Internationalisation

Official proposal

The internationalisation of the Decidim community is a reality. There are already some local MetaDecidim chapters (such as France or Japan), which have organically organised themselves. As in Metadecidim, the idea is to gather a community of speakers around Decidim to share advice, discuss approaches and propose new functionalities. Many users or administrators from the countries that use decidim do not speak English, Spanish or Catalan, so it is difficult for them to participate in the debates of the association or in Metadecidim. And we think that, with the internationalisation of the software, these types of local chapters will multiply.

During the last general assembly, the question of creating an inclusive international committee was raised, with the idea that internationalisation would be led and coordinated through the association.

In addition, in many countries, companies, individuals or institutions promote Decidim and the Association so that it is more widely adopted in the administration, with a discourse on the social contract, transparency and free and open source software. They act as a kind of Decidim ambassadors, spreading the technology, sometimes without any contact with the association.

The starting point for this debate was the Decidim Fest 2022 (see the minutes of the Open Assembly).

All this poses new challenges for us as a community. This debate aims to define two key elements to standardise the internationalisation of the community: Decidim ambassadors and local chapters.

Questions for the debate

Decidim Ambassadors

What is a Decidim ambassador?
How are they chosen? What are the requirements?
What are the recognition and accountability mechanisms?

Organisation, management and governance of Local chapters

How should the procedure for incorporating Local chapters be?
How to give space to Local Chapters so that they have visibility in meta.decidim?
What relationship should Local Chapters have with the Association?
Who is in charge of making Local Chapters dynamic?

How can I participate?

By leaving your comments below. You can answer the questions or write your thoughts on the topic addressed in this debate.
Upvote for the comments you agree with. Your votes will be taken into account when drafting the document.

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14 Apr 2023 → 25 May 2023

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Hadrien Froger 19/04/2023 22:58 Edited

Hi, thanks for this debates, highly appreciated.

Decidim Ambassadors
What is a Decidim ambassador?
To me a Decidim ambassador represent local chapters inside the Decidim association. He brings updates and raise whatever block the local chapters to engage with Decidim.

How are they chosen? What are the requirements?
I think they should be elected through a majority election inside the local chapter they represent. This should be something with a year of validity and the avoidance of making double mandates.

What are the recognition and accountability mechanisms?
We could leave this to the chapters to decide and publish the criteria publicly.

Hadrien Froger 19/04/2023 23:03 Edited

Organisation, management and governance of Local chapters
How should the procedure for incorporating Local chapters be?

I am not fan to talk local chapter with territory. Because it means exclusivity. As Japan have a local chapter, it should not be named the "japanese local chapter" as it will transfert sense of authority for a whole country. To me we are talking about a french local chapter made by open source politics and a japanese local chapter made by codeforjapan. If we go for one exclusive local chapter per territory => Decidim association needs to setup clear restrictions on governance of the chapters to avoid.

The criterias could be: you sign the social contract, you respect the Decidim branding, you are transparent which is the institution, organism that host.

How to give space to Local Chapters so that they have visibility in meta.decidim?

Decidim ambassador could send texts to add to a decidim newsletter maybe. Not really sure this needs to be addressed right now.

What relationship should Local Chapters have with the Association?

I see local chapters as a group of associates that talk another languages and evolves in (hopefully) a non-european context. To me local chapters is a self-organized group that is there to make decidim moves forward. So: ambassador are there to relates and gives news, but any member of a local chapter should be able to appear in a decidim assembly as member of a local chapter.

Valentin Chaput 10/05/2023 10:24

Thank you Hadrien for your comments. It's funny: we have had this constant debate internally about whether our Users' Club should be the French-speaking local chapter or mainly the "OSP-clients" chapter. We are open to all these discussions for the future, simply wishing to avoid the multiplication of overlapping roadmaps. And we feel it is important to offer such a service as our "Club Decidim" (could be renamed) to our customers.

Lucien Langton 10/05/2023 11:51

@Hfroger I'm not as sure as you on this point:
"I am not fan to talk local chapter with territory. Because it means exclusivity."
I believe you can have locality without exclusivity : a good example of this is all the CodeFor groups around the world, they do not have an exclusiveness on their "tech market" so to say, but however are organised collectively.

Here are a few benefits of territorial chapters I can sense for the community as a whole:
- It clarifies diversity
- Approaches to civic-tech often depend on territorial strategies and politics
- Territory is often linked to culture and language as well

I believe we're safe as long as territorial chapters should respect these principles:
- A territory can be a region defined by a language or a country
- The aim of a local chapter is to identify, reflect on and document Decidim practices endemic to it's territory
- If several providers work within the same territory, chapters cannot be used to gain exclusive competitive advantage
- - All providers within the common territory need to be invited
- - All ambassadors (if that becomes a thing) within the common territory need to be invited

The additional question we are now looking at is rather:
- Do we need to restrict the creation of chapters to territorial scales only ?
- - I believe we should, yes. This should force the use of the community and it's thematic groups to build international knowledge between local chapters, because it will bring clarity to the local aspect of knowledge :) This is already occurring naturally today, for example:

I'm looking into using Decidim for cooperatives, and get in touch with others to find examples used in other countries.

Finally, local chapters mean we can finally launch a Decidim Erasmus program, as dreamed by @Pops during the last decidim fest !

Nil Homedes 11/05/2023 18:25 Edited

Thanks for your comments guys!
I'm completely agreed with most of what you said @llangton

--> Territoriality
I agree that local chapters should be linked to territories, be they states, languages or nations without a state (such as Catalonia ;). I understand that the organisation of these chapters will be organic.

I mean, maybe it makes sense for Switzerland to have its local chapter, in which several languages will be used. And that, on the other hand, France has its Local Chapter. Since the political and administrative reality of each territory is different and has its own characteristics, both legislative and cultural.

--> Definition and organization
The first question to be asked in order to organise the functioning is, how do we define a Local Chapter? What exactly should it be?

I think that a Local Chapter is a network of exchange of practices, knowledge and help for all those who use Decidim.

So, what should be the main functions and activities of a Local Chapter?

To generate a digital space for help (ideally a Decidim instance, like the club des utilisateurs, but it can be a telegram group or an Element room).
Create a space for sharing experiences
Advise and help people who are new to the community.
Disseminate the values of the project and ensure compliance with the social contract.
Encourage a good use of Decidim to guarantee the democratic quality of the processes.
Promote the adoption of Decidim and Open Source Software
Organise events to share experiences and network (it could be a Decidim Day organised by the local chapter).

I think these are the main tasks and functions of a Local Chapter, but I'm sure we can think of many more!

--> Rules
Obviously we need to define some rules for all this to work well. I think we have to start from two premises to think about rules:
- A Local Chapter should always be open to everyone.
- A Local Chapter should not be used for commercial purposes.

Hadrien Froger 19/04/2023 23:06

Who is in charge of making Local Chapters dynamic?

Well we have a sleepy Community Stewardship thematic committee. How about renamed it Community, and have a broader perspective on this group (and hopefully have more people working community dynamics).

Maite López Sánchez 14/05/2023 08:13

Thanks all, I agree with most of what you have said, but @Hfroguer : I do not see why ambassadors could not make double mandates, of course, it is always desirable to have rotation, but in some chapters, no-one else may be willing to take the position...

Reference: MDC-DEBA-2023-04-250
Version number 4 (of 4) see other versions

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