The following in a work in progress document to be discussed by the Decidim community
Process to create and prioritize working groups for domains of decision
Decidim usage has exploded on the last couple of years:
In the world (WIP)
Users all around the globe
This has brought an array of power users extending the platform by more than 40 modules that add new functionality or improve and customize the existing one.
Decidim shows a healthy rate of activity and contributions of about 1000 pushes per month (fig. 1)
figure 1. Source OSS Insight
Decidim has depended within its first years on the city of Barcelona. However, as more cities adopt Decidim and it is implemented in a diversity of contexts a need arises to transition the software into an infrastructure for the commons, that allows the community of implementors and cities to maintain the existing code clean and usable, to contribute with introducing new functionalities, specify support models for earlier versions, and finance the continuity of the project ensuring the participatory democracy spirit is held at its core.
Through this document we propose a model in which the community can organize itself into working groups around these tasks, and have a clear social contract around what responsibilities they will commit and the scope of the decisions they are allowed to make. We believe any self-organized community around digital commons needs to have clear responsibilities, accountability paths and domains of decision, so that any work done by the community is transparent, open to anyone who can contribute, but also gets things done.