Date: 2021-02-08 12:00 (UTC+1)
Facilitator: Nick
Notary:
Participants: Nick, Vasileios, Bruno
1. Agenda
checkin
neccessity funding
email comms between Vasileios and them
currently not sure what their 3rd round is going to be (depends on 2nd round submissions, and how things evolve)
eligible for applying, but should be focused in the UK
the topics relating to karrot
food systems and strcutures
domestic resilience and creative communities
environmental and human rights
application
1 pager, or 3-5 minute video
deadline 24th February
has a research focus
is it worth it for us?
problems? opening up new agendas for us, but not the best time?
is this a new direction for us, or continuing what we’re doing?
maybe could be both…
use money to get input from initiatives, then embed it into what we do
as we want to expand uses of karrot to wider projects, this could fit in nicely, finding out what is needed and how we can address it more
presenting the project to groups, and giving constant support to the groups, and getting feedback for development, working closely together with the communities (Bruno is having good experience in getting local freeshop using Karrot because of needs of co-ordination and sharing, run by old people so a good test of usability)
can maybe use money to support small grassroots groups too that don’t have access to resources easily
exchange between groups important
maybe we can organise a conference? online event? share learnings? producing material to share knowledge and experience
maybe create a mapping project to find groups, real life examples
finding ways to support these groups, with digital tool and knowledge, e.g. community organising, and post-growth methods of community organising, not engaging with normal non-profit/charity mentality, or business models - making use of existing resources in society/economy, creating more commons out of this…
intersection of digital support + the exchange of experience and networking
collaborative knowledge sharing of lived experiences rather than experts passing down knowledge
wondering how concrete we need to be right now?
do we need to list/reference specific local groups here? e.g. local sharing groups, community gardens, …?
do we need to make a specific budget?
we have long term perspective on funding
and how UK contexulized…
maybe we can propose to start mapping out initiatives
they have an to do a more collective project, maybe across all the projects
perhaps two parts to money:
external towards other people/projects, more in this research way
for people in the “karrot team” to be able to participate as they would like
maybe come up with stages of different amounts of money
outreach/networking/meetings - might work really well… or not so much, a lot of uncertainty
… if that worked, then more money would be nice
how to make sense of all these things we want to do? (kept from last week as we thought to do it this week!) (and kept again, although maybe I can remove it now)
- visiting groups as one approach
- bringing groups together for days for a gathering
- in person seems nice, but covid-19 might not permit
- maybe can build a plan in steps, from online to physical, as covid-19 opening permits
- research could be getting info about tools, processes, info about groups
- call for applications has a lot of creative focus, do we fit!
- “freelance artists, creatives, writers, thinkers – people working individually or collectively”
- we are thinkers and writers at least! so maybe an opportunity to go deeper into those aspects
- maybe engaging with local people as well to produce art/images/video?
- big focus of community organising with the commons
- karrot is unusual for a software project as it’s not just a software project
- sensemaking approach - creating spaces, karrot is creating a space too, even if digital (in combination with physical spaces), that supports sensemaking. using the digital to change the world in some direction. don’t want to replace the physical. avoiding trap of digitalization of everything.
- we want to learn from people to decide what to embed in the code, not just our agenda
brazilian education groups still signing up in confusion with Kahoot
karrot gathering in the summer? post lockdown…
in Sweden
Nick would intend to ride up on bike
more public info on group preview page
activity level: frequency of messages? activities? active people?
send a message without joining the group
… lots of discussion about public places, etc…
places for conversations
start with a small improvement for now (Bruno)
discussion on coming up with a whole new concept for communication in Karrot (get rid of the main wall, and have some kind of a feed). It will require some design process
production deployment?
landing page…
Nick to setup a full page about page, that we can spread the landing page content over, and also give the landing page an explicit URL /welcome?
content in carousel is usually ignored. There’s a lot of info now. Carousel is better for more detailed info on the sametopic
who’s it for?
people who want to create groups
what are the prominent features?
2 or 3 main features. Bigger screenshots
let’s say values/principles instead. Features are part of it
independent groups: not part/dependent of a bigger thing
Activities/tasks
Democratic governance
maybe add more pages explaining specifically the features within each principle (read more…)
lightbox (dialog in Quasar) for other features
how to explain Karrot: in comparison to other known tools. Make it clear that Karrot can align with their values and start questioning the “neutrality” of existing tools like Facebook/Whatsapp
Dominic has time for co-working Wed Fri morning or evening any day
production deployment
first production deployment with the new built artifacts approach
Nick considering changing some aspects of the deployment
Nick asked Tilmann if he wants to be involved in discussions to rejig deployment process
any of this can go on the about page, and we can make the forum post coherent after that
confirming? need a short paragraph describing the values of karrot, maybe before the main screenshot, and on the about page more elaboration of the values
no! throwing away the carousel for showing the features
the idea is to start with the smaller change, then develop further the bigger change
the “about page” has the forum/onboard post content, the about page needs further work, more details information, and resources, and a link to the forum page, not super clear yet…
should have another working session about it!
deployment
still pending, very soon, promise!
Fabian joined Efa
good to talk to real life users
shared how useful the feedback feature is for them, getting statistics
Vasilieos emailed them and apparantly they would put the projects online, but they replied they’re looking into the projects now, so still hope (or was it a polite British NO)…
they also have a 3rd round coming up so hope it not all lost
organisational structure of karrot
trying to get a more formal structure to how to interweave all the different people that relate and contribute to karrot
handing over “ownership” and “control” to a wider set of people
bringing in the groups that use it more officially into the structure
supporting people to feel welcomed and that they can contribute
legal aspect questions, co-op? non-profit? no rush?
legal entity is an interface to the outside world, seperate from the internal organisational structure
being up the right internal culture and procedures is more important for us right now probably
the legal entity is used when interacting with things like funding orgs
legal setup does have a relationship to internal org structure
an “association” is an option for a (legal?) model
we’re a very distributed organisation, so is there a good place for it to be based?
ties into much bigger discussions about more fluid/organic networks of people and organisations
at the core we’re a software project, but has a real connection with people organising, keeping in mind to be connected to the people using it and motivate/encourage them to participate
open source culture already embeds some concepts of contribution, transparency of code and issues
want to strengthen the non-coding participation
supporting people/groups to appropriate the tool for their own needs
maybe we can reflect on the structures that we have and what can be improved?
Foodsaving Worldwide | People is a place where we can include some people, can use it to recognise peoples contributions to the forum
Thursday meeting?
not sure how many people can join?
could move it to a Friday
pick facilitator for next week
checkout
2. Actions/Outcomes
announce roadmap session with nice description (Nick)
proceed with moving stuff to karrot.world (Nick)
finish up a few bits of the small PR for the landing page then merge (Bruno)
creating a rocket chat channel for outreach, then share list (Bruno?)
create a forum topic to explore organisational structure topics (Nick, Bruno takes a look)
agree duration 1h for Nick/Bruno, others have to leave earlier
checkin
Add updates/celebrations here (if you have any)
new contributor was helped!
Fabian got access to Jetbrains license
we did 2 user testing sessions now for the governance features!
Karolina agreed to join next Thursday for user testing session
2. Discussion points
Rakel/Sabina present progress
continued with study, focusing on getting the research question and background research
online collaborative platforms and foodsharing, “collaborative volunteer online platforms” focus, some gaps in understand how it works
question to research not specific to karrot, but about moving users from being consumers of technology to participants of technology
moving to interviewing users in sweden to find out barriers to participation, what might be motivating factors, and if they know they even can be
been in touch with 2 or 3 groups so far
has joined Solikylyliyli group, Bruno offers to make specific contact to someone in the group
interested to get a spread of people, more/less active people
invitation to share any books/information about collaborative volunteer platforms, especially participation
wondering where will be good to send out a survey soon, and would appreciate sharing wider than karrot
wondering about how much to keep it to foodsharing, or wider collaborative platforms, e.g. wikipedia
in context of karrot, two levels of participation, firstly their local group, secondly the online platform (online/offline)
concept of many different levels of participation (not all or nothing), and ranges of skillsets
has been easier to investigate online-based contributors compared to offline participation, perhaps can connect the two exploring peoples online with their offline participation, a lot of online participation within the project comes from people trying to solve their needs
limitations of not being able to observe offline activities
challenges of finding things of personal interest that also connect to academic literature
interest in online project participation to support offline topics/scenarios, interest in how they view karrot, e.g. how it would be different if it was a commercial platform
different levels of participation from people who were in groups, Bruno and Katie became part of team, others chat on forum, and then others stay out of all of that
tricky of communicating with inactive users, as of course they don’t reply
hoping the survey can cover a broader scope and get wider set of users, including non-Swedish groups
advisor suggested to keep to Swedish groups for core of study to minimise cultural differences
how to connect values of FOSS and on-the-ground community organising?
maybe make a release schedule to make a point to focus on? monthly?
how to progress with defining karrot values? and clearer structure? (nick)
want to start steps to make it feel less like “my” project (which it’s not…)
how to get it so more people feel like they “own” the platform
interesting to wonder how people already feel about the “ownership” of the platform
maybe the process of building a values/constitution document, that’s what brings people into a feeling of ownership
need to grow organically, introduce structures when they are needed, not sure what the ideal structure for us is, can be quite fuzzy
structure to encourage participation
could get started with values already, with an open meeting, and/or a forum poll (e.g. 50 values listed, pick 10)
advancing structure is either too early or too late
maybe next weekly meeting discuss values and whether to have a more focused session on this topic
how does process/structure embody the values (as well as communicating externally)
interesting interplay between conceptual and embodiment/material, need to work together, without both it fails
money calls? (nick)
2/3 topics, how to structure it, money situation in general, funding in general
chatting about personal economic models, e.g. with therapy/coaching payments, solidarity models, “base prices” + adjustments
model: maximise how much “client” can pay, “provider” minimise costs, and do something interesting with the difference
using output/surplus from processes to output into the commons/community, multiplying effect to support people who are in key community positions to support them
5,656.38 EUR is current balance
payments stopped for the last some months, continue them?
nicks personal circumstance made the topic a bit “academic”
thought to continue payments
who is invited? maybe not pressing to formalize right now, but maybe for the future if we make an economic model
maybe connect it to the roadmap, join that, and that is the entry point for joining the money circle? 3 months maybe seems right duration for commitment
keeping a 2-3 year duration of the payments, to avoid situation where project stops/changes when funding runs out, if fewer people, have scope to increase from previous 70EUR
personally, for nick, makes sense to resume 70EUR/month payments, but probably won’t have resolved personal economic model/needs until much later in the year/next year
any food waste / sustainability / civil society related funds?
minimising burocracy
local community funds? specific to local areas? connecting with groups on karrot to talk about their funding, and what our model is
fs luxembourgh with “European Solidarity Project” funding
maybe we can draw our financial model?
current reality
private donations
some funding money
one funding from Gothenburg for the Bike Kitchen project
what we want for the future
donations (from people individually, or from groups)
some funding money
directly to Karrot as a project (a technology supporting x)
through the groups using Karrot (a project that uses y)
high level income, outgoings, with some links to more details
measures/metrics of succcess?
3 dimensions: horizontal (spreading idea/concept/project?), vertical (getting bigger), “depth” (going deep into the topics, deep social/economic change)
would be nice to grow some users, but not for the sake of it
more outreach!
could be nice to get clearer idea on some of the metrics
nice to grow in all dimensions, but maybe focusing on different dimensions at different times
horizontal through different instances hasn’t really happened yet, as not very practical for groups, but we have success through having independent groups
general user participation
maybe organise some sessions to specifically invite people for general chat/feedback to get better connected, e.g. Robin foods
how to actually contact people?
create a meta karrot group, people can use to talk about karrot
would be nice to dogfood karrot a bit more… defining/discussing our structures a bit more
review Revoke Trust by pogopaule · Pull Request #2352 · yunity/karrot-frontend · GitHub (nick)
notes: when trust is revoked does the person that lost trust get notified? Do other people know that sb lost a karrot? Apparently a person gets notified that lost karrots when loses the advantage of being an editor
message to the foodsharing festival people to propose karrot session (nick) → to do
get the epub book about anarchist cybernetics (vas) → Done
Bristol University Press | Anarchist Cybernetics - Control and Communication in Radical Politics : By Thomas Swann
complicated issue, meetings with Daniel and freiburg group might chip in
co-ordinating bigger events on Karrot
Tasks for Events - #2 by nicksellen
notes: we discussed on how Karrot can be used to coordinate bigger events. For example events that might need the coordination of sub-groups which are responsible for different tasks/activities
(e.g. Vienna groups is running such big events)
remove invitations
Bruno feeling stuck on creating a feedback from when link is copied, otherwise done with it
Notes: the overall aim of their projects is through interviews to engage with users of Karrot groups (SE based) and explore how they can participate more in the development process of Karrot as a digital (socio-technical) infrastructure/tool
Rakel and Sabina had a meeting with Mohan & Katie (supervisors) and got feedback for their work so far
3 interviews so far so but they need to do more more
They will write an invitation to be shared in Solikyl group (swedish and english)
Interviews so far: interesting
Time and availability have been identified as crucial factors for the recruitment of interviewees
Comment: Rakel’s and Sabina’s project might serve as a testbed in the sense that as an open-process can be reused in the future to gather more data from Karrot members
More than human design (vasilis) → to be discussed in the next session most probably
Application to join playground by V.V (possibly Vasilis supervisor) → discussed
3. Actions/Outcomes
message to the foodsharing festival people to propose karrot session (nick)
schedule a session about places/activities on karrot and how this feature can be ‘improved’
More than human design (vasilis) → to be discussed in the next session most probably
4. Closing Ceremony
pick facilitator for next week: Nick
checkout
5. Next
Next meeting: 2021-05-17 12:00 (UTC+1)
Next facilitator: Nick
Where: Jitsi Meet
… a more immediate idea which seems better now is to share some text + link in the playground group, various other groups, the forum, the rocket chat… etc. as that can be done right now.
people had very good things to say and seem interested to get more involved
anarchist cybernetics call / book club…
need for some kind of structure
book club could be very nice - read a part, then call to discuss it
maybe can make collective notes?
could try and connect topics in the book to our experiences in groups and karrot and how it might be relevant
both relent within the groups and for the karrot project itself
trigger points/questions
something that you agreed with?
something that pissed you off?
something that made you think about x?
chapter by chapter (of 8)
1 week to read first chapter
before or after our regular calls (depends how much there is to discuss)
maybe Thursday meetings can expand into broader design meetings, with theoretical discussion
could be heavy if we’re still doing the governance design stuff
could see how it goes for next week
first chapter is short and overview so possible for this coming thursday (2021-05-27) - “2011: The year nothing changed”
can also contact author at some point
also after we have nice shiny landing page
Thursday meetings
we covered it somewhat in the previous topic
trying to find the direction for the future of what function the Thursday meetings perform
system 4 and 5 from VSM model responding to changes in environment, and thinking to the future
also system 3 (co-ordination) which is more monday meeting
design philosophy behind karrot, both theoretical and practical
can also think of next big step for design, e.g. breaking the silo… beyond karrot groups
extracting design process from what we’ve done so far
wondering if we should move the day, but seems good!
3. Actions/Outcomes
4. Closing Ceremony
pick facilitator for next week
checkout
5. Next
Next meeting: 2021-06-03 12:00 (UTC+1)
Next facilitator: ?
Where: Jitsi Meet
some performance issues that got solved by Tilmann and Nick
2. Discussion points
Rakel and Sabinas updates on their thesis
Rakel contacted all the groups since they did not get a lot at the beginning
33 answers on the survey, 8 interviews
Belgium seems very active: a third of the survey
Some preliminary results before the actual report
barriers in participating
do not know about the chat/forum
do not have the technical knowledge or too complicated (believe they have to be developers)
lack of time
generally not interested
there’s a will to participate, now that they know that they can contribute
it would be good to focus on making it easy that users giving feedback (overcome problems of lack of time and not knowing where to do it)
motivation to participate
seeing the result of their feedback
easy access to where to give the feedback (maybe links to chat or forum within the group)
Katie explains there was some confusion from the beginning when assigning a supervisor to them, since the main supervisor got a very different approach, like focusing on Swedish groups only
data collected is nonetheless useful to us
we can have access to interviews and survey results
besides information on barriers to participation, there’s interesting data on what people want, usability, their needs, etc.
Vasilis is working on his annual progress report for his thesis
wants to have a conversation to align his work with what we are doing
to be discussed on the next weekly meeting
3. Actions/Outcomes
4. Closing Ceremony
pick facilitator for next week
checkout
5. Next
Next meeting: 2021-06-14 12:00 (UTC+1)
Next facilitator: Vasilis
description: Karrot is a free and open-source tool for grassroots initiatives and groups of people that want to coordinate face-to-face activities on a local, autonomous and voluntary basis.
Metin will check the github comment and update the commit
Updates from Rakel and Sabina
didn’t join the call
How the presentation on Foodsharing festival go? ( I think we never talked on that)
postpone to when there are more people in the call
Trust mechanisms and research on that
Vasilis will check Sandro’s thesis out and maybe get in touch with him
word “trust” can awkward in some contexts, judgemental? approval? although some people can understand words in more specific contexts in software
“functional trust” → trust to do something specific
thinking of the role for the other end of the chain to participate within the software
we inherited foodsharing.de model, where stores don’t use the platform
… but maybe employees of stores are busy, so easier to just make agreement for regular pickups up front
but maybe depends on who is providing the surplus, supermarket chain maybe don’t need to use a tool, but a smaller provider might get some benefit
relating to queueing stuff that has to be done, maybe instead of central social events, could have more peer to peer organising of the resources
a lot of ideas and potential! expanding beyond the group boundary (“breaking the silo”), good idea to plan some structure/strategy for doing this, but what do we want to do before expanding that scope, another design process?
being realistic about capacity
maybe this is system 4 stuff in VSM, strategy relating to the wider community/society/environment
need to get more of an overview of our strategy/path/direction, visual especially, mind map
could do an excalidraw session
karrot as a legal entity? when would that make sense?
also how to deal with culture of money, and work
regular community calls
coming from ideas discussed in the foodsharing festival call
monthly call where anybody from the groups could drop in?
“feedback” sessions
start with a one off? and go from there?
could be challenging to manage the different perspectives, of groups vs core team?
who makes decisions? faciliates?
or more inter-group calls, started by people in groups
over time I (Nick) would like it to feel like the groups “own” karrot
people might just see the calls as “general feedback”, bugs, features…
can keep all these open questions in mind
first session like “let’s meet each other” kind of session
find some suggestions on the next steps to evolve Karrot as a community and organisation
4. Closing Ceremony
pick facilitator for next week
checkout
5. Next
Next meeting: 2021-07-12 12:00 (UTC+1)
Next facilitator:
Where: Jitsi Meet
Karrot groups online cafe!
Running a Karrot groups’ online cafe is an idea that has been discussed more than a few times during the Development call which takes place every Monday.
Let’s then give it a try and make it happen! Let’s share a coffee, a tea or a drink and meet each other, discuss about our groups, our activities, our needs and concerns, our future plans, our summer vacation and the ways we use and don’t use Karrot or other technologies to support our communities.
(And who knows? We might make it at some point to run a real and in-person Karrot festival.)
I think we’ll soon start some regular (maybe monthly?) community calls, and could consider the times for that (maybe should do a time poll here).
I would prefer to keep the weekly calls at the current time, as it takes quite a long time to settle into a rhythm with them after choosing a time (experienced that before!).
this is all from the consideration of my participation, but also one day I might like to go back to just talking about coding, so wouldn’t need to join all these other calls
we don’t usually talk a lot directly about “developer topics” on any of the calls actually (I would enjoy a bit more dev-talk )
)