Loom.io - Require Proposal to Start New Groups


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Proposal: Loom.io - Require Proposal to Start New Groups.

For the sake of keeping order and preventing too many groups from starting up at once (as groups, at the moment, are purpose-driven), I think it would be sane to propose that if someone wants to start a subgroup for Diaspora Community, we should try to take a vote on its creation and necessity. (For example take a look at this proposal here: http://loom.io/discussions/694)

As a community, we owe it to ourselves to be as organized as we possibly can. That includes setting up workflows and policies to prevent clutter from overflowing on our boards of governance and decision-making.


Outcome: N/A

Votes:

  • Yes: 8
  • Abstain: 1
  • No: 2
  • Block: 1

Note: This proposal was imported from Loomio. Vote details, some comments and metadata were not imported. Click here to view the proposal with all details on Loomio.

Sean, are we not evaluating the platform? I do not think such restrictions are a good idea right now.

Thanks, Sean. That’s a very sensible idea. I’ve been getting a flood of emails over the past few days as people have started new groups/divisions etc, and there’s already too much to deal with. Organised anarchy is better than complete anarchy, and I support your proposal.

@Altruism: I think it pretty much goes without saying that we’ll be adopting it soon. The support from the community users evaluating it has been more or less unanimous. Henceforth, if we adopt it, we need to have some rules about how we use it, so that we can stay organized.

I would see it as a general guideline. Kinda wiki spirit not to create a top level category or group without at least announcing it.

Okay, so how does this work? We have 8 yesses, 2 noes, and a block. We have to work through the block before we come to a decision?

I think a good, simple process is to just wait for the proposal to run out, and just rule by majority vote. I do agree that we’ll need moderators, but for now, we’re small enough that it’s not really an issue.

For example, if you made a proposal to start a “Diaspora Tea-Drinking Group”, and somehow it passed by a wide margin, I’d be okay with setting it up promptly in the meantime. :wink:

Brent, no idea, I guess we haven’t decided yet :smiley:

I do agree on limits and control, but it would be better if it was not enforced with access controls unless things really get out of control. That is why I think this needs more elaboration.

So Sean - how do you propose this is enforced since you proposed this? :slight_smile:

Specific proposals > non-specific proposals

At this point, I’d say the easiest way to enforce it is to just follow a good-faith model. Think of it as a guideline more than a rule- we can all agree that spinning up a group that has no real defined purpose is bad, and adds clutter.

For the sake of not inconveniencing everyone else, we can also agree that really, the simplest thing to do is to just follow the process. The enforcement comes with the repercussion: if you don’t follow the guideline, you’re likely to clutter up the place and annoy other members on our governance boards. Heck, if it’s really a problem, we can just close the non-approved group in worst-case scenarios.

What do you think?

Sounds good to me. We need to follow up this proposal later in some kind of community guidelines page.

@Jason: I concur.

I think we should invite all the people from here before laying down any "rules."
https://framapad.org/diaspora-community-users

I mean I thought that this was supposed to be for the community.

I’m not saying I want to run this group, but I’m not understanding why an employee from Diaspora is deciding the rules here? Sorry, Sean. I don’t mean to rip, but it feels like expediency is more important than representation.

I’d like to hear what other people think. I’m pretty clear what Sean thinks.

I agree with Justin even though he is voting yes. But I also agree with Altruism and with Dave Y.

As far as too many groups being started who has created the majority of these groups? And what is the “chaos” that we are afraid of happening?

It’s clear that we can talk to the devs of Loom.io to help us move groups if we want. I think everyone should be free to speak. The irony is pretty amazing to me, considering the entire point of diaspora in the first place.

I think it is ridiculous to ask permission from everyone to start a new group. I also think majority rule to start a new group is a pretty scary proposition when I seem to be the minority here. And when people read this, if they are fair minded they weill be very surprised by this move. I gather that everyone would feel the same as I do were you in my shoes.

I think we need more non-technical people here. I think we need to not make decisions quickly. What is the hurry anyway? I think there needs to be a little more room given for people to just be able to talk and decide without having it forced into Roberts Rules of Parliament.

Sorry I thought I made a typo and could correct it.

MP, I agree with you and not only that… I understand your reaction, because Sean’s proposal came as a direct reaction to you creating a group. I also created a group on top level (not a sub-group), I did so without asking for permission, I did not crate a proposal for others to vote if it was necessary or not. But hey, maybe it was a “bad” thing.

I find the “block position” interesting, it reminds me of the UN security council :slight_smile:

@altruism: How do you know that Sean did this?

@Sean: Is it true that you created this in direct reaction to my creating a group? If so, why?

@Altruism: LOL. Thanks for keeping your humor!

I think that there should be some process to creating groups. Otherwise, you could, theoretically, have 15-20 groups created by people, and there would be a lot of redundancy and disorder. For instance, we don’t need to have 6 groups for development. My opinion is the fewer groups, the better.

Too many groups reduces efficiency, and causes fragmentation.