Ideas on community support and management

I wonder what people think about us approaching the EFF https://www.eff.org/ or a similar group to help represent our users (the people). Or should we try and set up similar? It strikes me as something that is focussed on people would be good, it may be this very community itself. I am not sure, I don’t believe in re-inventing wheels but is the EFF representative of people or … Worries me there are groups that seem to represent part of the world (the rich part) and perhaps we can do better.

Anyway this is a usual searching question to try and look at consolidating the community behind a charter and group who is focused on users as opposed to projects or just technology.

I may be way off or sleep depraved :slight_smile: So all comments and critique welcomed. We do have the MaidSafe Foundation and there is a board forming there to try and do similar, it may be to close to MaidSafe though? Certainly the name seemed to make people feel like that previously.

This may be linked to How does "the community" decide things? - Features - Safe Network Forum although that worryingly focusses on safecoin and not the whole network. We need to remember this project is to enable and protect all the worlds people (well its my drive for sure). To me this is way more than cash or profit (although important), its freedom and privacy to innovate and evolve our worlds people together. Its everything we have in this project I think and nothing in particular.

5 Likes

Well, I guess there is no real need to involve the EFF other than asking them to spread the word as soon as the project is ready for production, maybe already at beta test. As long as the users don’t get any problems with some kind of authority we hopefully don’t need the EFF, although it might make sense to get a feeling what the users could face. On the other hand that really depends on the country how and if users can be held responsible and to what extend.

So, to sum up. Makes sense to contact them and let’s hear what they have to say about the whole project.

@dirvine I really think something based on the Meritocratic Governance Model for OSS could help us here. IMHO you need to have proven servants who have shown they care about the future, having cared extensively in the past.

2 Likes

Decentralized autonomous governance. All we need is voting and you can do it all on a blockchain or on SAFE Network.

As for who should be the public representative? Hire some lobbyists and explain what MaidSafe is to politicians. Explain the politician issues to politicians early on so that it can be understood.

I don’t see a reason why we need a group or groups so I don’t understand the question beyond the need for lobbyists to represent the community to old school politicians.

Have a look at liquid democracy or Place a Vote http://placeavote.com/

The “user” is everyone who use the system. This will include farmers, builders, browsers and consumers of apps - in no specific order. What are we asking for here? Our goals are freedom and privacy for all the world’s people. Are we looking for ways to stay on target while still allowing innovation?

Figuring out what we want is sometimes easier when we know what we don’t want. So what is that? Personally I don’t want any one economic, political, or humanitarian group to take over the direction of the SAFE network. I’m not involved with the communities of bitcoin, but it seems of late that I’m reading a lot about the bitcoin foundation doing a lot that a lot of the bitcoin users don’t like. Maybe it’s all just press…

I want a tool that I (the majority and minority) can use to be free in all ways possible, including ways I’ve not thought of yet. I want people (from economic, political, and humanitarian groups) who share that view to be involved and have influence.

I have had some time to read this and although it’s a bit incomplete I think it’s exactly what I was looking for. Some kind of mechanism where everyone is equal but try to create a decision making process that works. I think something like this for our community would be very beneficial. As long as we can ensure these groups never become leaders in the normal sense, to no ego, no control etc. are important.

I really like this, thanks a lot for the link. I encourage others to read that and see what they think.

1 Like

Here is another post (a bit less detailed and maybe more reader friendly) about the Meritocratic Model. Lazy Consensus is a HUGE key to making the whole system work. This is designed for software development, but I can see how it could be changed and adopted into a community where software is not the main goal.

I think this model handles this well, but there are cases in society when the Meritocracy becomes an Oligarchy, so we need to find ways to protect against this. If it’s going to last beyond our lifetimes :wink: we need to find a way to protect against this…

A meritocracy does not have defined leaders and no concept of delegation. Everyone is equal. Everyone is a volunteer. Everyone gets the same rewards for contribution. Whilst someone may indicate that a task is awaiting a volunteer that task cannot be delegated. External relationships between contributors might result in delegation taking place outside of the community, but that power structure has no influence on the project itself.

Whilst there are no project leaders there are certain traits that make people effective community leaders. Such people are key to the ongoing health of a meritocratic community and therefore the project itself. An ability to demonstrate how others might earn merit and then take a step back and see what happens is perhaps the best skill for a community leader to have since a healthy project community leads to a more viable open development model and thus to a more viable software output.

1 Like

I thought I’d posted support for this but can only see my “like”. Anyway, I read it all (recommended) and like it very much. I agree with @dirvine it seems to suit us but I’m not the best person to understand our needs in this respect.

1 Like