When and how to use Threads, Polls, and Proposals

Introduction

Whether you're new to social.coop or have been here awhile, you may have questions about how proposals and decisions are made. If you have ideas for things you'd like to see happen on the instance, changes or modifications, how and whom do you ask about that? If you have a proposal you'd like to put forth to all the instance members, what's the best process for doing that? This document aims to answer these questions and provide a guide.

Throughout this document we'll be using the example of a user who wants to make the change of increasing the post character limit.

Threads

To start a discussion or find out what others think about a topic, you can create a new thread. (You may want to search for existing threads on the same topic, in case it has already been discussed. If it's been a bit (more than a month or so), you will want to start a new thread, but you will want to link to existing threads on the topic in the context field of yours. You may also take inspiration for tags from other threads!) You can use a thread to ask a question, too.

Here's a walk through of how to create a Thread:

1. From the Loomio social coop page scroll down to the middle of the page, right past the wiki link, you should see a set of tabs including Threads and Decisions
2. Click Threads - choose the Blank Template, unless we have put in some more interesting ones by then!
3. Fill in the Title, Tags (optional), Context (the body of the thread - start a conversation!)
4. Hit the "Start Thread" button! You will get email updates on your thread.

Note: it is often good to start with a discussion thread, even if you want to make a proposal. That way, questions and alternatives can be explored and the proposal can address people's concerns.

Polls

To find out how others feel, you can also use a poll. Loomio has various types of polls: Simple, Score, Dot, and Ranked Choice.

1. From the Loomio social coop page scroll down to the middle of the page, right past the wiki link, you should see a set of tabs including Threads and Decisions
2. Click Decisions. Click the Poll button type. (Above the list of proposal template types.)
3. Choose the type of Poll from the options listed
   1. Simple Poll (find the most popular option)
   2. Score Poll (measure the degree of support for each option)
   3. Dot Poll (allocate a budget of points to reveal priorities)
   4. Ranked Choice (understand the ordered preference of options)
4. This will give you a template you can fill in, that asks:
   1. What is this poll about? (Example: "The character limit on posts")
   2. Why is this important? (Example: "Some people want more space to write their entire thought and not need to break into threads as often")
   3. What are you asking people to do? (Example: "I would like people to indicate whether they want to raise the character limit or keep it the same")
   4. Click the "Add an Option" button to add as many options as you wish.
      1. each option has a "Option name" and a "Meaning" field
5. You might want to increase the discussion time from the default of 3 days, many members check in once a week or less frequently.
6. Leave it set to "Anyone in the Group" can vote, and "Notify everyone when proposal starts"

Proposals

As a member of Social.Coop you can shape our policies and practices. One way to do that is to make a proposal. But how? If you are new to Loomio, it may be confusing.

Here's the relevant section of the bylaws:

"Members may operate on their own initiative based on pre-established policy (areas of activity, scope of working groups, terms of service, codes of conduct, moderation policies, etc.), but any new issue that affects other members should be brought before the appropriate working group, and any policy changes must be brought before the full group before implementation. Working groups are encouraged to make proposals among themselves to determine consensus and operate within their scope of responsibility, but only proposals passed by the full group may be considered binding for Social.coop. Any member may make a proposal to the full group, though it is encouraged to first discuss matters within the appropriate working group."

Social.coop has several working groups: Tech, Community, Finance, Legal, and an Organizing Circle that coordinates and supports their work. (The Community Working Group also has an Ops Team that handles registration and moderation.) If you have an idea about a tech issue, you may want to contact members of the Tech Working Group. If your idea is about moderation policy, you can reach out to the Community Working Groups Ops Team, etc. (How does one do this? Tech members can be easily found in a Matrix chat). You can contact members of working groups on Mastodon. (You might think that contacting @admin@social.coop would be a good first step, but it is seldom monitored, and more often used just for announcements, so please contact working group members instead!)

If you have something to propose, you can raise it directly with the members of Social.Coop. (It's not mandatory to go through the working groups, but it is encouraged.) Here's how:

Note: If you make a proposal, ideally, you will take responsibility for stewarding it to conclusion and reporting the result. If that's not possible, please try to find a person or working group to take over the communications about the proposal.

Bylaws Compatible proposal

Once you know how the community feels about your topic, you may want to put in a full proposal. Here's a walk through of how to create a Social.coop bylaws compatible proposal:

1. From the Loomio social coop page scroll down to the middle of the page, right past the wiki link, you should see a set of tabs including Threads and Decisions
2. Click Decisions, it will show you a list of template types, choose the "Social.coop bylaws compatible proposal" template.
3. This will give you a template you can fill in, that asks:
   1. What are you proposing? (Example: "Increase the character limit on posts to 1,000")
   2. Why is this important? (Example: "It helps people write their entire thought and not need to break into threads as often. The number is the most popular option according to a poll.")
   3. What are you asking people to do? (Example: "I would like the Tech Working Group to do whatever is necessary to increase the character limit")
4. You can also add tags to help people find your proposal.
5. You might want to increase the discussion time from the default of 6 days, but as 6 days is the default that's fine too.
6. Leave it set to "Anyone in the Group" can vote, and "Notify everyone when proposal starts"

Sense Check

If you want to get a sense of how people are feeling about your proposal, before bringing it to a formal vote, you can use a Sense Check.

Here's how:

1. From the Loomio social coop page scroll down to the middle of the page, right past the wiki link, you should see a set of tabs including Threads and Decisions
2. Click Decisions, it will show you a list of template types, choose the "Sense Check" proposal type.
3. This will give you a template you can fill in, that asks:
   1. What are you proposing? (Example: "Increase the character limit on posts")
   2. Why is this important? (Example: "It helps people write their entire thought and not need to break into threads as often")
   3. What are you asking people to do? (Example: "I would like the Tech Working Group to do whatever is necessary to increase the character limit")
4. You might want to increase the discussion time from the default of 3 days, but as 3 days is the default that's fine too.
5. Leave it set to "Anyone in the Group" can vote, and "Notify everyone when proposal starts"