long term design notes

I don't suppose you've got a tl;dr version...?

Ah, no. Part of its point is addressing the way lots of things interact. But it should hopefully be both fairly awesome and easy to read.

Man there are some awesome points in here, there's no way I'm going to be able to comment on them all so I'll just give my 2c on the ones I'm most passionate about.

I do feel like some of these features would place constraints on groups where organic process might be more effective? I think any time we're adding a constraint it has to be as a guideline rather than a formal rule so that groups can agree on their own rules if they need them.

If there isn't complete buy in for a group, the portion that does use it can then take their consensus on a decision back to the wider group and discuss it further there. I don't think loomio can automatically fix polarisation or factions within a group but even within that context there's still value in going through the motion of attempting to reach a consensus.

For the larger groups, I'd like to just see them participate and work with any issues as they arise.

I really think that having tags and filters would help a lot with larger discussions so they could be filtered down to important/key points.

Some of the features I would really like to see:

1. Importance of proposal
2. Keeping track of participation and who has read a proposal
3. Action to be taken and by who when a proposal closes
4. Tags and filters for discussion history
5. Diffs for proposal history
6. More mediums to engage in a discussion, particularly interested in how loomio could be used alongside an in person meeting

@Paul cool. the numbering of paragraphs/chunks I gave was so people could refer to them for clarity when commenting... (eg which features placing constraints?)

Love what you've done here Billy and I agree with the vast majority. Most of it reads as affirmation of the feature conversations I've participated in over the past months.

I will say that there are a number of critiques in there that come across sounding more harsh than you probably intend them to. E.g. comments like 'Loomio does not remove barriers to participation' are likely to land with a bit of a clang. When bringing this kind of food for thought to the group, it might pay to consider that there are many minds that have given as much thought to this as yourself.

@Billy yeah sorry replying by number would have been the logical thing to do, the doc was a little over my head in places so I can only really reply in generalisations.

I completely agree that we really do have to make sure the tool encourages more diverse forms of engagement but just want to make sure we don't unintentionally add barriers in the process.

{12?} I know personally I'm quite introverted and for every comment I post I delete like 3 before I actually hit post comment. If there was a feature measuring how useful I am and filtering only useful comments I'd be constantly thinking about it and probably delete even more comments or possibly not comment at all. There's a bit of a danger here of encouraging elitism which can be a huge barrier for engagement.

On that note I should also point out that loomio and the loomio community have done a good job and removing the barrier to participation for introverts.

It did seem like one of the key points in your doc was customization/flexibility anyway so really I'm just agreeing that that is essential in any new features in a really general way.

BTW the numbers I added for features were an attempt to extract some of the ideas in your doc into a code focused format for my geekbrain. If we can isolate what the actual features involved here are and their effect on engagement/participation we could even get a list of goals for a future milestone?

Hi Billy - I have to say the effort you put into your very detailed cognitive walk-through is highly commendable and rich with detail. I need to carve out some time to do justice to the doc and give it a serious read, which I intend to do soon - however I would suggest you give a look at the spread that I am working on as it is a comparative set of features of tools related to Loomio and some of the features you talk about such as "participation-related analytics" have been implemented in tools such as BetterMeans. Bettermeans however is a more trello-like took - so it would be worthwhile for you to take a fly-by across what is already out there to add to your perspective and perhaps even clarify it a bit !

Tx

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Apl9Ou4giZM_dDF0bENWYUw2Q2NYSG1QTG1RUE52OVE#gid=0

[please feel free to edit / add to the spread as it exists]

Nice job Billy... I feel like it will take more time to fully digest all of this. I think many of your ideas will really help Loomio scale up to handle larger groups. I'm wondering how to take the info in this document and make it more accessible though, since I suspect people will struggle to find time to properly absorb it. A workshop maybe?

@Varun yeah had a look at that document before I wrote this one up, Figured I would write up what was in my head to communicate principles before getting into the minutiae of all possible variants

@Alanna if people can't find the time to read a document how will they find time to have me read it to them? :P