Open Source Silos

KDE Governance & Engagement

and the currency of Reputation

( a follow on from KDE & Sour Pineapple)

For the most part KDE is a lively and well functioning community. It’s forums on Telegram and Matrix are busy with developers and everyday Plasma users giving advice, helping out others with instructions and sharing their thoughts. Closer to the heart of the organisation, Nate Graham has previously given insight on the beautiful mechanics of KDE with ‘The structure of KDE, or how anarchy sometimes works‘.

Being apart of the KDE community is a heart warming experience and a bastion of open source cooperation – but it is not always an ‘engaging’ one!

At times decisions are made that anger parts of the community – and to some extent this is unavoidable when dealing with a vast and varied group of people. The latest issue is KDE’s Twitter account reaction to some KDE community members wanting to support the the Open Source project of KDE with Open Source currency – cryptocurrency. I write about this here. Please read for accurate context to this blog post.

Niccolò Venerandi, a developer, blogger and key player within KDE responded to one of the concerns I raised in that article. Namely that of ‘Open Governance’.

The KDE Manifesto states:

Open Governance to ensure engagement in our leadership and decision processes.

I wrote:

“Given this primo value, I suggest it would have been appropriate to consult the KDE community on such a decision”

That decision being the dropping of cryptocurrency from the donations page of KDE.

Niccolo writes in response:

Open Governance does not mean that all (important) decisions are made by a “poll” or discussion with the community of KDE users; it means that any user can freely join the decision-making KDE communities. As an example, you can join the Fundraising community, where I’d guess this was discussed.

Thanks to Niccolo for responding and giving that interpretation/definition/clarification of ‘Open Governance’. Therein, though, I would suggest lies the issue, as this still raises some questions. How do you ‘ensure engagement’? What does that look like? How ‘open’ should it be?

If one is able to ‘freely join’ a decision-making KDE community that is great and one way to engage in governance -have a say in the affairs of KDE. This however requires seeking out the forum and being actively involved in order to be constantly informed on what is being discussed and decided upon. On one hand this can be seen as a positive – it ensures only those who are truly committed get to interact and act. That would seem fair. Why should those who do not contribute get to dictate terms?

Niccolo continues “As an example, you can join the Fundraising community”. Unfortunately, I for one, cannot find such a community. The obvious(?) place to look would be the Get Involved KDE webpage, would it not? There is no Fundraising mentioned here. There is a Donations section. The donations section does not link to a Fundraising community – it links to the Donations page. The search bar does not help either.

“where I’d guess this was discussed.” continues Niccolo. This is a bit telling. If Niccolo as an insider can only guess, then what hope does a the more casual KDE community user have?

[On an aside, this blog is not to criticise the KDE website. A lot of time and effort has been put into it in recent years from volunteers. It is excellent and if you have not looked into it recently you should! There is a wealth of information.]

That said, what would be the alternative – have every decision process posted in one forum, say the Kde channel on Matrix with 4553 members, so everyone has the ability to stay informed on all things and engage?

This would be completely impractical, messy and would suffer from the ‘Tragedy of the Commons’ with too many opinions as well as attracting uninvested fleeting commitment that goes nowhere.

Is that it then? Is that the best that can be achieved? An all in or nothing approach? It seems to me a more active middle ground approach to ‘ensure engagement’ in Open Governance is needed upon occassion.

Let us look at two hypothetical cases:

Case 1. A casual user -Jodie, is active on the KDE Telegram group. She could also join the KDE Visual Design Group, as she is very interested in how her desktop looks! Not being a designer however this is mostly a waste of her time and she can always change her theme to a third party one anyway if it suits her preference! Whatever the KDE Visual Design Group decide is of no major issue. There is no point in her joining the group and there is no point in the KDE Visual Design Group posting everything to the main forum either. This is a non issue.

Case 2. A casual user, Tomas, could join the Gardening Team, but they are really not interested or have any major preference on the issues A-Z that comprise possible discussion – except issue ‘G’, -on which they are very knowledgeable on and are very passionate about. Issue ‘G’ is already part of KDE and they are happy about that. They decide to not join the Gardening Team. Why keep constant vigilance over the forum when not participating just on the off chance that issue ‘G’ may come up? Consequently, like many others who are also only interested in ‘G’, they do not join the group.

When unexpectedly issue ‘G’ does come up for discussion how do they know? When support for ‘G’ is dropped they are affected -unlike Jodie who has an alternative. Unaware, they were not able to engage with the decision making process. This is an issue!

KDE promo posts out many things. Why then not post out upcoming decisions which have impact for many in the community and give people a heads up on things they wish to engage with? Nate Graham has his blog posts which report on recent improvements. Why not have something similar that posts out upcoming important decisions? Planet KDE?

We do not need a direct democracy, which is being advocated more and more with the use of blockchain for government elections. Of course, being cryptocurrency related that can not be ‘condoned’. Please excuse the poke!

We do however need a few more ladders dropped down from the silos of decision-making KDE communities in order to *ensure engagement* with the wider community.

Having somewhat autonomous decentralised decision-making KDE communities is good for focus and committed contributors – but there is also the danger of confirmation bias from a like minded group of people. If that group also has other values which trump those of KDE core principles then it is also too easy for such decisions to be pushed through without scrutiny of the wider community if they are unaware of the policies.

There is also a secondary concern however. (With the exception of the goal setting process) how do those in the decision-making KDE communities know what the community wants? How do they get feedback?

In the free market there is the price mechanism. That is, price acts as an indicator to show the market what is needed, how much and where it should go. KDE is a non profit. It does not have that mechanism. It does have its guiding principles with the Manifesto, Vision & Mission statements. It also has the ‘currency of excitement’ as Nate Graham details.

“You have to keep people excited and happy or else they will drift away.

This leads to an important point: you have to minimize negativity! For most people, conflict destroys energy and motivation. Internal arguments and politics need to be minimized and driven towards a consensus rather than simmering forever. Even if you have to bend a bit and give up some of what you want, that’s a better option than getting nothing because everyone is burned out by endless arguing. And new contributors in particular must be treated with kindness, given the benefit of the doubt, and made to feel welcome.”

Nate Graham

It would make sense that decision-making KDE communities need to reach out to the community and inspire excitement but also be aware of what the community is excited about to build upon that.

If the community is also excited about cyptocurrency then authoritative admonishing and banning of accounts is counter productive to the thriving of the community overall. It kills excitement. It costs.

This also leads into another form of currency – that of reputation. Excitement keeps the community active and productive and the good work of its members builds reputation – for the KDE brand and for individuals.

I wrote in Sour Pineapple:

@kdecommunity (nb. who is in charge of this social media profile though is unclear).

Niccolo answers:

It’s only unclear if you don’t check! It’s the promo group of KDE (which, btw, you can freely join; again that’s Open Governance).

Indeed he is correct. I assumed Promo was all about writing copy. Reading into the second paragraph of the Get Involved KDE webpage reveals ‘social media management’ mentioned.

Despite that, it is still unclear who moderates the various KDE forums. The Matrix Promo room does not reveal this anywhere. Again, if we consider ‘Reputation’ as a currency then identifying people involved in KDE is important so as to know who to praise for their good work! Reputation is good for community trust and also for an individuals C.V.

Likewise, if an individual does not reflect the KDE core values of the Manifesto, Vision or Mission nor act in accordance with the Code of Conduct then it is hard to hold to account anyone for besmirching the brand of KDE.

In summary, there appears to be a need for some ladder rungs between the casually involved KDE user and those in the decision-making KDE communities to ensure engagement in open governance if the term community is to be more fully actualised.

Barking Bandicoot.

https://manifesto.kde.org/index.html
https://community.kde.org/KDE/Mission
https://community.kde.org/KDE/Vision
https://kde.org/code-of-conduct/

Title photo built upon Photo by Hal Moran: https://www.pexels.com/photo/snow-landscape-sky-sunset-15584686/