TL:DR - Does the Advice Process need updating? Should we keep Talk?

If neither of these questions interest you, or if you don't care about shaping Kiez Burn, then this text might be too long for you 🙂

Disclaimer

As a continued experiment, this AP will be running on all 3 current channels;

• Talk

• Wiki

• Discord

Enage with whichever platform is most comfortable for you.

I will do the hard work of consolidating the advice offered. I will consolidate it all into Talk, as I believe it is the most appropriate tool for this task, and my prefered method. This should also give at least myself, the opportunity to review these different platforms for discussion.

Preamble

In recent times, Advice Processes (AP) as a mechanism, and Talk as a platform, have come into question. I hope with this AP, we can review this means of empowering our participants and improve it too it's next generation.

In this AP, we hope to address both:

The scope, use, implementation and purpose of AP's

and

Suitable platform(s) and frameworks/templates

The Advice Process was voted in as the mechanism by which decisions are made at Kiez Burn, via reverse-preference vote, by the Verein members, at a special assembly in autumn of 2019.

Talk was also established as the default platform for organisation and, by extension, advice processes.

Key / Definitions

• Big Decsisions / Big APs = How to dristribute tickets, ticket price, low-income, event dates, location, art grant distribution amount & framework

• AP = advice process depending on the context, could be a;

  • noun - an AP - a specific situation in which someone is asking or asked for advice (i.e. this page is an AP asking for advice)

  • verb - the AP - the mechanism and framework for which decisions are made and advice is requested. (i.e. in this AP we are discussing the AP = how do we make decisions at KB)

Definition of the Advice Process

Purpose of the Advice Process

• To enable any individual to take an informed, consented and transparent decision regarding the operation or organisation of the Kiez Burn event or Verein.

• To minimise the requirement for hierarchical intervention from core event organisers or the board

Advantages of the current Talk-AP:

• Digitally inclusive - many more people can engage in a discussion than would be possible with in-person meetings

• Net time-saver - async discussions save a lot of time which would've been spent listening to other people waffle at 1x talking speed

• Space for structured thoughts and advice - spending time editing a response improves the quality and conciseness of the advice

• Transparency and recording by default - everyone can see how we came to the conclusion we did

• Realizers are can be enabled to do big things. It's not easy, and you do need access to certain resources - time, writting and reading skills, moderation ability, time, the will to try to make change in the world. But you don't need permission to ask for advice!

Disadvantages of the current Talk-AP:

• Restrictive for the:

  • tech-phobic - new/additional platforms can be stressful to some

  • dyslexic - large blocks of text can cause anxiety

• In person meetings are more spiritually rewarding. Humans are social creatures by nature, and a large feature of Kiez Burn is the community experience.

• Tone is easily lost, argument's have flared up that could've been handled differently in person

Limitations of the current framework of AP:

• Some decisions affect the liability of the board, and all of their personal assets, and require their vote of approval. Anyone can't simply do anything as initially implied.

• Some decisions (i.e ticket price and distribution method) affect either everyone, or far too many people to justify 'consensual' Do-ocracy.

• Not everyone is qualified to fulfill a role. There is some risk in allowing 'anyone to do anything', as excited, yet not-competent participants can cause major problems (time-drains) for their co-realizers or the board.

Addressing some hard-truths about APs:

• Your opinion doesn't matter, your advice does

• Everyone's advice does not have equal value

• Some people's advice has no value

• Consensual do-ocracy will take more time than do-ocracy. Consent is a principle here, and that comes with time and energy investment. Asking for permission takes longer than asking for forgivness, and it can feel restrictive to many.

The Platform Question

1. One more platform - concerns have been expressed at Kiez Burn's large number of platforms. Technically it's 11, but only 4 of them can be actively used (discord, wiki, talk, Gdocs), the rest are passive (telegram channel, newsletter, website, portal, and others no one thinks/uses).

2. Some people don't like Talk as a platform

3. A test has been run on both the Wiki and on Discord to see if we can move the Advice Process off of Talk.

   1. Wiki - definitely has strong potential for small AP's that require a little feedback from few stakeholders. The coments functions provide the ability for response threads on specific sections of text, which is very cool. But the lack of threaded comments, reactions, or proper voting tech make it too limited for big APs.

   2. Discord - has the highest general usage, and therefore the most reach. In the rest run, Discord's nature as a 'chat space' changes the quality, frequency, and mindset of the users. It was much harder to have structured discussion around specific topics.

4. Other platforms have been proposed; I.e. Discourse, Fedora, Reddit etc

5. In-Person is still technically an option (and having no digital platform)

Addressing these points

1. If we can't get 3.1. and 3.2. to work, then we need a suitable platform for big decisions. So we can't get around having a dedicated platform. The only question remains; which platform is best?

2. Whoever wants to explore and experiment with an alternative platform is encouraged to do so. Once a viable alternative has been tested we can consider being free of Talk. (See 6.)

3. I believe we should not restrict APs to Talk. We could experiment with Realizers running APs on their platform of choice.

   1. The Wiki is well suited for small-group discussions covering the details of a document. i.e. 3-10 affected persons & experts in a conversation.

   2. Discord is well-suited if the topic isn't heavy and the realizer just needs some casual input. i.e. 1-3 affected persons. In 90% of those use cases, ensuring the char happens in their respective discord chat is sufficient, and there's no need for special AP space.

   3. Both of these options can fulfill the transparency and ease-of-access questions. But in reality, it does not see possible to run big decisions

4. If we establish that we need a dedicated platform for big APs, and that we cannot do without one then:

   1. Discourse - The current AP discussion platform for Borderland. It's much like Talk, but has more advanced features, a mobile-app, and a more modern feel to it. It's also open-source.

   2. Fedora / KBin - These are open-source variants of Reddit. The main advantage of these platforms (other than being open-source) is the upvoting capacity in the forum channels. I believe this is a feature that would really help the AP.

   3. Reddit - Same as above, but the server is fully public and would require much heavier moderation. Also our decisions could be visibel to the world. But it's mobile friendly and a more modern platform than the above 2.

   4. Any other ideas? - I do not believe I am tech savvy enough to set up any of these systems, so I can only advocate for whatever a Robot would offer to take on as a responsibility. Personally, I am in support of migrating to a different platform. If any skilled techie would like to run the experiment I can support.

5. Reviewing the "when do we host KB?" AP from last year, there is no way that conversation could have been as in depth or as inclusive if it was in person. Mars was running all it's introduction events with an open invitation, but in-person only, which is why most of Kiez Burn had no idea what, why and when it was happening. The individuals left out of digital discourse (tech-a-phobes) are significantly lower in number than those left out by in-person meetings (not-in Berlin / available at the date of the meeting) . I propose a hybrid solution to this issue below.

From this point on, whenever I refer to Talk, I am refering to whichever online platform is utilized to exectue big APs.

Some ideas of how to (potentially drastically) improve the Talk experience:

• AI - Summaries, TL:DR on each post

• AI - Voice-messages-to-summarised-text - a casual rambling-talk into a phone can be broken down to its useful elements for quick review. This enables individuals with poor text-writing skills to contribute more meaningfully.

• AI - video-to-summarised-text - talk can handle video uploads, these can be very useful if tensions rise, to allow some communication of tone and body language (with the belief that this will assist de-escalation). Having both the video, and a TL:DW (Too Long, Didn't Watch) bullet-point text for both depth, and concieness.

• Create AP's as videos - record yourself talking about the AP instead of writing all this text. It could make life easier for a lot of people. See above.

• Integrated translation tools for the un-tech-savy that don't know how to manage this themselves (i.e. brave and chrome have integrated page translations). This can help ensure those that struggle with english can still contribute meaninfgully to discussions.

  • Make it clear that contributing to the discussion in your preferred language is encouraged and accepted (depending on above)

• AI - summarising a decision and it's logic and automatically linking to the wiki. (similar to Henrik's bot)

• Reply-to-Selected-Text - similar to the comments functioning on the Wiki/Gdocs. This could allow threads to expand around specific clauses and allow more granular feedback

• Clarity on Consensus - some realizers are having trouble confirming agency on making a decision.

  • By clarifying who's consent is required (i.e. co-realizers/board/all participants), we can use Talk's integrated (after update) consent-voting tool. Or democratic voting if appropriate to the specific AP (i.e. ticket price) - Make a list of people affected > Adjust the list over the course of the AP #> close the AP with their explicit consent

  • If the list of affected people = "everyone" -> Use the consent-approval tools of Talk (after updating). If there are contested blocks (someone is blocking but the realizer(s) feel they've addressed it, then the board arbitrates the decision.

• Utilize Talk's new AP framework - this requires us to update our loomio instance. But it contains suitable templates and consent-approval tools. See above.

• Hybrid Inclusion - a meeting (in-person or online) can be scheduled to supplement a digital AP discussion, either with consolidation & decision, or simply to give the tech-phobic an opportunity to partake. Perhaps this is only required for significant AP's.

• Create an easy video explaining what an AP is and how to make one - The official documentation to run an AP is looooong, even longer than this AP (which is a big one). This can be made more accessible.

Seeking Advice

What do we do about the Advice Process and Talk?

• What changes need to be implemented into the Advice Process?

• Should we have a different method of making decisions than the Advice Process? If so, then what?

• Which platform(s) and why should we be using them to reach this goal?

These topics has been discussed disparetly in many locations over a long period of time. I would like for us to make a clear decision, and stick to it for at least 2 years. Upon which we should assume a review of the systems, unless major issues appear before then that need addressing.

Please remember, that you are contributing your advice to 'Kiez Burn' as an entity, even beyond the Verein. Formulate your thinking as such.

I am running this AP, and will take responsibility for the final decsion and implementation, but the decision is on behalf of Kiez Burn as a whole, so the advice should be for Kiez Burn.

THE PROPOSAL

Encourage the experimentation of different platforms and frameworks for enabling the realizers and participants of the Kiez Burn community to take decisions in a consentful, effective and transparent manner.

Experimentations would need to be documented for review, so we can refine their potential effectivness.

Method and Timeframe

As a continued experiment, this AP will be running on all 3 current channels;

• Talk

• Wiki

• Discord

Enage with whichever platform is most comfortable for you.

I will do the hard work of consolidating the advice offered. I will consolidate it all into Talk, as I believe it is the most appropriate tool for this task, and my prefered method. This should also give at least myself, the opportunity to review these different platforms for discussion.

AP Duration = 2024

Who makes the final decision?

A vote of simple majority at the Kiez Burn General Assembly in Q3-Q4 2024

Final Decision = September-November (The KB e.V. General Assembly)