Document Owner: Juan Carlos Bell
A civilization that proves incapable of solving the problems it creates is a decadent civilization. A civilization that chooses to close its eyes to its most crucial problems is a stricken civilization. A civilization that uses its principles for trickery and deceit is a dying civilization.
- A. Cesaire (Discourse on colonialism)
- Proposal name: [d]Gravity
- No difference between legitimacy of social law and other types of law.
- Making rules is not just blindly following a system.
- Correcting contradictory social law behavior
- Promoting strategic nonviolent communication
- Scalability of disputes
- Draft for the conflict resolution program of the TEC which can eventually support other DAO communities.
- What are the benefits of being part of this group in the TEC
- What are the requirements to become part of this group in the TEC
- What are the responsibilities of being part of this group in the TEC
- What are the ethics behind the rules we promote[af]? - From TEC code of conduct
- TABLE 1.5 Steps Typically Used by a Private ADR Center
- Conflict management for the TEC
- User stories
- Brainstorms
- Academic references
- Comments
- As the force that attracts things and keeps them together. Also a wordplay for the transversal importance of the issues handled. [e]
Gravitation can be described as a natural phenomenon by which all things with mass or energy—including planets, stars, galaxies, and even light—are brought toward (or gravitate toward) one another.
Newton says that "all bodies whatsoever are endowed with a principle of mutual gravitation" by which "all bodies must mutually gravitate towards one another."
From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity
Decentralized organizations/communities have social structures that are prone to conflict in various scales, contexts, and specific situations. Following protocols to manage this natural dynamic is necessary while looking for resilience, trust, and [f][g]wellbeing between members.
In human logic, the veracity of something is related to an earlier presumption of truth. So the dynamic that is suggested has to be legitimated as a common agreement (higher truth[h]) that settles mechanisms to deal with contradictions inside the system. This could be seen as Internal laws that apply to everyone and whose legitimacy ultimately depends on consensus.
Following E. Ostrom’s principles (specially # 4. Rules are enforced through effective monitoring by monitors who are part of and accountable to the appropriators –, # 5. Violations are punished with graduated sanctions, & # 6. Conflicts and issues are addressed with low-cost and easy-to-access conflict resolution mechanisms).
The proposal consists of 3 elements that should be considered as the Minimum Viable Parameters (MVP) to create a conflict management program inside the TEC community:
- Transparent human monitoring[i]: A rotating group of individuals to be accountable for the design and strategic guidance of social agreements.
- The decentralized organization/communities should have defined rotative roles associated with conflict management, with responsibilities, benefits, and requirements.
- Reasonable graduate sanctions: Agreed procedures to address and scale the management of complex disputes (can end on a call for arbitrage to an external organization).
- There should be tiers of social behavior related to graduate sanctions. Something like a “thermometer” that helps to recognize the gravity of the issue and how to deal with it.
- Easy access for conflict management[j]. Talking about a conflict with a Subject Matter Expert (SME) can be helpful to encounter common points after a fraction between parts. This implies the inclusion of possible disputes to be managed within the system.
- It could be associated with a bot or a typeform, where people send their reports towards a conflictive situation and then with a distribution figure, the case is assigned to a person that should approach the parts involved to manage the issue according to the graduate sanction protocol.
Following the principles of self governance and self sovereignty, despite the lack of central authorities, we can rely on the social acceptance of internal contracts to create binding procedures, as a basis for participation inside the community.
The point of these processes[k][l] (to have clear roles in the organization played by a group of people accountable of managing the disputes sent to the system, by periodically applying and reviewing transformational actions, and conflict management scaling protocols for complex problems) are to be able to have antifragile systems that set guidelines for resisting frictions in human interaction.
To monitor the system’s stability, there must be a clear definition of who are the individuals accountable for managing disputes and promoting the ethical values of the organization in decision taking, rewards and reasonable graduated sanction designs. This group is responsible for developing trust between members, and it’s decisions, or members can be revoked if the majority of the community approves a proposal stating it’s contradiction to social agreements.
Sanctions are a necessary evil. In order to play exciting games, there must be fast responses to unwanted behavior that can help to easily address common issues and keep playing without much traumatism (like in sports).
*I suggest that after a certain time[m][n], accumulated sanctions are erased.
- Light sanctions serve as verbal warnings -to actions that affected other game players without intention to do so, and take place for the first times.
- Medium sanctions serve as yellow cards -that are tracked for intentional harm, and the registry of continuing unwanted behavior for a period of time. (duration 6 months)
- Hard sanctions serve as “red cards” that can be called for suspension of privileges of a member through a period of time, for hardly endangering others wellbeing (with or without intention), and persistent unwanted behavior with medium sanctions -This could include removing cstk tokens, banning from community calls, request for external arbitrage and traditional legal actions[o]. (duration from 1 year to 2 years)
Even though transparency is an ethical value inside the organization, there is no need for making all disputes public. Instead, all conflict management processes should start [p][q]private [r][s]and begin including actors in the conversation by strategic need.
I suggest the queries can be sent to a bot or a typeform, that is associated to a spreadsheet with a distribution figure that assigns cases equally to each conflict manager so that just sending a message connects you to someone able to manage the situation, lift information about the issue from the parts involved, and suggest sanctions according to the tiers, or help scaling the conflit if it becomes complex to address. This could serve as a database of disputes that can be periodically reviewed to update tiers by nurturing from the insights generated of conflict management practices and unpredicted social behavior. (Also if the person that receives a query declares himself unable to handle the query, they can skip this case and then the dispute is assigned with the distribution figure to another person) -Ex. My brother is involved in a case. Following a dialectical approach, there should be at least three filters required for the bot/typeform to accept a conflict management request inside the system and be able to start working around it.
A. Is this information true? (the caller signs the information sent) *Calling for conflict management with false statements should be a low-mid sanction.
B. What are the social agreements at risk in this situation *Sustaining how this behavior is contrary to the organization ethics.
C. Why is addressing this issue useful for the system? *Stating how can the community/members benefit for a call on this issue
As the proposed authority comes from consensus, the sanctioned should accept the sanction (sign it) in order to be legitimate. If the sanctioned does not agree with the sanction or feels that they are being harmed in other ways, there can be a presentation of counter-arguments that will begin a negotiation process with a TEC SME in conflict management and the involved members to look for solutions.
Following alternative mechanisms of conflict management, we can propose strategies to deal with the scaling of disputes that cannot be easily managed with the graduate sanctions. This scope involves the active participation of qualified third parties to play the role of facilitators that help building communication bridges in non consensual situations where the parts keep pushing away from each other. These are paths suggested to suit the complexity of conflicts.
- Negotiation: - The issue is private - Decisions can be settled easily between the parts and a SME in conflict management. Light sanctions can be applied.
- Mediation: - The issue is still private - The parties can agree to ask for support from a group of trusted members inside the community (not related to any of the parties), to help find solutions. They will suggest a path to proceed, but the implementation of the decision depends on the consent of both parties involved. Yellow cards can be applied.
- Conciliation: The issue is still private – The parts can agree to ask for support from a group of trusted members inside the community (not related to any of the members) that helps in the design, voting, and implementation of solutions that should be respected by all parts. Red cards can be applied.
- Arbitration: The issue becomes public after having exhausted the previous mechanisms without reaching agreements - The parts can call for help to an external organization – trusted by all parts (like kleros - aragon courts - Celeste) - that should review the process and work towards regaining governance by proposing alternatives, that should be voted inside the system to be legitimated and implemented. Red cards can be applied.
Based on: https://dialnet.unirioja.es/descarga/articulo/4182033.pdf
Draft for the conflict resolution program of the TEC which can eventually support other DAO communities.
- We could have conflict management training[t] twice a year, each one ending with a conflict management certification.
- People who pass the training and show they have soft skills and understanding of conflict can become part of this trusted group of conflict management supporters for the TEC[u][v][w].
- That will provide the minimum requirements, but then we need to develop a reputation system to promote meritocracy and good will. A person can not be part of the conflict managers more than 3 [x][y]years in a row to promote rotation and avoid centralization of power. He/she can join again after 1 year of not being part of this group.
- Agreements and sanctions as products (actions) of conflict management processes, are registered in the system database (off-chain) with follow up indicators for accountability[z][aa]. - My idea is that we could have some kind of system that holds the proof and information needed to revise and solve cases- maybe?. Ex.[ab][ac] A member publishes some information as his own. The community should be able to record the situation, the decision taken for that case, and look for a way to track the progress.
- What type of conflicts will they be able to manage? Mostly common conflicts related to unwanted organizational behavior, disputes between members and non consensual situations. The objective of this program is to handle small disputes with ease and provide preventive/de-scaling management for bigger issues.
- This is a voluntary process that can be called by one or part, but to proceed there should be recognition of the process by all parts involved.
- The conflict management process does not end in agreements or sanctions. After them, there should be Indicators and off-chain follow-up.
- .[ad][ae] The Conflict management process should be rewarded for the people doing this job.
Think there should be incentives and recognition for labor.
- ¿How can we apply Token Economics to this?
Develop further… Being involved in the community’s soft governance & wellbeing, help in the design of protocols to manage situations and promoting coherent behavior towards our values.
Develop further… Having completed a Graviton training
Develop further… Besides managing conflicts, will they be accountable for soft gov research-practices and cultural resilience?
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1S5EoWbsFt3uQ5Wj6yyUJKyApFyjCQ-EloZAr6W55N3U/edit
- Prosocial - We value designs that create public goods over profit. Profit is not bad, on the contrary, it is critical towards our goal of creating a regenerative economy that supports the Token Engineering community, but providing services to support the TE community is more important than making a profit.
- Human centered - We encourage initiatives that are focused on using token engineering in an ethical manner, and strive to only create positive impact.
- Safety - Everyone should feel safe to be, interact and express their opinions and contributions free from any malicious reaction.
- Resilience - We ask members of this community to communicate openly and to make an effort to maintain alignment with the TEC vision, mission and values. If conflicts arise, we expect members to act peacefully towards a resolution and the restoration of harmony and efficiency.
- Integrity - Honesty and consistency lead to trust, which is a core value of healthy communities. Our approach is to trust first, and any instances of scam, mislead, spam or defraud will be treated as a violation of this code of conduct.
- Open source - Ideas are meant to be shared. We default to using GPLv3 and Creative Commons with attribution licensing on our work, but we accept all open source licenses.
- Non-hierarchical - Everyone is encouraged to exercise their autonomy, creativity and full agency when acting in the Commons. Every individual is wise in their own manner and the diversity of perspectives enriches our Commons.
- Transparent - We value individual efforts, honest behavior, & proactively identifying incentives, especially if there are conflicts of interest, when it comes to proposing, funding, work progress and other important activities involving the TE Commons.
- Accountable - Community members are expected to be accountable for all their actions and commitments. Accountability brings trust, and trust is critical for our success.
- Value Driven - we encourage members to support the TE field more so than the opportunity for token values to rise
- Alternative Dispute Resolution Center Manual A Guide for Practitioners on Establishing and Managing ADR Centers
- One of the parties to a dispute (referring party) approaches the ADR Center and requests a mediation.
- The ADR Center provides a list of names of available mediators from which the parties may elect their mediator.
- The parties provide the ADR Center with all the relevant documents pertaining to the dispute, and the ADR Center provides this information to the mediator.
- The ADR Center, in consultation with the parties and the chosen mediator, determines the date and place when the mediation will take place. The ADR Center may offer premises for conducting the mediation. A few hours or a number of days may be allocated for the mediation, depending on the complexity of the matter and the number of parties involved.
- If the dispute is settled through mediation, the parties enter into a Settlement Agreement. Often the ADR Center will keep a copy of the Settlement Agreement on file for its records.
- If the dispute remains unresolved, the referring party may request that the matter be arbitrated by the ADR Center, if this is the agreed process to be followed by the parties (for example, in terms of the contract between the parties). Alternatively, the parties may agree to arbitration. If the parties do not agree to arbitration , they may follow the recognized route for resolving disputes in that jurisdiction (for example, approaching the court for a court order).
- Once again, the parties will elect an arbitrator. The arbitrator will conduct the arbitration on a date and at a time as agreed between the parties.
- The arbitrator adjudicates the matter and provides an arbitration award, which is normally binding between the parties through operation of law or by agreement of the parties.
These user stories are based on real conflicts I have seen cause issues in crypto communities… it is not the small issues themselves that cause the issues, but the damage to the trust in the community members that slowly erodes as these small conflicts build and relationships in the community erode. Eventually this can cascade to the point where a small conflict explodes into members of the community not feeling safe.
- When people start fighting in the community sometimes moderators just pause on the chat and then a moderator can DM both people and ask them to chill… this is from Dulce - Totally agree!
Alice created a really nice cadCAD model but it was not well promoted. Bob saw this model made very minor changes and submitted it to a TE Commons Hackathon and it took second place winning Bob $1000 and a lot of notoriety. Alice was hurt by this and asked Bob to give her credit and even part of the funds. Bob refused.
Suggested approach: Alice reports the problem and asks for management in the situation. The third part -conflict manager(s), besides getting Alice’s point of view, (and reviewing its verity) should try to approach Bob and take notes about his justified point. After that, it would be possible to have an initial mapping of the problem, that describes -the most impartial way- what happened. If the description of the situation matches (gets the sign of both parts) there is a recognition of the legitimacy of the process and is the starting point to begin negotiating.
After the recognition of facts, we should start a process between parts. What is that Alice wants? She wants money and recognition, could she accept one of them? What are the differences between bob’s and alice’s work? Why did bob had more impact? What does bob want? What could bob gain about a good negotiation process? -Further work with alice? -even more recognition? How can we make this a win-win situation? -focusing on incentives rather than punishments.
After looking for solutions, If there is an agreement -or if there is no agreement at all-, (i suggest) this information could be hashed for legitimacy and access for both parts. That tells the story of the situation, if the conflict persists, there is a point to continue, and if a solution is reached, it could have kpi’s associated with accountability and progress of the situation. F/ex. Bob recognizes Alice’s work as a pioneer of his product, but does not give money. He agrees to respect peers' work in the ecosystem, and at 3-6 months, there is a review to see if bob has managed to diverge -focus on other public- from Alice’s work. Alice gains recognition of the situation, receives help to manage the conflict and possible good outcomes.
If there is no agreement, the situation is still hashed (with the sign of both parts) for documentation that a repairing approach was taken, but in that moment the conflict had no progress. It could have also a following process, to see if the situation scales/de-scales.
That information Better if could be anonymous for public access and could nurture the decision taking, as marks a precedent for similar situations. What can/cannot be managed, and how.
Miguel was talking about a certain thesis and Martha stood firmly against it. The dialogue starts heating and after some minutes they find themselves pushing away from each other more and more. After the dialogue both of them felt hurt by the other team member, but just Miguel decided to report the issue to the conflict management program. Saying that Martha was being rude to him for no reason.
The SME should first try to verify the facts and approach the counterparty for lifting the most impartial resume of the conflict. If Miguel’s version was false and his intention was to provoke a sanction to his counterpart, there could be a sanction for him. If it’s proven that Martha and Miguel were both disrespectful to each other, there could be a small sanction for both. In all cases there should be the conflict manager follow up, where both Maria and Miguel Could talk openly about what drove them to that point and try to look for non repetition and healing agreements.
Reference: https://blog.makerdao.com/the-market-collapse-of-march-12-2020-how-it-impacted-makerdao/ https://forum.makerdao.com/t/signal-thread-do-we-compensate-vault-holders-that-were-completely-liquidated/1713
A proposal to refund a liquidation process that occurred inside a protocol was submitted. The proposal didn’t pass because big whales made weight to tilt the voting process. Some leaders of the refund proposal felt that decision wasn’t representative of the organization's values.
Suggested approach: The leaders of the refund proposal ask for accompaniment to conflict management supporters. After verifying facts, a group of the proposal decliners is called for getting their justified point. An impartial version of the facts should be written to ask for both part’s initial recognition of the situation.
There should be help on searching for solutions. And even if the agreement to address the issue is the voluntary retirement of certain members from the project, there should be a following process to offer support for the members that decided to retire, appropriate company could help in searching for new opportunities and dealing with the issue.
Soft skills that could be applied: Learning to differ without making it personal - The Art of Saying No: Save the Deal, Save the Relationship, and Still Say No
- There should be recognition of the people that represents the declined proposal instead of being pointed out by the protocol’s decision winners.
- The results have shown no turning back points where each part has it’s own point of view and recent’s the other. How could we help to deal with this situation managing people’s feelings, saving relationships, avoiding moral judgements “Good-bad”.
https://medium.com/@ogucluturk/the-dao-hack-explained-unfortunate-take-off-of-smart-contracts-2bd8c8db3562[ag] https://fullstacks.org/materials/ethereumbook/16_appdx-forks-history.html
A protocol is being attacked, its funds are being drained, and there is conflict around the concept of “immutability”. The conflict scales quickly and a hard fork is made to split the chain. There is no precedent about this.
Each part has justified points of view. Maybe in that moment the points were too far from each other and there were no managing margin, but if an impartial review of the facts could be signed by the two parts, besides having the record of the issue, and accompaniment of the process to all parts involved, Maybe there could be a next phase of negotiation in a time (let's say 5 years), where the evolution of technology has proven that some of the parts had more reason in that moment. In that case, there would be more negotiation margin and there could be half-way points to benefit both parts.
F/Ex. To deal with problems of “immutability” there has been more consensus to the approach of building layers on top of the main. So the approach to the issue that caused the separation has evolved. There are valuable people in both parts but very few collaboration between them. - Could we help to heal relationships and promote cooperation between forked protocols?
Without this program: the result would be rivalry, hurt feelings between ex-colleagues. The parts keep pushing away from each other.
Maria is an active member of the community, she is normally very collaborative in community calls and working groups, but for some weeks she’s been absent and nobody knows why.
Any member of the community could report the issue so that an SME in conflict management approaches her in a friendly way for offering interest in her wellbeing and the motives of the change of behavior. This could be a private process that could be useful when people are being affected by something external to the organization, or with issues that people are not comfortable openly communicating. As a community of humans backing up each other, each individual should be relevant for the system.
https://forum.1hive.org/t/story-of-a-bee-why-farming-was-delayed/875
There should be awareness of conflicts that may arise that are not listed in the graduate sanction system. And the group of conflict management supporters in the organization should be able to propose management protocols that could include new types of behavior in the graduate sanction protocol. This group of people should be in charge of making the system be antifragile and able to nurture from unpredictable social behavior.
Brainstorm with Loie (12 Oct). what does the conflict resolution process include:
- It’s clear who facilitators/supporters are - ¿should there be rotation /how to do it?
- Pre-circling (facilitators interview stakeholders) Identify the other stakeholders (who else needs to be involved) Get a definition of what happened (as neutral as possible - description of events. Helpful here to use Who What Where When questions, no How or Why)
- All stakeholders need to accept the definition of what happened
- Circle (meeting with all stakeholders) Action Steps (equivalent of justice circles)
- Set a date in future to evaluate if these have been followed Setting a safe space
- Reminding what our mission/principles are (the stuff that holds us together)
- Making it clear what pieces are confidential/what aren’t (for example Action Steps may be public but all other elements of the meeting are kept confidential)
- Facilitator is not a Judge, more of an external person that promotes communication, de-scaling of the problem and searching for solutions within different scopes.
- Accountability of the agreements/action steps What happens if you break the agreements?*** Graduated Sanctions + positive reinforcement
- “Post Circle” - 1 month-6 months later check in on if agreements are being followed.
- Clear process for when & how agreements are revisited/changed
- It’s an internal program - the facilitators should be IN the community
Clear list of who is this list of people that plays this role in the organization How does it rotate for avoiding power centralizations? Knowing when a facilitator is unable to be an impartial third in a situation.
It Could be a little difficult until we have the 1st training. Once people in the community have gotten trained as conflict supporters, we can use people from within the community
Thermometer of unwanted behavior
If someone disagrees with the group sanction, there can be an arbitrage (like kleros-aragon courts).
- Knowing when this process doesn’t apply
Include Taleb’s concept of “antifragility”
what if for the conflict res we can do something as the Dish prase, but private, like people send their query to a bot, and then a conflict manager contacts him/her for knowing more info on the report.
Then unwanted behavior is measured periodically following tiers, and related to sanctions if needed
like what you and griff to for impact hours, but this would be on reports about disputes
like, i think there should be a distributor figure (cifra repartidora) that distributes equal quantities of cases to this group of people
but they sould have also responbilities as a group, being accountable of some things in the community's well being
i thought about the bot because it's very simple and private, just sending a message connects you to someone that understand that the community's well being is related to individual wellbeing
- Harvard’s program on negotiation To sign up to receive the Teaching Negotiation Resource Center email newsletter, click here. If you would like to learn more about negotiation books, role-play simulations, and other materials available through the Teaching Negotiation Resource Center, you can reach us at [email protected].
Include conflict resolution in Founding documents
The Mexican Cooperative law gives some examples of conflict resolution within a cooperative, I know that law, we can talk on that :) [Am Humberto] - Nice! I’m suggesting monday calls.
Related links
https://oscr.umich.edu/article/restorative-justice-circles
https://hbr.org/1990/01/five-ways-to-keep-disputes-out-of-court
https://docs.google.com/document/d/18GF3f130miEsaASw-TRCHR-qRtbL8y-UsfusV7pXuZg/edit# D2D reputation sharing
https://handbook.enspiral.com/agreements/catalyst Enspiral “catalyst”
[a]This is an incredible document, i can't wait till we have the forum up and we can break out many of these topics:
- Graduated Sanctions: What sanctions are options?
- Rotating spots: how do we allow people to come in to the Conflict res group?
- Accountability for conflict res group: how do we keep the power dynamics in check?
- Monitoring system: how do we manage this!?!? Each of these and more would benefit greatly from a threaded discussion
[b]Truly happy to see what you put together here Juan!
In a discussion on future law over the past few days I brought up 'conflict resolution' and vlad pushed back a bit, saying that we should rather think of it as conflict management.
I agree, and wonder if the proper perspective is to frame it even more general as change management, of which conflicts are just a subset.
The title is perfectly fine of course, I'm just brining it up right in the beginning, as I found it a very useful perspective wrt many of the concerns that arise.
[c]I really like where this is going!! Good work Juan
[d]I love that word. Studying gravity is one of my biggest passions, and it is the organizing principle in the material world.
However, there is a complement in the informational realm which more directly concerns itself with overcoming duality (conflict) and leading into unity, which is fusion.
The most elegant form might be cold fusion, by which two bodies find into coherence by identifying the optimal, coherent, more ecological & ordered state.
(I'm probably way more passionate about these terms than appropriate ;) )
PS: Fusion truly is an informational, neg-entropic process, even our sun only achieves fusion due to sheer probability based on its vast oceans of hydrogen. The sun is not actually hot enough to achieve fusion by overcoming the coloumb barrier, thus the light we perceive is solely due to quantum tunneling, an informational process by which two atoms identify a higher, more ordered, energetic state :)
[e]Just realizing this. WORLDPLAY - nice one, Juan!
[f]might be the key criteria among them all..
[g]+1
[h]Investigation on this will invariably lead to the question of 'what is the highest truth' and how can they be reconciled, if the various parties uphold different truths as their guiding stars..
The contradictions tend to arise as artifacts, based on inconsistency of these 'higher truths', which it provide the optimal entry point to find resolution, or at the minimum translation, among those first.
[i]I suggest we have a permanent working group for this. Points to consider:
- requirements and definition of the responsibilities of the monitors
- How are they rewarded?
- onboarding process for monitors
- offboarding process for monitors that don't want to further hold this role
- what is the strategy to constantly update the community of the social agreements?
[j]here we go! :)
[k]what are these laws? A code of conduct?
[l]tiers of common behavior associated to graduate sanctions, and conflict management scaling protocols for complex problems
[m]great, we should have a suggestion for this time in the proposal
[n]maybe hard sanctions are excluded from this benefit?
[o]This is a delicate topic. I will neither assume a position for or against, I just want to point out that this is something that carefully needs to be managed.
On one side, yes, there needs to be a solution to not just discourage harmful behaviour, but to actually install effective control loops for corrective measures, which might need to extend beyond just freezing tokens in extreme cases.
At the same time, if you open the door for litigation through traditional courts, this means you need to have a situation where you introduce this exposure in the first place. This is not equally problematic in all cases, but if you have a foothold stateside on this, this can completely blow up because the exposure can easily go both ways and present an attack vector....just to keep in mind so that the solution balances the various concerns.
[p]I like that! resolve locally what can be resolved locally and limit noise to a minimum. I would encourage the communication of insights though, as sometimes new things are learned and discovered in the resolution of conflict, both content and process wise. If some insight is generated, it might be desirable to encourage it to be conveyed to the rest of the structure, even if its possibly in a anonymized manner (if only the generalized result is important)
[q]+1
[r]Juan, do you wanna add you bot idea here as a comment? :)
[s]for sure!
[t]mvp of this course can be designed in the working group
[u]Vibe watchers from the first nations... worth researching and being inspired from. Flagging people from participating on forums and chats for instance
[v]I don't have a precise reference, much of it was handed down to my by oral tradition. Good keywords tend to be
- Haudenosaunee
- Iroquois Confederacy
- Peacemaker Story
I'm a bit apprehensive in linking to any particular sources, as these were not my sources.
I'll just list 3 as a sample: https://americanindian.si.edu/sites/1/files/pdf/education/HaudenosauneeGuide.pdf https://www.pbs.org/native-america/blogs/native-voices/how-the-iroquois-great-law-of-peace-shaped-us-democracy/ https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:TTPPlXN5l08J:https://www.eco-action.org/dt/iroquois.html+&cd=1&hl=de&ct=clnk&gl=ch
[w]What I recall from memory, is that they were guided by some simple principles:
1st: The basis is you need to come from a place of peace. Centered & calm.
2nd: You are encouraged to uphold the principle of an 'upright mind', this means to use language to the best of your abilities to be constructive, positive, articulate and clear.
It implies also that one should also speak out for what you want, instead of what you don't want: Not 'I don't want xyz' but 'Instead of xzy I'd rather have abc'.
3rd: Unity over individuality. Its perfectly fine to improve something for yourself or a small number of people, but it cannot be at the expense of the many.
[x]this are arbitrary numbers.
[y]This is a forum thread for sure
[z]I think we need to walk thru some user stories to cover what conflicts we are talking about... this will help give context to a lot of these ideas
[aa]+1 - another point for the working group - collecting conflict stories, we could open an anonymous typeform to the broad community?
[ab]So maybe not only agreements during the conflict should have a record but also statements and allegations. I understand the decentralized black box as an entity that holds all the proof and information needed to revise and solve a case, maybe the training also should focus on handling this black box the best way possible.
[ac]Yes. In particular you want to be sure that statements are precise and referring to particular instance and source.
Not 'you always do too much of this' but 'in that situation you have done x which is in violation of this rule and the result/harm was z'
Not every problem will produce traces.
For example, what is the proper way to deal with free speech, if someone perceives it as harmful. Restricting speech is a delicate issue, and yet its easy to violate community standards by not adhering to some basic principles. I'll add them to the comment above under (2).
[ad]I would agree that in some cases requesting Conflict Support should have a cost, but I hope that we can create a proposal to fund a conflict resolution project right out of the gate, so that it is a there for our community.
[ae]perhaps there are different levels of severity..
Where I come from we have something called a 'peace judge'. That role is primarily functioning as a mediator to resolve conflicts peacefully, without any (legal) process. Its for low key dispute resolution and is often done volountarily.
When people can't find to a solution, then they might go a step further and invoke legal (i.e. more serious) procedures.
Perhaps a similar tiered approach is sensible, where you have a layer which is volountary & free, as resolved tensions are always better than unresolved, and then when resources assume load, then there is a cost associated to disincentivize unnecessary use.
The proper code for a judge in most legal systems is often to be fair, but to not truly give anyone what they want, so that everyone involved at least endures a little bit of pain as a disincentive. I'm not advocating any sub-optimal solutions, just saying that it's common practice to have each party to at least endure a little bit of a cost to inhibit its use. (its also possible that this won't be necessary or can be forfeited..)
[af]Its probably wise to distinguish what you want to encourage, such as a code, where you can put in ideals, and then a category of what you want to safeguard or even enforce.
An empowering 'rights based approach' can give it some form...
Personally, my favourite system is the Yamas and Niyamas from Patanjali (non-violence, truthfulness, detachment etc) but those are stated as ideals, you want to cultivate so it would be unresonable to require them, as its close to impossible to meet them to perfection.
So a part of it, if you want to be able to regulate conduct, is to establish a norm or a standard.
Its very interesting to see what happens if you push one of the ideals to perfection...for example, if you push decentralization, even on a logical level, to its perfection, you end up with holography, which happens to be congruent to our material, physical nature, which I always found quite fascinating. And holds all the way down to the quantum level :)
[ag]IIRC, there was some warning of this vulnerability ahead of time.
I would want to consider how to ensure these type of concerns are heeded, thus avoiding the conflict.