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 )
Karrot groups online cafe!
Running a Karrot groups’ online cafe is an idea that has been discussed more than a few times.
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.)
points to add
“improve karrot” - giving feedback about karrot itself (making it karrot more central)
but maybe this is a chance to get the bigger picture of groups, not the about the tool itself
e.g. sharing how they use group, instead of just presenting requests for features, etc.
“share experiences” - sharing knowledge between groups?
structures
should have facilitation (or vasilitation)
“present how you organise your group” via screenshare
introduce your group (maybe getting a structure for what they can present)
over time maybe encourage other people to facilitate, trying to break down barriers between the karrot team and the karrot groups
pick a date
start with monthly
request from Michal for “after 17:00 UTC+1?” (Central Europe) (not Mondays, not Thursdays, not Fridays)
so, Wednesday the 28th
open question about the recurring part
reach out
Move to next week
also a weekly dev/tech call perhaps?
dev talk feels out of place in weekly co-ordination call now
ideas on how to improve Karrot as an organisation
based on diagrams and discussion from previous meeting
3. Actions/Outcomes
sending Thomas Swann a follow-up email (Vasilis)
push forward github org name change (Nick)
share info about about first community cafe (Vasilis)
4. Closing Ceremony
pick facilitator for next week
checkout
5. Next
Next meeting: 2021-07-19 12:00 (UTC+1)
Next facilitator: The Vasilitator
Where: Jitsi Meet
Date: 2021-07-26 12:00 (UTC+1)
Facilitator: Bruno
Notary:
Participants: Bruno, Vasilis
1. Check in and Updates
agree duration
checkin
Add updates/celebrations here (if you have any)
2. Discussion points
karrot groups’ cafe
a loose structure to it (a suggestion, but we want to leave the discussion open)
Quick intro of the idea for a cafe and what is point
general feedback
new ideas for features
exchange of experiences between groups
checkin and quick introduction
present themselves and their respective groups
which tools do they use and how they organize
screenshare?
how long?
1 hour and if people want to stay then longer
facilitator?
Vasilis and Nick
flexible facilitation just in case conversation dies out or looses track too much
testing
Bruno will contact Wrick (FS Lund) again and invite him to the testing if no female participant can
Suggest to have it on a Thursday 3 pm CEST
On Thursday’s meetings for the design process, what to do next?
first conclude the one we’re doing now. Reflect on the governance design process we had and maybe come up with a better version of it. Design process in the context of democratizing and opening up the design to groups using Karrot.
start a new one about “breaking the silo” of groups theme after we’re done with this, or
continue adapting/designing Karrot for other non-foodsaving groups
summer
Vasilis might not be very much available in August. Katie will be back.
idea for: “maybe a “mini conference” on the topic of co-op/open source/software food systems? Present our projects for 5 mins each, then facilitated chat?”
building up capabilities within the karrot community
funding
need for more developers
plan a future hackaton or just a community gathering is a nice idea
new roadmap meeting!
we missed the last scheduled one
perhaps we feel a bit drifty for now
maybe we’re like in a summer pause?
conflict resolution process
our current feature is designed and works for bigger conflicts potentially involving the whole group
many conflicts though are much smaller, and perhaps based on misunderstandings, and don’t work well with our more heavyweight approach
we already discussed quite a few times ideas to have “escalating” levels of conflict (e.g. one-to-one, then add in faciliator/mediators, then whole group if needed)
but many approaches might be more cultural than “feature” based
perhaps could have a way to include good tips for conflict (“are you angry? maybe take some time for breathing”)… or maybe spaces where groups can write tips, or link to useful resources?
perhaps non-personalized approach for flagging up some issues, to share how to do things (but avoiding passive aggressive communication)
idea to be able to flag in the feedback that some “issue” came up, perhaps somebody then would look through the feedback page and see some that were flagged, then they can discuss them in some space
generally being able to flag things as governance discussions, maybe connect to some actions? like start discussion on the agreements, start a poll, etc… general concept of some action buttons
topics of dreaming vs doing
when are things lovely motivating dreams and ideas, and when do they become expectations? / demands?
maybe like NVC requests, not being demands, but gifts about how to do something nice
3. Actions/Outcomes
flow with wind and dance with the stars (everyone)
4. Closing Ceremony
pick facilitator for next week
checkout
5. Next
Next meeting: 2021-08-16 12:00 (UTC+1)
Next facilitator: Bruno
Where: Jitsi Meet
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