Governance document

[lapin7]

The vision describes why the project is being undertaken and what the desired end state is.
The product vision paints a picture of the future that draws people in. It describes who the customers are, what customers need, and how these needs will be met. It captures the essence of the product – the critical information we must know to develop and launch a winning product. Developing an effective product vision entails carefully answering the following questions:

Who is going to buy the product?

Who is the target customer?

Which customer needs will the product address?

Which product attributes are critical to satisfy the needs selected, and therefore for the success of the product?

How does the product compare against existing products, both from competitors and the same company?

What are the product’s unique selling points?

What is the target timeframe and budget to develop and launch the product?

[jimscarver]

This seems to be about defining the product rather than governance. Work on governance is in the presentation Decentralized Governance with DivvyDAO + RChain, ourchain.cc and RChain Decentralized Community Process.

[lapin7]

Jim,
You're right. In fact this product definition has already been done on a high level in the board documents, Bylaws and so.
Your presentation is a lot more meaningful for the actual governance of the coop.
So shall we close this issue and update the reference repository with a link to your presentation?

[jimscarver]

Governance is certainly an issue and we need to take from the resources I listed and ather sorces to define the governance structure. I do not think the issue should be closed but you may want to edit your initial entry in this thread.

In fact this may be an epic that includes things such as my investigation into liquid democracy candidate contracts for rchain potentially allowing whatever delegative structure we adopt by having arbitrary contracts controlling decisions and delegation particular to the organization or sub-organization. I want to be able to define my own rules for how my vote will be delegated in the various problem domains.

[lapin7]

I think it would be useful if we implement the following rule:
Do what you think is useful for Rchain and don't ask for permission. If the Board or others scream about your actions, then your actions will be discussed and modified.
Asking for permission is too slow. And asking for permission makes responsibility and accountability vague.

[patrick727]

I agree with HJ, we had a convo about being able to approve budgets and that seems to be the only limited factor to the degree at which individuals will produce autonomously.

I'm all for the "Ask forgiveness not permission" approach

[lapin7]

I plan to send out this email to registered activist. The goal is to invite them to put more effort into our collaboration. Please make changes to it. Like making it more readable and so.
It will be send out on 21st of June.

Dear Activists,

As I told you the organisation of Activist around RChain is still in it's infancy. It has to build up from the ground up. RChain Coop has a board of 5 directors and they manage the operation as long as there's not a kind of organised structure of Activists.

The situation is that there are now 58 registered activists. 18 just want to be informed about the progress of RChain and 40 want to be actively involved of which 22 are registered as collaborator on Github/RChain/Members and 16 are candidate collaborators.

As far as I can see, the most active collaborators are:
@patrick727 @plantether @jimscarver @Ken-dahl @kitblake @drbloom @kirkwood @lapin7 @entropee @desaperados

Now, there's an awful lot of things to do. So I count on you to help.

The first thing to do is to create a decentralised governance model for:

• approving projects / tasks and allocating budget in RHOC to it
• approving invoices and payments

The next thing is to get insight in how activists want to colloborate. It means defining skills and work area's.

After that we need a system for announcing tasks and getting activists assigned to it.

Please tell me what you think.

[plantether]

Question: What does “candidate collaborator” mean? Someone who has submitted a proposal? Someone who is already helping RChain?

Suggested edits in bold:

Dear Activists,
As I’ve told you, the organisation of activists around RChain is still in its infancy. It has to build up from the ground up. RChain Coop has a board of 5 directors and they alone manage the operation as long as there's not an organised structure of activists.
There are now 58 registered activists. 18 just want to be informed about the progress of RChain and 40 want to be actively involved, of which 22 are registered as collaborators on Github/RChain/Members and 16 are candidate collaborators.

As far as I can see, the most active collaborators are:
@patrick727 @plantether @jimscarver @Ken-dahl @kitblake @drbloom @kirkwood @lapin7 @entropee @desaperados
Now, there's an awful lot of things to do. So I count on you to help.
The first thing to do is to create a decentralised governance model for:
• approving projects / tasks and allocating budgets in RHOCs to them
• approving invoices and payments
The next thing is to get insight into how activists want to collaborate. It means defining skills and work areas.
After that, we need a system for announcing tasks and getting activists assigned to them.
Please tell me what you think.

[Ken-dahl]

Hi HJ - Thanks for sharing. Will think how we can collaboratively move these forward. Regards,

…

On Wed, Jun 14, 2017 at 7:37 AM, plantether ***@***.***> wrote: Question: What does “candidate collaborator” mean? Someone who has submitted a proposal? Someone who is already helping RChain? Suggested edits in bold: Dear Activists, As *I’ve* told you**,** the organisation of *activists* around RChain is still in *its* infancy. It has to build up from the ground up. RChain Coop has a board of 5 directors and they *alone* manage the operation as long as there's *not an* organised structure of *activists*. *There* are now 58 registered activists. 18 just want to be informed about the progress of RChain and 40 want to be actively involved**,** of which 22 are registered as *collaborators* on Github/RChain/Members and 16 are candidate collaborators. As far as I can see**,** the most active collaborators are: @patrick727 <https://github.com/patrick727> @plantether <https://github.com/plantether> @jimscarver <https://github.com/jimscarver> @Ken-dahl <https://github.com/ken-dahl> @kitblake <https://github.com/kitblake> @drbloom <https://github.com/drbloom> @kirkwood <https://github.com/kirkwood> @lapin7 <https://github.com/lapin7> @entropee ***@***.*** Now, there's an awful lot of things to do. So I count on you to help. The first thing to do is to create a decentralised governance model for: • approving projects / tasks and allocating *budgets* in *RHOCs to them* • approving invoices and payments The next thing is to get insight *into* how *activists* want to *collaborate*. It means defining skills and work *areas*. After that*,* we need a system for announcing tasks and getting activists assigned to *them*. Please tell me what you think. — You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#4 (comment)>, or mute the thread <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AaCFaTXs9hVMy_6wik3xElPUfFYD2fR3ks5sD-ItgaJpZM4Mcxb-> .

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[patrick727]

I like it so far.

First things first is the budget and process of approval. Maybe working on a budget today in the meeting will get things catalyzed.

Cheers

[lapin7]

@plantether
Question: What does “candidate collaborator” mean?
Admin's on GitHub can invite githubbers to become a collaborator. So there are 16 persons that have been invited, but they didn't respond yet. For example: @leithaus, @denmanjoseph92, @edeykholt. But they have access anyway, because they are already member of the github organisation RChain.

So a better name would be: invited collaborators

[lapin7]

@plantether
Thanks for the edits. Let's go on with your version.

BTW. the approval process for invoices and paying them in RHOC's is a big item at the moment, because as far as I understand, @leithaus wants to approve every expenditure. This will be a very laborious process and it will keep him away from development on RChain.

So I think as long as @leithaus knows that RHOC's are spend on work executed by Activists then he should not care about what exactly has been done. It would be sufficient for him to give another 1 million RHOC to be spend on work and trust the Activist approval process for allocating budgets on projects and tasks.

The Activists themselves can see in more detail whether work has been done in a proper way and decide if that work has some utility for RChain. If it's useless work then that work will stop almost automatically, because it won't be appreciated nor rewarded with RHOC.

This does not mean that expenditures are not closely monitored or administrated. Each expenditure needs a correct invoice and approval by the Activist process. This is to be able to comply with normal book accounting practices.

However the whole goal is to see the reward in RHOC for work done as a mean to distribute RHOC in as much hands as possible. @leithaus said in the last hang-out that he supports a fast distribution process. I think it's much more sympathetic to reward people for their work then to exchange RHOC for $$$$. Like that anybody with skills on the planet can participate and otherwise only people with money could participate.

[plantether]

Hi, @lapin7
"Invited collaborators" sounds clear. I like that wording.

[jimscarver]

Based on the governance process being developed by diglife.com I suggest @lapin7 @patrick727 @plantether @jimscarver @Ken-dahl @kitblake @drbloom @kirkwood @lapin7 @entropee @desaperados comprize the initial interim management circle employing a weak sociocratic consent process.
Then individuals form into specialized teams or circles doubly linked with other circles.
The interim management circle delegates authority to other circles in order to decentralize the organization.
The principles of self-management will be adopted where no one can tell anyone what to do and the fabric of the organization is built on peer to peer win-win agreements among members.

[kitblake]

IMO the sociocratic consent process is "good enough for now, safe enough to try".
(that's a quote from the Wikipedia article)

[kitblake]

The FAQ has been published and it's now linked in the main menu of the website. The FAQ says "To sign up there’s a pre-registration form which requests basic info. After filling it out, you’ll be contacted with a welcome email containing links and information."

We should get that Welcome email worked out. The email above was intended to be sent to the current list of Activists. We could also use it more or less as-is for a Welcome email to new sign-ups just by adding a few links to Activist resources. Shall I work on a draft?

IMHO, the Welcome email should be a personal email from someone. That could be @lapin7, but I'd volunteer to share some of the burden. Later we might need to automate it.

ToDo: those people who signed up but just want to be informed about progress need to have their addresses migrated to the mailing list. A few minutes work.

[patrick727]

@kitblake yes please, we also need to set up some sort of flow where we the form leads into a list and triggers the welcome email. I agree automate it as soon as possible.

[lapin7]

Dear all Tonight I'm invited for a meeting about the workflow of registering members of the coop. Participants: Greg Ed Evan KennyRowe HJ I want to bring forward our welcome mail and process. We have now: Members Activists (GitHubbers + Mattermosters) Lurkers (interested inactive people) Any ideas that I have bring on the table during that meeting? Cheers HJ Hendrik Jan Hilbolling lapin7@gmail.com +31650291532

…

On 8 Aug 2017, at 15:15, patrick727 ***@***.***> wrote: @kitblake yes please, we also need to set up some sort of flow where we the form leads into a list and triggers the welcome email. I agree automate it as soon as possible. — You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub, or mute the thread.