Moderator and Host Guidelines

Intro

The following document can serve as informal guidelines for moderators, delegates, hosts, and participants to cooperate better during weekly meetings.

These guidelines are intended to help optimize community time, improve productivity, increase efficiency, and create more enjoyable experiences for everyone. If a community wants to integrate these guidelines more formally into cooperating procedures, a community council may approve a vote to add any of these informal guidelines to more formal agreements in the future.

Please note that this page is in an early stage of development. It starts with learnings from week 31 because this inspired the article. This will be organized better in the future.

• Intro
• Learnings from Week 31
• Voting Protocol
• Delegates decide when to vote…
• Moderator can ask delegates if they are willing to have an extension of time
• Internet Issues
• Back-up Recordings
• Approved Guidelines
• Proposal 1: Optimizing Post-Breakout Room Meetings
• Proposal 2: Moderator Guidelines
• Sociocratic Method….
• Related Media
• Eden Fractal Brainstorming Session #3
• Recaps from Lennie
• After Eden+ Fractal

Learnings from Week 31

There was a technical issue during week 31, which led to several other issues and opportunities for improvement. Below is a list of

Voting Protocol

When delegates are ready to vote for a proposal or move onto the next topic, they can communicate this to the group by writing this in the zoom chat or sharing a predefined emoji reaction.

For example, delegates could signal that they are ready to vote on a proposal or move by using the zoom reaction emoji of a soccer ball: ⚽️

When a supermajority of delegates are ready to vote, then the moderator calls a vote or moves onto the next topic.

There may be situations in which there are still questions or comments from community members, but the delegates are ready to move onto the next topic. The moderator may use their discretion to proceed as they see fit. In many cases it will be most efficient to vote or move onto the next topic whenever the delegates are ready. Further discussion about this topic could be continued at another time and proposals can be made in the following week to change the decision if disagreements persist, but in general the moderator should help the delegates focus on discussion topics as they see fit during this week’s meeting.

Delegates decide when to vote…

The delegates are elected to make decisions for the community. They should not be held back too much by people who are not delegates. For example, if the delegates want to pass 3 proposals during this week’s meeting but people who aren’t delegates have many questions about those proposals, then that could effectively censor the delegates from making this decision if the moderator doesn’t effectively moderate to provide the delegates desire. On the other hand, the moderator doesn’t want to cut off and interupt community members and force the delegates to vote when they’re not sure if the delegates are ready to vote

This will allow . If someone is

By default, the moderator should ask all current delegates who approve the proposal to simultaneously say ‘Yes’ and raise their hand.

If any delegates wish to vote in a different way (such as voting in the zoom chat), then they should communicate how they think the vote should be conducted with the moderator.

You can see more reasoning about why this seems to be the best voting protocol here. link.

Reasoning (link)

When it’s time for delegates to vote on a proposal, a predefined voting protocol can help the community cooperate more efficiently. There are several different variables that should be defined. For example, it is possible for delegates to vote by saying something, making a hand motion, writing in the zoom chat, or communicating in other mediums. It is possible that each delegate could vote one at a time or all delegates could vote at once. There are many possible variations within these variables… so what is the best way to vote?

By default, the moderator should ask all current delegates who approve the proposal to simultaneously say ‘Yes’ and raise their hand. For example This seems to be the simplest and most efficient way to vote on most proposals. The simultaneous timing helps reduce effect of swaying votes by going one at a time. The combination of audio and visual signals make the signal easier for everyone to understand, including spectators and listeners. I think the increased action also makes the voting experience a bit more engaging, entertaining, and soulful as well. Perhaps most importantly, this is a very simple, natural, and predefined protocol. It’s easy for each delegate to raise their hands and say ‘yes’ simul

There are some situations in which the group may wish to conduct a vote in a different way. For example posting their vote in the zoom chat with a countdown from 3, 2, 1 can be more simultaneous and further reduce sway. This can be helpful for some sensitive proposals.

Moderator can ask delegates if they are willing to have an extension of time

If the time of the hour for the cagendas game is ending soon and the group is interested in approving a proposal but not sure if they have enough time, the moderator can ask the delegates if they’d like to extend the voting period for this week.

For example, the..

Internet Issues

ethernet hardwiring , backup with

Moderators should practice good electrical hygiene with redundancy for . surge protectors.

If there is loss of internet connection for the moderator, remember to start the video recording again. All participants should be able to see if the meeting is no longer being recorded, so let the group know if you see that the video is not recording anymore. If the moderator does not reconnect soon, the council may wish to elect a temporary moderator to fill the role for the rest of the meeting.

Recording

anyone else can record

can elect temp mod

Back-up Recordings

Zoom host can record in both zoom and OBS simultaneously. If one fails (such as zoom due to internet issues), the other can save the video. Definitely worth it.

Approved Guidelines

The following is a curation of guidelines that have been approved by the Eden+ Fractal council so far.

In week 28, the Eden community approved an informal agreement for moderator guidelines proposed by Tadas.

Proposal 1: Optimizing Post-Breakout Room Meetings

This is the 'Proposal to optimize post-breakout room meetings,' which you can read here. Google doc version with comments. Screenshot below

Proposal 2: Moderator Guidelines

Sociocratic Method….

In week 31, Gavriel proposed… approved

Screenshot consortium post

video

Link to more detailed

Related Media

Eden Fractal Brainstorming Session #3

Recaps from Lennie

Lennie recently started summarizing Eden Fractal’s progress in a weekly recaps. You can read this week’s recap here and help promote it in the tweet.

After Eden+ Fractal

Eden Creators are writing an article entitled ‘After’ to summarize the cooperating system that we’re pioneering during the hour after playing Eden+Fractal in breakout rooms. You can read an early draft version of this article here: