Previously I asked on the fedi who would like to start a co-op supporting free software and EU based services. I am very excited that so many of you are willing to work with me on this project 😊 Below I want to share some thoughts about the next steps.
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Starting tomorrow (i.e. Monday) I will try to privately reach out to everyone who expressed initial interest in working with me. I will send you and invitation to schedule a 25 minutes long, one on one video call with me.
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If you accept I am going to ask you the following questions. I will also be happy to answer any relevant questions from you, but I will be strict with time. My questions are:
- Where are you based geographically?
- What’s your availability? How many hours of work can you dedicate to the co-op every week?
- What’s your work experience? What relevant skills are you bringing?
- What do you expect from this co-op? Why do you want to join it?
- How do you feel and what do you think about my manifesto?
- Is there anything else you would like me to ask you?
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After talking with you I will invite selected founding members to Tad Lispy Social Club. It’s a private forum where I am the host. It will serve as an incubator where we can privately organize our work until we establish a dedicated platform. I will try to be generous with invitations, and extend a credit of trust to everyone, but I won’t invite people who don’t seem like a good match. As a host I also reserve the privilege to moderate discussions and exclude members who will breach our trust. This is so we can all enjoy constructive cooperation.
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Once enough people are in, we will organize some group video calls so we can get to know each other. This is essential for community building, but important decisions should be discussed and communicated in writing for reasons of accessibility and transparency. That’s what the forum is for.
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Once we establish mutual trust and organize ourselves, I will relinquish any special authority. We will make decision collectively or delegate authority to elected bodies. It will most likely require establishing a new, collectively controlled platform. Until then you will have to trust me, just like I will trust you, to act with integrity.
This is the plan and plans rarely survive a contact with reality, but it will serve as a guidance to me. Please share any constructive comments 🫶
I’m not in Europe, but I love your manifesto and how you footnoted it. I think it’s downright perfect.
I hope you share how the project goes, including any challenges. I have a fantasy of starting a coop in my region and I’m sure I’m not alone. Having an example to follow (including potentially mistakes to avoid) would be a great resource.
Thank you ❤️ May I ask where are you based? Feel free to reach out in a dm if you don’t want to share publicly.
Seems great!
You may want to maybe start a dedicated community and/or Matrix space, it might be easier to organize than here
In the first phase I’m going to host us in my social club. TLSC is a private, self hosted and invitation-only instance of Discourse. It’s an experiment in creating something like a private LinkedIn, so should fit the purpose. I want to avoid the overhead of running another service so this can be our forum, unless people bring something better.
Actually my wife and I do self-host a Matrix server too. We use it to chat and call (mostly sharing links and grocery lists), but I don’t think it’s a great platform for organizing communities. Like other similar products it tends to get chaotic and noisy, and it’s very difficult to find what was said even few hours before. Good for real time communication, but not so much for thoughtful work or organizing information.
