When and how to use Threads, Polls, and Proposals

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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. [link] (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.

Polls

Sometimes you want to ask something that has a specific answer, yes/no, one of a number of choices, or allocated across a number of options.

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, but as 3 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"

Proposals

As a member of Social.Coop you can shape our policies and practices. One way to do that is to make a proposal, using Loomio. 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." - from bylaws

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 is in a Matrix chat) - if not sure take it to the Organizing Circle. (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!)

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

If you are not sure exactly what you want to propose, you can start a thread for discussion or do a poll to see what people think. This is often a good way to start out. If you are ready to make a proposal you'll want to use our Make a Bylaws-Compatible Proposal template.

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 have done a Sense Check Decision, a Thread, or a Poll to understand more about how the community feels about your topic, it is probably time 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" proposal type.
  3. It will ask you to fill in: Title, Tags (optional), and Details (the body of your proposal)
  4. 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.
  5. 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, without having 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"
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