a link to the thread you started, so I can take a look at it. I've been meaning to respond to you since this morning, but I've had a very hectic day and just got home and can calmly respond. I believe the answer to your very good and extremely important question (because of the far reaching implications, as this is a ubiquitous issue in all kinds of social groups beyond Social.Coop) has a simple answer. The caveat is that it takes a lot of work, as we're referring to culture.

I'm not a fan of referring to certain habits and beliefs via reified social constructions of essentialist retrograde concepts such as gender ("toxic masculinity") and race ("white supremacy culture"), but I really am not sure there's much of a better term for this phenomenon that so many groups like Social.Coop struggle with than bro culture practices. I'm tired at the end of this day and can perhaps record a video elaborating on Tuesday, but first, I ask that you glance at these three quotes (most or all of which, I imagine you're already familiar with):

"How Standards Proliferate", Randall Munroe, July 20, 2011

Some people, when confronted with a problem, think “I know, I'll use regular expressions.”

Now they have two problems.

Post to the comp.emacs.xemacs Usenet discussion group, Jamie Zawinski, August 12, 1997

Those of us who stand outside the circle of this society's definition of acceptable women;

those of us who have been forged in the crucibles of difference -- those of us who are

poor, who are lesbians, who are Black, who are older -- know that survival is not an

academic skill. It is learning how to take our differences and make them strengths. For

the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house. They may allow us

temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about

genuine change. And this fact is only threatening to those women who still define the

master's house as their only source of support.

"The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House" (comments at the “The personal and the political panel,” Second Sex Conference), Audre Lorde, September 29, 1979

I can say how we can solve these issues, but I'll be citing those three items.

@Matt Noyes Yes, those are some alternative suggestions I made, but some of them are more so to streamline work that needs to be done, but I'm not sure that they would address the particular experiences that @Dynamic has had, which were discouraging - and which, I know from experience in many groups (especially those which mostly interact online) are fairly typical. What I believe is that we do not need to create new rules or new bodies. What we need to do is be willing to change how we interact with each other and slow down - to be mindful and conscientious.

I guess Mike Strode from Kola Nut Collaborative is not here in Social.Coop (SC), but last year, we had an informal conversation, and I mentioned what @freescholar (who is the reason that I originally found out about SC and joined in 2018) said at, I believe, a Libre Planet conference a few years ago. It was that when people are interested in getting interested in free software projects, they should look around and see what they're interested and then jump in. It was of the sense that no one was going to hold their hands, so they'll have to figure it out and get to work themselves - to take some initiative. Mike and I talked about how that makes a lot of sense in the culture of open source software projects, but that this is not necessarily the same for cooperating in many solidarity economy work. And, I'll add now, especially not the case for those not primarily composed of upper-middle class professional white guy tech workers. I can elaborate at another time, but I think we need to do deeper reflection and learn from others if we want to create a community that is healthy and rewarding for people, and in which people feel that it's easy to find their way around and talk to people who have the time for them and support them in their learning and growing.

@M. Page-Lieberman - jotaemeisocial.coop +1 @freescholar

@M. Page-Lieberman - jotaemeisocial.coop Here's the thread I started about how proposals are made: https://www.loomio.com/d/vzhQxDHA/how-we-use-proposals

I'll now go back and read the rest of your post.

@Aaron Wolf @Matt Noyes @M. Page-Lieberman - @jotaemei@social.coop

This statement by Aaron,

Thank you thank you, I did not find time to read all the backlog, and I just want to echo that everything you're saying matches my concerns.

I think touches on the crux one of our central problems currently.

The Loomio threads are quite long, and anyone who is late to the conversation is confronted with the choice between 1) reading through a massive backlog (which they might not get through) before weighing in with their own perspective, or 2) looking at the most recent comments and responding to what looks interesting (and thereby quickly making the backlog even longer for anyone who is joining the conversation late, while possibly repeating points made upthread).

Proposals and straw polls are a possible tool for cutting through some of this, but then we end up with proposal fatigue. I think that happened, for example, in the "Framework for Moderation" thread here: https://www.loomio.com/d/Ahx86rZJ/framework-for-moderation (you can do a keyword seach for the words "novel" and "long", as well as "CWG" for the various suggestions people made that we should stop going back and forth on details and let the CWG use its judgment).

@Dynamic I agree, hence the attempt by @Jonathan Bean to get help from ChatGPT to summarize the thread and create a proposal.

@Andrew Shead I don't want AI anywhere near my democracy.

Very wise. I just read it and the replies, and I think we should move that conversation to the top of our priority list. I should be able to comment there later tonight or tomorrow. There were some wicked helpful experiences and perspectives shared. The one aspect I found distasteful, which can continue to be seen there is the RTFM response. This is why I also detest Robert’s Rules of Order. No one should need to read assorted explainers (themselves, not always kept up-to-date) in order to not feel overwhelmed with how confusing their initial experiences have been. As you mentioned that you’re new here, I’ll share that I’ve been here nearly 5 years, and I’ve attended two video meetings in all this time after being able to determine when they would be, but generally it’s confusing and such knowledge is kept undocumented and just in the heads of people who do not expect anyone else to be interested in dropping by to observe in order to try to get an sense of what’s going on. This is not a Social.Coop failing. It’s ubiquitous, and I’ve various stories of this practice from multiple groups along the year leading to people who are new feeling discouraged.

It’s mostly a result of automatic habits and a lack of thought put into how to make spaces more welcoming and inviting for others outside of those who we expect to see each week or month to get a job done.

Em ter., 28 de fev. de 2023 às 18:00, Dynamic (via Loomio) escreveu:

@Dynamic I agree with you completely about keeping AI away from democracy.

@Dynamic In addition to the long backlog, some of the posts are walls of text. That can be a slog to read through.

@Andrew Shead I have no time for AI in this or any conversation involving social.coop.

Hi guys I don't know how useful it is but just for fun I asked ChatGPT to summarize our Loomio discussions and the proposal and to write the proposal for us and what are some suggestions for us. feel free to take a look. Let me know if it is any good or what questions need to be tried better?

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1x2qE0Abrk-md3HFPJ2Uc-IDk8MKXwiFiWqhrHvYALBU/edit?usp=sharing

PDF is also attached.

Can you provide a summary of this conversation I can post to the Loomio group to help people understand the value of this conversation that I will post to google docs or a post?

Sure! Here's a summary of our conversation:

We discussed several topics related to Social.Coop and the transition to a solidarity, regenerative, and equitable economy. We started by exploring the history of Social.Coop, its organizational structure, and the challenges it faces in scaling and achieving its goals. We then discussed some potential solutions, including the formation of an Organizing Circle, the adoption of guiding values and principles, and the exploration of new partnerships and collaborations.

We also talked about your career interests and skills, and how you might be able to leverage these to support Social.Coop and the transition movement more broadly. We discussed the potential value of AI technology in supporting your work, including the ability to conduct research and analysis, create content and messaging, and engage with members of the Social.Coop community and other stakeholders.

Overall, our conversation highlighted the importance of active participation and engagement from members of the Social.Coop community, and the potential for innovative solutions and partnerships to drive forward the goals of the platform and the transition movement more broadly.

@Jonathan Bean It's a fun idea. A little creepy that ChatGPT reads our site and creates content...

@Jonathan Bean I find no value in ChatGPT or any LLM summarizations of our conversations.

I'm finding ChatGPT a useful tool and don't think it serves progressive social movements to vilify or overly fear this technological advance. In fact, we could likely make impressive gains in coordination by utilizing it to summarize trends about which we have very fragmented knowledge - who of us actually KNOWS the extent of social cooperative organizing in the world? ChatGPT will likely be able to represent an accurate 'count' - this could be encouraging to those of us who have been variously fighting for reforms/revolution for years and decades, perhaps lifetimes!

@Stephanie Jo Kent fine, as long as you are so kind to mark texts you post from that sources as Large Language Model Generated (LLMGT), I have no issues with it.