CA Guidelines Joint Drafting

Use consenz: agreements building platform to define the CA work and draft clear guidelines in a collaborative, focused and transparent way

Project Catalyst active member since F5. Proposer since F6. Funded proposer of F7. Also CA at F7. Founder and project manager of consenz since 2018. Partnered with ADAgov - F4, F5, F6 founded. Supported by AIM.

[IMPACT]

The Problem:

The CAs role is very complicated. On the one hand, it needs to be precise, detailed and careful in order to provide the community the best insights needed to make the right decisions about the use of our common funds. On the other hand - every one can be a CA, without pre-condition, permission, job interview or professional qualification.

In order to keep this role permission-less and open for all without compromising on the outcome, clear, well documented and accessible guidelines are necessary. And as the project catalyst community grows this need become more urgent. Today, those guidelines are spread on many platforms - google docs, different web sites, gitbook and other, and the discussion around them spread even more on different social media platforms - discord servers channels, telegram groups, forums etc. Many of the conversations are happening at zoom meetings that are almost impossible to follow and keep track of.

The Solution:

Consenz is an agreements building platform (funded in f7) that allows large number of participants to take an active part in discussions and document editing.

By using consenz to create (v)CAs roles guidelines we can widen the circle of participants in the process and create a collaborative, effective and focused documents without creating too much noise. This will also reduce the effort and work needed from the IOG team to coordinate and implements changes offered by the community.

The following discussion-features make Consenz unique, compared to other platforms:

• Instead of an endless and chaotic thread of comments, there is a focus and a product to the process: A document that can be discussed and edited by the participants and reflect their agreements.
• There is a voting system that allows the users to express their opinion without adding noise to the discussion.
• The voting system also creates a method to deal with conflicts and determine which opinion has the majority of participants' agreements.
• Those agreements are separated from the noise by a simple algorithm that determines which section received enough support and can be added to the document automatically.

The process on consenz creates a "micro-democracy" system - an option to discuss the details of a draft by many users without limiting it to a small group of representatives. Consenz combines elements of - and is inspired by - liquid democracy, direct democracy, deliberative democracy and sociocracy.

The Project Status

Since 2018 we have been building a prototype of consenz (until lately it was available only in Hebrew) and in 2020-2021 we have completed a proof-of-concept phase. The app prototype has been used by diverse groups for different purposes in Israel, among them:

• Schools' teams used Consenz to create teaching guidelines during the covid19 restrictions.
• Unorganized protest movements used Consenz to create demands lists.
• Environmental organizations and activists used it to collaborate with government and municipality workers to create plans for dealing with the climate crisis.

Now that we have funded by the catalyst community we have started to design and build the MVP of the platform that will be used by DAOs and other communities and organizations.

As a start, consenz could be used as tool by the CAs/vCAs and the wider project catalyst community to create a coherent guidelines and other needed agreements and documents in a collaborative and transparent manner, and as a ongoing process that will evolve and allow the community to keep improving the assessments and scoring processes.

In the near future consenz could help to accelerate the decentralization of project catalyst by allowing the community to participate with the IOG team in process improvements and parameters adjustments.

KPI for the first year after the launch will include -

• Participation - Number of CA/vCA registered
• Participation - Number of other community members registered
• Products - Agreements/documents that will be created on the platform

Consenz trying to solve the problem of too many platforms by offering use of a new platform. This could create a situation of low participation.

To avoid this problem we plan to:

1. Engage the community in co-design sessions to include them in the UX/UI design process. This will help us make sure that the platform really answer the community needs and is well suited for the use case. We will do that with our partners at the "social design academy" project - https://socialdesignacademy.io/, Fund 6 funded proposal.
2. Research for future development of API, bots and bridges between social apps like discord, telegram and other and consenz platform to onboard new users and relevant content form the places where discussion is happening now.

[FEASIBILITY]

Implementation of this proposal will be on the MVP version of consenz that will be launch later this year (as described in our F7 funded proposal - https://cardano.ideascale.com/c/idea/380926).

To modify and adjust the platform for the Community Advisor Improvements challenge we will need to:

1. Initiate co-design session with the community - before MVP launch
2. Implements UX/UI adjustments - 12 weeks from launch
3. Initiate town hall breakout rooms, webinars, workshops and coordination meetings for the CA/vCA and other community members - 12-16 weeks from launch

• Co-design sessions hosting: 4 sessions X 2 hours X 80 $ = 640 $
• Design improvements implementation: 50 dev hours X 80 $ = 4000 $
• Content management and Moderation: 30 hours X 50 $ = 1500 $
• Onboarding:
• Webinars hosting: 3 meeting X 2 hours X 50 $ =300 $
• Technical assistance service/ call center: 1200 $

Total: 7640 $

Please provide details of your team members required to complete the project.

The Team:

Consenz is partner of ADAgov.org, Software Development Cooperative. Funded F4, F5, F6.

http://adagov.org

Consenz founder and project manager: Aharon Porath, a techno-social entrepreneur, worked with governmental and municipal agencies, a work that includes promoting legislation. Since 2011, Aharon has been involved in a few tech and non-tech ventures to develop consensus-based decision-making methods and platforms for distributed public participation goals.

Aharon has 6 years of experience as a project manager of web platforms and apps, among them - "Open Committee", a web app that enables environmental activists, NGOs and citizens to participate in the decision-making process of Israel's planning department, funded by the government's Israel Innovation Authority.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/aharon-porath-90158962

Social UX Advisor: Niels Kijf. Niels (Master Digital Media Design, Oxford) is a digital design innovator pur sang . He started the Social Design Academy to deliver UX 3.0 education. Our current software design is still targeting the individual, yet web3 is designing shared experiences for groups, a fresh new field that needs a new educational program. Levelling up UX into Social UX is one of the SDA missions for 2022.

Design and Development: Sofi is a software cooperative that provides solutions for municipalities, universities, startups, well-established companies, entrepreneurs and NGOs.

The coop model relies on decentralized, consensus-based decision making, as well as total influence and wage equality for all present and future members.

https://www.soficoop.com

Product Manager: Roy Golan. Sofi Coop co-founder. Civic participation & collaboration tools enthusiast since 2012.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/roy-golan-490069a2

Business Development: Ofry Erlich. Sofi's business development director. Political activist with exepertise in political parties campaigns & internal processes.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/ofry-ehrlich-470862119

UI/UX Designer: Tzur Sherzer. After managing a big design department, Tzur has joined the team as a lead designer, and is dedicated to the challenge of making the advanced deliberative democratic discussion interface accessible for people from all communities and backgrounds.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/tzursher

Software Architects and Developers: Aviran Katz, Nadav Moreno. With vast experience from dosens of projects, Aviran and Nadav will be leading the development team, with the backup of the entire Sofi development department, as well as external developers.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/aviran-katz-491163b3

[AUDITABILITY]

Progress will be majored by onboarding the community for use of consenz platform for the purpose of co-creating CA/vCA guidelines and other needed document, compered to the current use of other other communication platforms.

For the first 3 months after the launch will include -

1. More then 35% of the CA telegram group members registered to consenz
2. More then 70% of the participants will express positive feedback about the use of consnez.
3. More then 3 documents created by the community on consenz platform

For the first year after the launch will include -

1. More then 70% of the CA telegram group members registered to consenz
2. More then 90% of the participants will express positive feedback about the use of consnez.
3. More then 10 documents created by the community on consenz platform

Success of this project will be that consenz platform will become the standard tool for drafting and creating agreements by the catalyst community.

By that this tool will be used to improve the assessments process of project catalyst in a transparent, collaborative, and trustworthy manner.

Fund 6: "Consenz: A Virtual Parliament App" - not funded.

https://cardano.ideascale.com/c/idea/367771

Fund 7: "₳GOV: Policy Registry" - not funded.

https://cardano.ideascale.com/c/idea/380928

Fund 7: "₳GOV: Agreements Building Platform" - funded.

https://cardano.ideascale.com/c/idea/380926

The fund from our F7 proposal will be used to build the MVP of the platform. This new F8 proposal, if it will be funded, will be used to implement a CA/vCA guidelines drafting process on the MVP version.

Other consenz Fund8 proposals:

1. For Accelerate Decentralized Identity challenge: https://cardano.ideascale.com/c/idea/396670
2. For Lobbying for favorable legislation challenge: https://cardano.ideascale.com/c/idea/397877
3. For Nation Building Dapps: https://cardano.ideascale.com/c/idea/396669