Open Assembly: The main challenges for the sustainability of the project

Here is a summary of what was discussed in the second part of the assembly, dedicated to two of the issues related to sustainability: internationalisation and community participation.

How can we improve community participation?

We have analysed that, sometimes, participating in the MetaDecidim community is not as easy as we would like it to be. It is perceived as a community reserved for tech people, with little room for profiles more closely linked to participation or dynamisation. We also see that there is a very top-down dynamic, and that there are few channels for proposing and self-organising in order to contribute. For all these reasons, the aim of this group will be to think about how to improve the participation of community members in order to contribute to the project.

1/ Presentation and  discussion about the main question:

How can the participation of community members to contribute to the project be improved?

Here is a resume of the interventions during the QA moment:

• The community needs clear rules about governance
• Place for asking questions/support channel, like a general support forum. (This is already created in Element: See Support admins room)
• Demo Day: Place to present modules/your work
• Access to design files and place to help with those files
• Map of basic processes that govern the rest of the processes for community assembly
• We need to define a user journey for contributing.
• Metadecidim needs to be easy to use for newcomers.
• We could do regular calls for newcomers.
• The community could help decidim team in order to have more active participatory spaces and dynamising it. Let people help you!

2/ Non-code contributions.

We present the areas where we believe that without coding you can contribute to the community. (Based on: https://navendu.me/posts/non-code-contributions-to-open-source/)

At Decidim Fest the groups proposed were:

• Release parties: Crated in Element. Join the room!
• Design: Created in Element. Join the room!
• Community Stewardship: Created in Element. Join the room!
• Welcome: Not created yet
• Documentation: Not created yet

How can we tackle the internationalization of the community?

During the Open Assembly that took place in the Decidim Fest, some members of the community talked on how to handle the “local chapters” or “local user groups” of Decidim. 

We open this debate to start the discussion within the Association and with the aim of taking a final decision in the next General Assembly, with the concrete proposal of a set of rules.

These are the post-its from the meeting:

• The rules of the local chapters and branding usage
• Sister cities: Barcelona, Boston, New York
• How local chapters decisions/ideas/feedback go back to central Metadecidim?
• Continuous (and open) translation (Internationalization) => Weblate is free and efficient
• Decidim certification - upholding the social contract
• Branding guidelines. DecidimX France ; Chromium => Chrome; Ted => TedX
• Engage local users
• Gov: only one chapter authorized and recognized by association
• Give space to lower level partners for visibility on meta.decidim
• International cooperation for finding support
• Create an open, transparent process: define goals, governance power structure complicated, local chapters.
• Organize for co-funding
• Local membership (with % sent to the association)
• Define local needs (feature priority) core architecture strategy
• Simple community building rules
• Global BN'D (?) for funding
• Regional Hubs/Node: Asia, LatAm, NorthAm, Europe, Africa
• Inclusive global leadership coordination
• Brand with social contract
• Regular participative processes / events
• Opening spaces in Element for other languages administrator
• Local "official" events
• Public sector economic contribution
• Contribution of the local team in Metadecidim for decolonism vision of the project

These are the notes from the meeting:

1. Extension branding control. Update the social contract taking into account the human rights. How to add public contributions to the project with an international perspective. Get more resources to the association. Introduce a decolonial vision to the project.
2. Add automatic translation. Integration with DeepL
3. How to make official Decidim events? Ex: Decidim day, OffFest, etc. Open space (channels) in element for admins by languages
4. Local assembly at the finish line. It is important to define minimum criteria to create a local/regional node-group
5. Reduce barriers to participation (ex: login) - be able to generate sub-brands for local groups like DecidimX just like TeDX
6. To be able to give support to local groups and that local groups can contribute human resources to the project, taking responsibility for community spaces and tasks
7.  Iván: think about the returns-incentives towards the community. What benefits does the community and association bring? 
8. To have a map of instances or a map of local groups in the community
9. Internationalization must be organized through association. Inclusive leadership is needed, assigning roles to motivate the community. Possibility of having local ambassadors. Activate international committee.
10. It's important to socialize and cooperate to jointly go to call for proposals and call for projects to get funding.
11. If we walk, people will come, that's how community is built.
12. Platform for collaboration for projects and calls for companies. In-kind contributions. 

Some questions to address the discussion:

• What should be the requirements and the request process for creating a local Decidim group? 
• Who integrates the international committee? In which periodicity the committee meets? What's its scope of decision and which kind of things need to be decided by the Association?