Intentions, principles

Here we outline our approach to principles, as the basis of a Constitution for meet.coop. We also link to a Code of conduct.

Updated 2021 10 11

As distinct from the libertarian-individualist ‘free’ ethos of the FLOSS world, and a merely technical ‘stewarding’ (aka coordination) of repositories of code, meet.coop’s commitment to commoning of digitally mediated practice spaces involves stewarding based on:

• the privileges and obligations of participation in the commons

• associated sanctions and protocols and

• a set of collective intentions that are facilitated by stewarding, provisioning and mobilising the commons.

This is profoundly ‘values based’. But the protocol-based approach is nevertheless distinct, also, from an approach based on procliamed ‘shared values’. Protocols instantiate altered relations of production, in working practice; they operationally constitute interweaving, prefigurative practices of a radically transformed planetary economy, and of a global civil society informed by ‘blessed unrest’.

The contributions of altered social relations in various fields are sketched under our Dimensions of community, and they include these:

• Principles of stewarding and commoning that we adopt, in our working relationships with people, media and material means, as distinct from the relations of property, ownership, investment, accumulation, commodity, profit and surplus, and so on, that are dominant in the wider economy. Commoning

• Principles of coop-commons economy and doughnut economy that we adopt in orientating to and contributing in the wider economies that meet.coop and its members participate in. Coop - transformed economy

• Principles of solidarity and mutuality that we adopt, as the basis of our working protocols. Solidarity - Formación

• Principles of learning and capability, in commons, in cooperation and in the mutual sector, as the basis of relationships between and within the plural sectors of meet.coop community. Formación - Learning, the dance of knowing

• Principles of design justice and tools for conviviality that underpin the ways we construct and mobilise the digital infrastructures in our operational toolstack and public toolstack. Tools for conviviality Design justice

• Principles of infrastructuring and stack of commons that we adopt, in mutualising and orchestrating our stewarding practice for different kinds of digitally mediated spaces. Toolstack - Infrastructuring Stack of commons

A ‘principle’ is more or less a higher-level, more abstracted protocol. Thus, all the above are constructed on a more specific identification of privileges, obligations, sanctions and protocols, for specific kinds of spaces, specific kinds of members and specific dimensions of community.

The Constitution of meet.coop is in turn constructed more abstractly on the basis of the above principles, and refers operationally to them. See Part 6 Constitution

Likewise, in line with the above, we set out an evolving code of conduct for the spaces stewarded by meet.coop. It will take the form of a compilation of privileges, obligations, sanctions and protocols defined in other sections of this handbook, for specific kinds of spaces, specific kinds of members and specific dimensions of community. See Part 7: Code of conduct