[Noisebridge-discuss] better tech for making decisions (other hackerspaces encouraged to comment!)

[Torrie Fischer]

On Wednesday, April 02, 2014 10:22:03 Naomi Most wrote:
> One strong discussion topic that came up at the meeting tonight was
> the idea of finding a better technology for discussion and
> decision-making than the one we have now.
> 
> The technology we use now is meeting up at one specific time and
> place, with very little discussed beforehand.  The limitations of this
> technology:
> 
> * strongly advantages the viewpoints of people who have more free time.
> 
> * has demonstrably disenfranchised those who have wanted to use
> "proxy" methods to voice their views.
> 
> 
> So rather than talk about a new voting method, which would entail the
> same above problems, we talked about ways to get greater participation
> before a meeting, where all interested parties could participate in
> the discussion topics that interest them.  Such a technology would
> have the following features:
> 
> * Internal to Noisebridge (so, NOT the nb-discuss list).
> 
> * Secure (reasonably protected from surveillance by unwanted parties)
> 
> * Conducive to discussion -- bonus points for enabling
> compartmentalized discussions (e.g. using collaboration software like
> Github, Slack, others...)
> 
> * Accessible via as many forms of technology as possible (that's a
> tough one... maybe we compromise at "you can participate via consoles
> at the NB space")
> 
> 
> Ideas surfaced such as:
> 
> * setting up a separate mailing list specifically for discussions
> between members / associate members /
> whatever-we-call-people-these-days, with approval needed to join the
> list and very "active moderation"
> 
> * building a technology to our needs.

I've been working on this project for a while that provides a thorough API to 
a hackerspace, including storing membership records, collecting dues, etc. 

http://spiff.readthedocs.org/en/latest/

Adding various decision making methods to it has been a goal of mine for a 
while, but alas, I'm the only contributor to it at the moment and lack the 
time.

> 
> * finding some other technology that already embodies the structure
> and accessibility we want.

There exists this web app thingee that says they're all about consensus based 
decision making:

https://www.loomio.org/

> 
> I know some hackerspaces have their own bespoke tech for
> decisionmaking, and I'd like to see it profiled in this thread -- its
> advantages, limitations, and how well it's been working so far.

Sorry, nothing to contribute from SYNHAK yet. We're also in a technological 
void with decision making.

> 
> 
> Cheers,
> Naomi
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