OK, I’ve changed it again…
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Having now read and hopefully understood the open web governance body proposal, my immediate thoughts are that the body called ‘The Voices’ has too much power and there seems to be no sense-checking step in the process. Of course I’m making assumptions here based on what I’m taking from the linked doc, which is only an outline.
I can understand how ‘The Body’ is made up from the three constituencies, and it’s great that any constituent can submit a proposal to The Body. I’m assuming that The Body, having reached ‘core consensus’ (whatever that might be) about a proposal, then hands that proposal off to a Group for detailed scrutiny prior to being ratified. The Group liaises with The Voices, presumably until such time as a proposal is deemed fit for ratification, and then it looks like The Voices can just sign off on that and it goes onto the statute. I would suggest that The Body is the sovereign entity and therefore it is The Body that signs off on a scrutinised proposal, not The Voices.
I don’t understand some things:
- What does “core consent” actually mean and how is it achieved. Normally I’d expect some sort of sociocratic process to be deployed in order to achieve such consent, but that’s perhaps impractical given the likely size of The Body.
- Who are the members of a Group - do they come from The Body, does the Group include the submitter of the Proposal.
- What is the lifespan of The Voices? Are The Voices selected just to deal with a given Group/Proposal or does it exist for the duration of the lifespan of The Body (what is the lifespan of The Body?) and deal with multiple Groups/Proposals? Or maybe something else?
- In the case of a very simple Proposal, can The Body shortcut the process?
- What happens in the case of a Proposal that has “core consent” but then as a result of the scrutiny of a Group, is deemed to be shite?
- I assume the entire process happens in the open, so anyone can monitor what’s going on. What processes exist to support whistleblowers?
That’s enough for now.
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Really good questions, thanks. Let’s try and address some issues.
The need for “governance” came out of a practical problem, the #activitypub community is made up of “cats” you know the slogan “herding cats” we were doing seminars outreach to powerful EU Eurocrats on why they should be interested in #activertypub and interesting they really are interested. We had no voice, only “cats” with everyone pushing their own tiny projects, it was a lot of work and stress, but we got the presentations done.
Back to the questions. A lot of the issues you are outlining are actually covered outside what is normally though of as process - It’s designed to be messy, it’s not designed to be tidy. Let’s illustrate this by answering each point.
Yep, they do, but they are subject to “recall”, and gain a lot from working with the “groups” the voices only get TOTAL power with consensus -1 which is a hard thing to acheave without the first working to building consensus through the body and groups and other voices.
You are right the is no sense checking in the formal sense, but remember the is no hard power, people only have to do things if they want to, its “governance” of a disorganization not a traditional power structer. if people get too “nutty” the is the power of “recall” if the body becomes to nutty the is the power of “dilution” more people can join the body.
The groups don’t have to talk to anyone, though will work better when they do, the voices can be involved or not worked better when they are - good to remember the “cats” at the beginning on this one.
The is no statute and no laws as this is “governance” with equation marks - there will be a growing body of mythos and traditions that people can call on when making decisions. There are no police or courts, nobody has to do anything - “cats”.
The body has negative power over the voices, it can recall them, which is the same as not signing off on their actions. The problem we are trying to solve is focus in a anarchistic/libertarian movement - how to talk to traditional burocraceys while still talking/being relevant to ourselves. The is a level of trust involved which is held in place by the #4opens
That’s a good question, that is not defined. It’s important to look at the codebase here, everything we talk about is the “default” the actual codebase can redefine just about every variable, it’s a set of tools for horazonatlish “governance” It’s up to the body to decide everything on how to use these tools if they change the default.
We have the traditional voting modals, we have a threshold etc.
The body can be restricted in size by fixing the first variable in this case it would be the instances/stakeholders or can be left to grow organically this is up to the body itself.
The group is made up of anybody in the body who needs to be a part of it - in this everything is a mirror of the same process #KISS You ask a hard question about “outside” experts/original submitter which i don’t have an easy solution to - so we would add it as an option that can be turned on or off.
They serve the same as the body, currently have two options 1 year, half every 6 month rolling to facilitate hand holding or easy/simple one year.
Due to the sortation and work load you will likely have a high turn over of new body members, the “recalling” will add to this as there are a lot of “nutters” sortation will bring up fresh people for the body to work 
this is a good thing as “trust” is built from this.
The voices are “trusted” to be a voice of the fedivers for their term, if they are not “trusted” they will be recalled to the body, and if they are nutters they will be recalled out of the body and a new member added ect.
Yep decisions can be made at different levels, on the image the thickness of the arrow coming out (with the blunt end) is the strength of that voice.
The group says it shite, and then move on, if the group keeps pushing shit then the voices ignore this group and in the end the body likely recalls it and replaces it with a new group - this is up to the body/voices.
Yes, sadly some good decisions that are not popular inside/outside the body/groups will be ignored we are still self “governing” cats the is no getting away from this.
Yep, based on the #4opens so everything is done with activertypub in open process, its a trust based network, if people won’t privacy then they can resign/not sign up from public governance and work through people who are happy to do open process.
Whistleblowering is a case for media not “governance” so is dealt with in this sister project Home - Open-Media-Network - Open Media Network
Thank you for the interesting questions.
An interesting subject for this group is how this level of messy “governance” can cooperate with more formal models of governance like traditional cooperatives. The two are complementary - but the question is how
To answer a unasked question. The code is the traditional admins of the site. The body is users/the groups mods/the voices admins. We have as limited outside control as possible.
There are an optional bag of “limits” that can be added to actions to mediate out of control actions - like time-outs/consensus on actions etc. these are pick and mix, we put in a “default” set to start body’s off - It’s up to the body how these work ongoing.
The is power in default, it’s the main power of the coders and designers who build the codebase.
Any more feedback on this, the more people who look/feedback the better bridge we build 
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