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User:Martind: Difference between revisions
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→Making Change
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* Good work usually makes more change happen than good opinion. Instead of solving a problem by throwing demands at it you will likely be more successful by handing it over to a group of people who get along well and then letting them take charge. If you don't show up and contribute then it'll be hard for you to influence the outcome. | * Good work usually makes more change happen than good opinion. Instead of solving a problem by throwing demands at it you will likely be more successful by handing it over to a group of people who get along well and then letting them take charge. If you don't show up and contribute then it'll be hard for you to influence the outcome. | ||
* Making change is hard: it involves lots of initiative, and the patience to try again until you find the right way to make it work. It may entail having to change the habits of many people who have no reason to listen to you. This is by design. (And yes, it's not always good.) | * Making change is hard: it involves lots of initiative, and the patience to try again until you find the right way to make it work. It may entail having to change the habits of many people who have no reason to listen to you. This is by design. (And yes, it's not always good.) | ||
=== Informal Authorities === | |||
(this needs work, and intersects with a few other topics here) | |||
* Frequently a change proposal will not only be judged on its own merits, but also by who the proposer is. (This is not a hard rule, but happens frequently enough to make it noteworthy.) | |||
** This reflects our particular political culture: we often place a stronger emphasis on interpersonal relationships than purely democratic values. | |||
** In other words: there still are informal lines of authority in our unstructured organisation, these are based on soft factors ("seniority", conduct, past interactions, personal preference, ...) | |||
** These informal lines of authority likely have similar functions to more formal lines of authority (job titles etc) in more structured organisations. E.g. people may use these as cognitive shortcuts when they form judgments. | |||
* It's not entirely clear to me yet whether this is a good thing, or to what degree it's important that this takes place. | |||
** It can be a good decision-making shortcut: it can simplify the social problem-solving process from having to perform the full argument with a large group to being able to "delegate" certain decisions to others based on a degree of trust. | |||
** It reflects our reliance on self-motivation instead of more formal means of control: it allows motivated people to take charge without having to justify every step. | |||
** However it also introduces an inequality: it restricts the degree to which "new" members can take charge without being questioned. | |||
*** We've had some clear cases where exemplary ("competent") new members managed to gain great trust by a large number of informal authorities quickly. | |||
*** We've had many more examples where "imperfect" initiatives of new members resulted in tar-sand debates and impasses, sometimes at the cost of burning their enthusiasm, or even turning them away. | |||
** I.e., we're not good at encouraging initiative, at fostering new authority figures: the ones that "succeed" were already a good cultural fit before they joined. The others are eaten by lions. | |||
* It is not clear to me how to change this (provided we wanted to change this), particularly considering our least-effort approach to community facilitation. | |||
** Is there a least-effort equivalent to a guided induction? E.g. safe zones where people can be active participants in our culture without having to feel tested? | |||
** How can we reveal existing intangible bias in our decision-making, make it tangible without being confrontational about it? | |||
=== Infrastructure Projects === | === Infrastructure Projects === | ||
