As a member of the Identity Commons mailing list for several years now I find many of the organizational conversations very interesting. Especially the dialogs on principles, articles, bylaws, organization, etc.
I feel compelled to contribute in some way, but force myself not to for the simple reason that I know that I cannot sustain the level of contribution that the IC needs. And I must set and keep these expectations right in order not to disappoint either of us. Please forgive me for that.
Anyway, Eugene’s (again excellent) summary on last week’s (3/28/2007) call mentioned the subject of voting again. This triggered me to send them this article on Holacracy from Drian J. Robertson from the Cutter Consortium. You probably already know about it, but I just want to make sure you wouldn’t miss it.
Please allow me to quote from page 12:
:”’On votes”’
:Another common question is about the “possible votes” in integrative decision making. At first it can sound like there are two possible votes on a proposed decision—”consent” or “object”—though that’s missing a key point. ”’Consent isn’t about “votes”at all”’; the idea of a vote doesn’t make sense in the context of consent. ”’There are no votes, and people do not vote.”’
: People do say whether they know of ”’a reason why the proposed decision is outside the limits of tolerance of any aspect of the system”’, and then decision making continues to ”’integrate that new information”’. This isn’t the same as most consensus-based processes—either in theory or in practice—although it does sound similar at first, especially before an actual meeting that seeks consent is witnessed.
Thoughts?