Loomio 001

There's been some suggestion that we could move our conversations from here onto the Loomio platform. We may also wish to consider its usefulness as a tool in other areas. At the very least, this experimentation may aid more generally in thinking about this kind of functionality and our requirements. It's hoped that the main discussion on Technologies 001 will help us to form a better idea of the kind of systems we should be using in the medium-long term. In turn, investigation into individual technologies like Loomio can feed back into that discussion. Chris MacMackin has a Loomio set up https://www.loomio.org/invitations/9d29d860dbed6a843a85 and experimentation with it is ongoing. Comments so far: David Pavett:

...I think that we should spend a little time considering different formats for debate. The trouble with blogs is their rather linear form leading to a jumble of different threads coming from one debate. Bulletin boards overcome this partially with nested threads. The Loomio platform offers a far more sophisticated solution and should be considered.

Chris MacMackin:

I'm glad to see that David mentioned the Loomio platform, as it is something which I have come across and found interesting as well.

John Walsh:

1. Do 'threads' have to be owned by someone, or can they be just a thread? 2. First impression is that Loomio looks to be oriented towards 'decisions' - not in itself a bad thing but maybe not at all suited to developing policy (or maybe even developing technology)

Chris MacMackin:

I don't know that Loomio does have [a collaborative editing platform]. This is part of the reason why I'm not sure it will be our ultimate solution.

John Walsh:

1. Loomio...could be a starting point. It doesn't look like a place for complex policy discussion (but may be it is?) but we could get some multiple threads up and running and see what we want to do.

Chris MacMackin:

Loomio is a very cool project and I think it could be very useful for us deciding how to move forwards. I'm not sure how well it would scale, though. It looks great for groups of up to a few dozen, but beyond that I'd think it could easily become unmanageable. It could be a very useful tool for collaboration in groups drafting policy resolutions and the like, though.

David Pavett:

The Loomio people say, I think, that there platform is suitable for debate between up to around 1000 people.

Chris MacMackin:

True, for some time we will have a number of contributors that is manageably on Loomio. When they say 1000, does that mean suitable from a technical perspective (it can support that many users without its performance degrading) or from a practical perspective? I find it difficult to believe that a debate between 1000 people would be doable.

I (i.e. Tim Wilkinson) personally think the very basic but simple and familiar blog system (with one or two tweaks) is good enough for the short-term, so that migrating the conversation elsewhere is not an immediate priority and is therefore to be avoided in favour of things that are. Once we have a better idea of our overall system, organisation and technologies we can design a proper platform and either migrate or retire the discussion here. More discussion of this on the Organisation/Admin thread.