[P2P-F] Fwd: [Commoning] Fwd: guidelines for structure at P2PU

Tue Apr 5 03:55:23 CEST 2011

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Joe Corneli <holtzermann17 at gmail.com>
Date: Mon, Apr 4, 2011 at 5:49 PM
Subject: [Commoning] Fwd: guidelines for structure
To: commoning at lists.wissensallmende.de

Hi all:

here is a "strawman" proposal I sent to P2PU.  (I'm not sure why they
call all proposals "strawmen".)  It may be of more general appeal when
thinking about how to set up peer-production systems.

Joe

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Joe Corneli <holtzermann17 at gmail.com>
Date: Mon, Apr 4, 2011 at 11:29 AM
Subject: guidelines for structure
To: P2PU Community <p2pu-community at googlegroups.com>

The following begins to approach a full proposal on
"guidelines for structure" (this is my first complete
revision: it seems ready for public discussion in the
P2PU's standard "strawman" framework).  It draws on
Pippa's posting in this thread about P2PU's priorities:
http://groups.google.com/group/p2pu-community/browse_thread/thread/d1462b43244ecbb8

There's other material from my ongoing discussion with
Charlie about "paragogy" I'd like to bring into this in
the future; we'll save such expansions for later.

IDENTIFYING BOTH COMPLETION GOALS AND SUCCESS/FAILURE
CRITERIA SHOULD BE PART OF THE COURSE AND PROJECT
DEVELOPMENT PROCESS.

This should include "organizational efforts, across the
board".  Even if that sounds obvious, it's not yet clear
how best to implement.  P2PU should be emphasising
community involvement "to 105%" -- and clearly identified
critera for success and failure are the minimum data
needed to make community involvement work.  As an example,
P2PU's roadmap should include high-level goals, even as
these are subject to discussion.  Folding courses and
projects together under one heading implies that P2PU
should dare to "eat its own dogfood" -- and it provides
core community members the opportunity to lead by example.

IDENTIFYING COMPLETION CRITERIA SHOULD NOT ONLY BE A
SOCIAL NORM, BUT SOMETHING CLEARLY IDENTIFIED WITHIN THE
TECHNOLOGY.

Prior art in this area lies in the field of "bug
reporting".  Conceptualizing P2PU "tasks" as tickets
within a well-thought-through issue tracking system would
give both learners and organizational leaders a powerful
tool for defining their workflow.

A good first task would be to make a map of system objects
and the way they relate to one another, so we can know how
the technology itself serves the organisation's high-level
goals.  As an example: here is work-in-progress by me,
describing the elements of the Planetary System:
http://trac.mathweb.org/planetary/export/HEAD/pmredux-extras/general-metadata.pdf
(More progress to be made there this week: I'd be happy to
help with a similar document for P2PU once this one is
done.)

THE SEMANTICS AROUND "GROUPS" NEEDS REFINING.

This is a key point, since groups are the new "fundamental
object" for P2PU, and have to accommodate both course-like
and more informal book-club-like interactions.

As an example of an outstanding issue: assuming that
members come and go, any agreements the group makes may
only apply to a certain cohort at a certain period of
time.  What happens if someone wants to repurpose a group?
Are they forkable, or what?  Is there a plan to keep track
of the potentially huge number of groups that may
accumulate over time?  These are just a few of the many
things that should be spelled out in detail ASAP.

PARTICIPANTS SHOULD ALSO CLEARLY DEFINE THEIR PERSONAL
GOALS (SUCCESS/FAILURE CRITERA) AND SHARE THAT WITH THEIR
PEERS.

It would not be too much to ask to have goals visible on user
homepages, presumably with ways to opt-OUT, so for example
the goal might only be visible to members of a certain
group/course, or cohort.

All major "accountability" issues can be handled post hoc,
through transparent record-keeping on learner profiles.
This will address most of the concerns brought up by
e.g. JWeb.

THE IDEA THAT GOVERNANCE IS "OPEN" BECAUSE ANYONE CAN
RAISE THEIR OPINION IN THE MAILING LIST HAS SHORTCOMINGS.

There is a huge difference between London's Speaker's
Corner, and the UK's Lords and Commons.

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speakers'_Corner
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Lords
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Commons_of_the_United_Kingdom

In today's popular usage, "peers" and "commoners" are the
same, but we would do well to reflect on the historical
usage and learn from it.

Perhaps the "community list" can be replaced by more
empowering functionality within the new site,
e.g. http://new.p2pu.org/en-US/courses/p2pu-the-course/
(It needs significant changes to be useful for
"governance" matters.)

ONCE AGAIN: CORE COMMUNITY MEMBERS SHOULD
LEAD BY EXAMPLE!

Anything that P2PU expects of "participants" it should
expect of "core community members".  Transparency,
openness, and involvement should all have concrete
meanings in the technology used by P2PU.  The are issues
that need to championed by organisational leadership if
anything is going to be made of them in a "grassroots"
fashion.

This doesn't mean that all conversations should happen in
public (that wouldn't be a "good example" for P2P
communications), but it does mean that leadership needs a
degree of "accountability" (in proportion to their power).

At the same time, *complaints* (bug reports) should not be
duplicated unduly, but managed in a coherent fashion.
Accountability does not mean that leadership needs to
respond and fix every issue, on demand.

Rather, it means a responsibility to keep the space in
good condition for work by the community as a whole.  This
is happening presently with a fair amount of informality,
and some opaqueness that would go away if the guidelines
suggested here about clearly defining "success/failure
criteria" were followed throughout the project.

Recommended reading:
http://piratepad.net/bug-report-1
http://piratepad.net/bug-report-2
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