A few days ago I put out a 'sounding post' to explore whether some form of committee structure was the right path to follow to build on the momentum of the State of Steem Forums.
This was the result of a discussion in the second State of Steem Forum and a suggestion from Matt @starkerz of @oracle-d.
While there was support in some quarters for a 'formal' committee structure, the general mood of discussion seemed not to have any appetite for going down the committee route.
As I stated in that post...
In the decentralised, anarcho-capitalist, code is law world of steem the prospect of forming universally acceptable, centralised, decision making committees will be a challenge of the first order.
For the here and now I do not feel expending significant energy in trying to force square committees into round communities worthwhile. I expect though others will differ in that view.
To allow the momentum of the State of Steem Forums to continue, and the discussions, co-operation and collective idea generation to flow I have set up a State of Steem Discord Server.
This will be open to anyone who wants to get involved in 'doing stuff' to help Steem grow.
The Discord will run alongside the six remaining State of Steem Forums culminating in a 'grand finale' on Thursday 14 February.
At that final State of Steem Forum a decision can be taken as to whether the Discord server is closed down, or kept going in some refined form.
The State of Steem Discord Server
The SOS Discord server is open to anyone who wants to contribute with positive ideas and positive actions for the growth and improvement of Steem.
It is a not a place for trolls, complainers or link droppers.
If you have an idea or project to help Steem grow that you would like support or collaboration for come along to the forum...
Although I set up the Discord I am not the Commander in Chief, there will be at least four others there that can carry out the required housekeeping tasks. There will be no more structure than that.
Matt @starkerz has put forward some suggestions for how he sees the Discord working. I fully concur with these sentiments so for efficiency of wordsmithing I will replicate here with Matt's permission. This is slighty edited for brevity - Matt's full text can be read in the Discord.
- The working groups in the Discord are not committees. They are task groups or watering holes.
- The term committee has too many centralised connotations. These groups are open discussion forums and leaderless. Not committees ... Ideas will be judged on their merits, not on the user who proposed them and their influence.
- Anyone can join. If there are too many people, great. People who are passionate about the issues will find the right people to work with even if they have to look through a lot of messages. The channels are idea discussion rooms and resource gathering only. They are places where people who care about the issues can work out solutions to those issues and find out who else is already working on those issues only. Nothing more, nothing less. This will drastically reduce repeated work and resource issues as a minimum.
- No voting. The channels are for the formation of multiple ideas to solve the same issue. Let the marketplace decide which ideas are best in cases where there is conflict or disagreement. We should embrace competition where people cannot agree.
- Let’s use this as a chance to work in a decentralised way, after all we are trying to solve the problems that result from the inevitable corruption that comes from centralised systems. We have an opportunity to try something new. No leaders, no elections, but structures that allow us to work efficiently in an anarchic, decentralised way. Anything else surely returns us back to the world from which we are trying to escape. Anything else makes us as bad as the current day politicians who benefit from the well-to-do people who set up our political systems long ago.
- In cases where a ‘representative’ is an absolute MUST and only when it is a must, we may want to elect an individual to represent us as a community. I am not sure if this is in the scope of what we are talking about here. I would need to be convinced that we need to have top down organisation and then convinced that we need a representative for a particular area. Even after that, these people would not have ‘decision’ making responsibility, but only the responsibility to represent the needs of a group to the wider community.
- If we understand the so called scopes of these groups, or watering holes, it would be good to understand further what decisions are required by top down individuals that the market can’t make for us. Until then, let’s get action going by facilitating the place where ideas and resources come together, but nothing more. This is the fastest way to action in my opinion. Then as time goes on we will learn more about whether any one needs electing or what decision power needs to be relinquished to the individual (I expect this to be zero as we should follow the principles of decentralised, leaderless organisation as much as possible).
- Steem allows the community to reward and bring ideas to the top via the upvoting mechanism. Due to bid bots and the interfaces on the blockchain, this is no longer working well. It is hard to find the ideas and coordinate teams. The purpose of these rooms / watering holes would solve that problem, or at least vastly improve on the current situation until an interface that runs directly on the blockchain is implemented to allow the community to better coordinate itself.
Within the Discord a number of 'Working Group' channels ('watering holes') have been been set up as focal points for discussion.
So far these include funding, blockchain development, DApps & Apps development, marketing, onboarding, retention, curation, steem commerce, the Steem Business Alliance and abuse fighting.
Others will be added as demand arises.
If you want to get involved, and are willing to roll your sleeves up and get your hands dirty then come along to the Discord...
SOS Daily News - Stay Informed - Keep Up To Date - Quickly
To provide a quick and easy reference source of all the latest posts and information about what is going on on Steem I am producing the SOS Daily News. This is the latest edition ...
[ graphic by @pennsif ]