The unMonastery: On shared ownership in open collaboration

A person who cares

@rhithinkRhiannon here on Edgeryders is a young British lady who deeply cares about coop reform, and believes it is possible. Maybe you could talk to her?

Community Healing

Hello :slight_smile:

As some of you know , I’m a lot into Community Healing and peaceful and respectful resolutions of “conflicts”

I would like to help :slight_smile:

First thing, there were some questions asked,

Nadia asked them in the post

let’s answer them ? :slight_smile:

here they are again :

  1. Does it matter that everyone who feels they have contributed towards the building of the unMonastery (or any community born project) is consulted about this move, and or feels invited to be part of the new organisation? If so, how to ensure this happens? (Bear in mind that everyone has limited time and resources, so it needs to be practically actionable under those conditions).

  2. Is a version of a community project run by a new organisation or using new processes a fork? If so does it make sense for the new projects and or organisation to be named in a way that indicates this is the case?

for me both answers seem to be “YES”

and I think an open discussion about collaborative projects is very healthy

I’m also happy to facilitate anything I can help with,

within this “conflict” resolution,

and building meaningful projects together.

Many Hugs and Love <3

I’ll try and keep it brief, digestible, for your sanity and for mine.

I can and will elaborate if asked. Just talk to me.

UnMonastery is personally significant & the same is true for many who are reading this & written on this page.

I put its survival, stability & integrity first and foremost when entering any discussion & conversation about it.

I expect the same from everyone else who identifies with it.

UnMonastery is a unique opportunity for its time, scope, precedent, approach & approachability

In short it represents urgent, imperative social value, which reaches far beyond those it directly interfaces with.

A lot of that value is translated and built directly from ‘process’; which is this.

The hashing out of the exact ethics, methods, objectives, values; all enacted and discussed in vivo, whilst the work is happening, whilst we’re ‘doing’ it.

This takes a very human toll no matter who you are, this is exhausting work - so if you’re feeling emotional right now - you’ve probably been working really hard on this.

UnMonastery has a history; from Day 1 in Strasbourg until this moment (and for some, even before then).

There have been huge achievements, there have also been disagreements and failings. All of them are valuable, all of them are learning material.

If we’re able to resolve the disputes at present, some already expressed, some still in people’s heads, and we’re all still here - have no doubt that whatever comes next for unMonastery will be even better than any iteration to date.

UnMonastery at present contains and practices, disagreement and contradiction (in addition to all of the alignment and accord).

A root issue to highlight is that the foundations for this network are built entirely on a trust (that everyone involved has only good intentions for the project and its people).

This fundamental requires rebuilding before any other progress can take place. Expect no progress, without first taking the belief that you are all on the same team.

UnMonastery currently has the capacity to solve its problems. Expect new problems when they’re solved.

Almost entirely the only reason why UnMonastery is so irreplaceably unique and socially valuable, is its diversity of vision, methods and practices, which exist in direct contradiction, yet hold a stable identity.

If you have contributed even a simple vocalised idea to UnMonastery, know that your contribution is irreplaceable, needed and valued.

You have built this. No hyperbole, no romance.

UnMonastery could be everything you want it to be, it can fulfill on all of its ambitions. It requires your patience and participation.

But rightly so, also your opinion and agenda.

Trust In The Process.

Thank you, to every single one of you.

You’ve undoubtedly worked much harder on this than I have, you’ve had much stronger belief than me from the start -

This post is a small, inadequate gift in return. Taken in good faith, and helpful, I hope.

See you soon x

1 Like

Thanks for your offers

Thank you, @dorotea and @k11 for your generous offers. You are both more than acceptable facilitators to me. I believe I am roughly aligned with Nadia, Noemi, Arthur and Matthias (though honestly I have not had the chance to hear from Matthias about present tensions). They will correct me where I am wrong, and I will definitely not take it personally. I would also like to thank @emkay for putting things into a useful perspective.

@billy_smith, I am sorry that you feel that way. Private groups come out of the box with Drupal Commons, as with most social networking software. This is reasonable, because some activities need discretion (generally, with respect to people outside the community). That includes some of the work we do here: for example, collaboratively writing competitive funding applications. Even if we are happy to do it in the open, partnering organizations generally are not (in fact I already got in trouble once, for releasing an application, though it had already failed, into the recycling bin). It is not exactly a secret: instructions for creating invisible projects are in the user’s manual, accessible by clicking on “Help” in the main menu.

That said, Ben and other community members have full access to the ER LBG Administration group.

If and when we have this moderated conversation, I will be happy to explain the rationale for having this. If you want to access the Admin group yourself, I personally have no issue with it, though I will need to make sure everybody is comfortable with it.

@alberto, thank you for your trust. Check with the other people from the Admin group, and if they’re happy, then i’d be happy to help.

I’ve been ripped off a number of times in the music industry, so i tend to be a little twitchy when it comes to “Trust Issues”, especially in business.

I also met Trevor Bayliss when he was talking at ELIC, and he was explaining some of the ways that people tried to rip him off. This was one of the main rationales of the inventors club. Mutual self-defence and support. There’s nothing more useful than a quiet conversation where you are told, “Don’t work with those people. Here’s how they tried to rip me off…”

Whenever i see some of those initial symptoms that they mentioned, it pushes my buttons. Once burnt, twice shy.

I didn’t know about the NDA restrictions that were attached to some of the funding providers. Like i said before, i’ve not used those forms of funding before. I’ve had to sign NDA’s before, but i always make sure that they have a sunset clause, so that there will always be a definite date when i CAN talk about the work that i’ve been doing.


Re. My comment about the for-profit co-working spaces. Whenever i went to have a look at them, they always put an emphasis on the interesting mix of people that you would meet there.

Whilst nodding, smiling and continuing to listen, i always had in the back of my mind, a Billy Connolly sketch that he called “Getting in touch with your Inner Welder”, where he was polite in dealing with pretentious middle-men, gate-keepers, and rip-off merchants, at the same time as feeling the hair and muscles sprouting from his arms, while he was thinking about ripping them limb from limb.

I would end up thinking “You want to use me as product to sell your space, and you want me to pay you for the priviledge…” Though it always sounds better when you’re roaring it loudly in a broad Glaswegian accent… :))


The thing is when i worked in the corporate environment, the rip-off’s had a different flavour, but the underlying taste was the same shit with a shinier spoon.

The current start-up craze is another example of the same thing. Yes, there are a lot of sincere people trying to start businesses and make the world a better place, but because i’m seeing it here in London, i’m running into a lot of money laundering schemes, ponzi scams, pump’n’dump schemes, and graft!

One horrifying but excellent example can be found on the Ribbon Farm website, http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-or-the-office-according-to-the-office/, where the writer,Venkat, manages to tie together the MacLeod Company hierarchy with the Five Stages of Chaos that every organisation goes through from genesis to decay. Something too think about when we’re organising how we do things.

This also acts a reatively good description of the parasites that haunt funding pots, and act as shovel-salesmen to wannabe’s.


Though you’ve also got to watch out for the Feral Ballerina’s:wink:

Billy: welcome to the Admin group

@billy_smith, we will be pleased to welcome you to the Edgeryders LBG Administration group, where you will be treated to the joys of updating Terms of References, drafting reports and generally hustling for Edgeryders. cheeky

I will get in touch with you on private email for more detailed instructions.

access to Admin board

Hi @alberto, I wonder if I can also have access to the admin board. It may make it easier for me to understand the background of some of the topics that I contribute on the platform.

Many thanks!

Katalin

Same thing as Billy

Hello @katalin, the same applies to you as to Billy: ask around if people are comfortable with you in the group.

Please guys, don’t do this one at a time. This is all unpaid overhead for me – on top of trying to make my own living and creating paid opportunities to do meaningful work for me, which is not easy at all.

Admitted

Katalin, if you are still interested we will admit you. I will write to you the instructions in a separate message but they boil down to understanding and accepting the terms of use of a non-public group.

Stop this bickering, now!

On one hand I don’t know who these alleged excluded unMonasterian souls can be but since the process of forming the ‘unMon’ entity is neither final nor complete then the adult thing to do is to tell them to come forward and ask/demand to be included and, by so doing, put the vaunted principles of the unMonastery to the test. If, and only if, they are then excluded do they have any right to complain. In the meantime those claiming leadership roles should not be carrying gossip.

On the other hand one of the reasons for standing up the unMonastery as a separate entity was to allow and oblige those who were unhappy about the evolution of the edgeryders platform to show that they could do a better job of developing an online community. Consequently, those people should not be indulging in rehearsing a litany of petty or imagined slights on the old forum. They should be building their new ‘Jerusalem’.

A pox on both your houses if you cannot conduct yourselves more maturely.

Keeping it short

  1. Please let’s keep discussion constructive, for healing personal hurts I recommend meeting IRL!

  2. @k11, I respect you and <3 you but I can NOT +1 on you as completely neutral facilitator between ER and unMon. Let’s please consider asking for help for example great folks from Emerging Leader Labs. Why inbreed and cook in our own sweat?

  3. @nadia, if we talk in public lets all talk in public! When someone contacts you on private with concerns, maybe you could encourage those people to have courage to express themselves openly? C’mon, we don’t have vicious monsters on this platform which will e-chew someone. Even if someone will loose one’s calmness, others will step in and offer support on comforting to other one feeling offended. I think people need encouragement and not mom who keeps ‘helping’ them to clean their noses.

  4. Talking online in open doesn’t = keeping everything on ER platform. If unMonastery currently doesn’t provide any open forum - PLEASE OFFER ONE! If you need technical help, let’s ask @almereyda for help! unMonastery already has VM on Ecobytes to run whatever needed.

  5. @nadia, if you didn’t come to Berlin for unMonastery Gathering, please consider to consider yourself simply less involved and don’t try to “call the shots”

  6. If anyone here feels that people currently working on unMonastery have some debt towards you. Please state it loud and clear, including your precise demands and proof of your past contributions. IMO staying vague obligations/expectations doesn’t help anyone.

  7. Online tools need integration? Of course! Who actively works on it? I only know that @almereyda does, myself and maybe @jamesl still does. Anyone else here? Until we sort out various technical obstacles, let’s acknowledge current limitations and learn how to leave with them. We don’t need all to use the same channels. If will to communicate exist then people will bridge conversations . And if you want to have nice online integrations available sooner - CONTRIBUTE to developing them! (now I juts go back to exactly do that)

Last but not least


1 Like

keep it playful :slight_smile:

Elf,

we’re in the same room but for now I can only really strongly agree on one thing you stated here… that is also in the same room… “Keep it playful”

:slight_smile:

Nothing against Nadia!

@dorotea have brought to my attention yesterday, that one can interpret my comment as ‘against @nadia’. I would like to clarify that I didn’t put such intention into it. I just have impression that while Nadia tries to help with really improving something, it unfortunately seems to result in contrary - making this situation even worst.

IMO both Edgeryders and UnMonastery communities (including cross over between them) have enough participation from various people. So while Nadia and @ben somehow ended up in unfriendly resonance, others can step up and keep the vibe more positive and constructive. Which I have impression happened already :slight_smile:

Nothing against anyone

An assumption of good faith (no one is “against” anyone) is both required and reasonable in any constructive conversation. Knowing you a bit, @elf_Pavlik, it is not hard to believe you are not bearing personal grudge.

That said, thanks for making the point, therefore helping to spread the better vibes.

Better Vibes :slight_smile:

Exactly , helping to spread better vibes :slight_smile:

I’m definitely willing to help with that !

hi and thanks

…to all for your clarifications, obfuscations, flame warring and poxes too!

all are very welcome in my view, the more info, the more crap, the more enlightenment, the better…

lets have it all out finally (and never finally) to find new inspiration in this mess of humanity that we chosen to enter into here, no there’s never any final conclusion to such conversations (how could anyone even try to mediate, i mean meddle, i mean mediate)…

we must apologize as needed, continue to fight back were necessary, to conflict when necessary (and of course to find the positive when it helps balance things out)…for is that not the essence of who we are? conflicted, prejudiced, one sided, unholy, ungodly, unmons trying to escape from business as usual? please, let’s be honest about the process (and our own process) and stop pretending to be like everyone else ok?

an answer to anything? all we can do is to continue as we’ve continued, hobbling along at times, flying along, edging ourselves towards new forms of being, of being together, organizing, collaborating, designing new ways of seeing, but please let’s not be so evolved as to design away our demons, our personal hells, we need them all, thanks to all who have spoken up!

cheers friends, looking forward to working in athens soon…

1 Like

Moderated group now accepting members

Hello all, as Ben has resurfaced to post a first (short) update in the to-be-moderated group, I have taken the liberty of accepting the sign-up of those who had requested access to it, i.e. @cristiano_siri, @dorotea and @billy_smith. I name them here because I am not sure that Drupal serves email notifications when your pending request for membership in a group is accepted. I think it is the first time this happens in Edgeryders.

Those who wish access to that group can request it here: https://edgeryders.eu/en/the-confessional

Alternative channel for accepting members

The three people mentioned above could successfully request membership to The Confessional, and have now been approved. If you want to access the group but can’t for some reason, let me know by whatever channel and I will add you manually.

yes please

thanks,

michael

Done

@mishek you are now a member of The Confessional smiley