Probably going off topic. I think the techs should be given the trust to have more power.
I think we have a bottle neck of power and tasks that the directors are currently responsible for.
I think they are over worked and struggling to keep up with things.
The techs could have more power to act without constantly tieing up the directors in very minor stuff. That means the stuff they should be working on suffers.
We would be better served that way.
One thing is for sure. This is only going to get harder and harder for the directors as the membership grows. I think we’re suffering on the ground.
Could you elaborate, because I refer back to my prior point about @roles…
My point being that the members (with the S) are the people with the power, not the techs. At present @roles have autonomy in their area within the context of the larger organisations rules and processes, and are given full autonomy over their budget.
I am not sure how much more power they could have?
I’m gonna flag your post for moving to a new topic as this is a good aside to have.
I am envious of those who have the time and inclination to write such long and detailed posts. Thank you for taking the debate forward!
It seems to me that this should be pivoting around the @roles. They should be the ones who are deciding on how decisions are made. There should be a scale:
We can decide this here and now, let’s do it and get on.
We should post what we have decided, wait a few days and see if anyone objects.
We should open this up to discussion online and ask for opinions.
We should discuss this at a monthly meeting.
We should call a special meeting to discuss this.
We should pass this decision on to the directors.
The @roles need to be publicly responsible for deciding how the decisions are made, and if we don’t trust individuals to do that then they shouldn’t have @roles. We should be able to challenge how those decisions were made, too.
Personally, and slightly seperately, I’m not sure I have too much of a problem with those who are in the space most often making the majority of the decisions. By definition the more you are there the more of a stake you hold.
All this will benefit by us having the @roles clearly defined. And moving forwards from there. Some great stuff here, but at the moment our governance structure isn’t ‘people in the space make all the decisions’. That is also very similar to anarchy.
This makes a lot of sense to me and I think it’s worth formalising what type of decisions fall into what category. For example The first category could include anything that costs less than £5 and that doesn’t encroach on or affect any other area, and working upwards from there. I think that pinning this down would ease some of the frustrations / tensions and unease that’s coming up around this at the moment.
I also think there should be at a minimum, 3 people actively involved in the @ role for each area and that they should all be in agreement before any proposal is put forward.
I want to echo what Sarah, it’s about when they choose ach of these categorisations and how do we open this up to the group and call it.
It’s not clear to me that in lieu of any guidelines or accountability the majority are not just doing whats convenient for them and going with option 1, “let’s do it and get on”. Instead citing that anything other than this is: tedious, a waste of time, brings down enthusiasm, or lacking in agency, etc…
It’s really easy to put some guidelines in place and see how it goes, imperfect rules are better than no rules. The below isn’t meant to be definitive, or exhaustive, there’s all ready changes to it I would make, I’d like to see a working group take it, finesse it, add in all the other suggestions, then roll it out. Release early release often.
Honestly, I really don’t get why we all want to vote given the way it pits one idea against another and one or more of the ideas will totally fail leaving people unheard, when often decisions cover a number of parameters.
From my view voting will become divisive and politicise the issue when actually we all want to get to the right/best solution rather than winning the vote.
Personally, I would rather see the vote only happen if we cannot reach a consensus. That we have a conversation and try to use reasoning and logic to talk out what the best idea is.
Do we all, all ~150 of us? If we did then this is a community consensus, a majority no? So there should be respect for that, for the community rather than criticising other people’s opions just because they differ from your own?
obviously we don’t all want to vote, a couple of people have mentioned it. Also a vote can be for more than one thing, more than one proposal or solution, and can be a vote for more investigation rather than a final decision. I vote the proposing at role investigates options A and C further, options B and D are no longer relevant. Otherwise keeping track of where the consensus is on discourse I think is difficult and favors the loudest.
I think proposals and votes could be on a slightly different system than discourse, so they don’t sink to the bottom, or get pinned, and publicised in a members newsletter to maximise participation.
All just ideas though, like I said, needs finessing by a working group.
Many of the things we need to decide in the space get bogged down in arguments where various people have a vision of the solution and argue for that rather than discussing the points with an open mind.
I feel it would make more sense that we approach and discuss this rather than just voting on who’s vision we take.
All I am saying is a group conversation allows for us to reason out a best possible solution and if there are elements unresolved we can still vote on it.
I like the decision making proposal aswell.
Seems like a good idea.
I think what you’re saying is if something bigger needs implementing techs would do some kind of consultation. Draw out a couple of formal proposals.
Have a week or two for questions and answer to be given, votes cast and in some circumstances perhaps vitos to be made. (Let’s say if the laser techs proposed building a laser cannon turret it could be vito’ld by members and / or directors.)
Seems like a good way to move things forward with less time wasting.
I like that they have to provide an option.
Maybe a formal process for this could be written up.
Very simple terms:
Consultation
Proposal
Feedback
voting
Final draft
Action