Forum 1: 15th July 2023
Here's the documentation of our first Grassroots Governance Forum. You'll see top-level summaries for each breakout room, with more detail in a sub-page.
Summaries
Breakout room 1: tooling to support decentralised communities
Top-level summary:
Is “tooling” even the right place to start? Or do we need to look at the human level and our interrelationships first?
If we do build tools - are they tools to support our values? such as overcoming linguistic exclusion, disability exclusion, etc?
What actually ARE our values? How do we find this out - and do we need to all agree on the same values? If not, how can we work together, but still let different groups have different values and priorities?
Find your tribe, and work outwards from there.
Let’s look at our similarities as well as our differences.
To read the detail, see here.
Breakout room 2: sNET governance issues
Top-level summary:
We addressed the challenges faced by communities and organisations exploring different governance models, with a focus on fostering community participation and effectively handling decision-making and resources within a decentralised ecosystem. The importance of trust, collective confidence, and learning from various sources was emphasised.
We discussed the transition of power within an organisation, and explored the idea of a Supervisory Council to aid in decision-making and represent community perspectives. It's challenging to manage a large number of people effectively. Developing a governance system and creating connections within a DAO takes considerable time and effort, and governance decisions for wicked problems may lead to uncertain outcomes.
Both Deep Funding and sNET Ambassador Program are exploring mechanisms to fund projects and initiatives in a sustainable manner, to help voice community opinions and advise the Supervisory Council from a community perspective. Both of these programs encourage community participation to address challenges from the bottom-up.
We noted the value of preserving the memory and history of discussions and decisions.
The main goal is to build trust within the community to tackle wicked problems and foster collective decision-making. Prioritising decisions that are more likely to succeed, raising flags for potential issues, and planning for various scenarios. We also pondered the use of AI to assist with governance, despite recognizing that AI can be less forgiving than human decision-makers.
To read the detail, see this Miro board
Plenary session: looking at our similarities
Top-level summary:
Diversity: how do we engage with others who do things differently? (Ideas: Assert our own approach and say “if you want to join us, this is how we work? Listen more, and be more asset-based? Start from a position of learning about how others do it? Go to others where they are? Invite them to come to us? Help set things up, and then know when to leave?)
Should we try to define the Commons that is being built here? Paradox of tolerance - who do we let in?
What exactly is “trust” between people and between groups; how do we establish it; and how do we become resilient enough to overcome breaches of it?
Importance of developing a common language, e.g. on different forms of decision-making (Next time, we need a breakout room to introduce new people to what a DAO is)
Governance work is often left unfunded. How do we incentivise it? The “experts” are here, in a call like this - how do we fund that, and create real co-production with IOG/CF/Emurgo?
To read the detail, see here.
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