New Primer: "How to Build Governable Spaces for Online Communities"
MEDLab director Nathan Schneider offers a brief checklist on where to begin.
By and large ... online platforms are not well designed for communities to self-govern. The usual methods for group governance offline—explicit bylaws, boards of directors, Robert’s Rules of Order, and so forth—are almost nowhere to be found online. Our online spaces still have yet to catch up to the lessons learned from offline ones. If we want to build governable spaces for our communities, we need to be intentional about it. The software won’t do it for us.
Read it here, and share it with your community-building friends.
Zine now available: "Change Is In the Cards"
We invited practitioners from various open-source communities to use the tarot as a tool for sense-making about governance transitions they have witnessed or participated in. We consulted the tarot, pulling cards for each contributor and encouraging them to interpret these cards as they may— conjuring wisdom about community governance, especially in moments of liminality and transition.
Making open-source software is a way of collectively speaking new possibilities into existence. Programming and community-building both are forms of practical magic: the writing and implementation of codes, spells, or “magic words” that do things in the world. Governance is the stewardship or oversight of these processes. By demystifying certain aspects of it (and mystifying others!), we can help communities operate more effectively and democratically.
Our hope is that this zine will be an open-ended starting point—a forkable resource—that can help others navigate growth, transition, and all kinds of impasse, in software development and far beyond.
Download (and print!) your copy here.
Study with us!
The Department of Media Studies is accepting applications this winter for our MA and PhD students. This is the best way to get closely involved in MEDLab's work, along with the many other opportunities available through the department.
Learn more and apply.
Radio: Yancey Strickler, co-founder of Kickstarter and Metalabel
MEDLab's radio show, Looks Like New, comes out the fourth Thursday of every month on KGNU, 88.5 FM, or online as a podcast. Last month's episode is now available:
In an ever more messy online media environment, it can be hard to know where to let ourselves be truly creative. This month on Looks Like New, MEDLab community fellow Andy DiLallo spoke with Yancey Stricker, best known as a co-founder and former CEO of Kickstarter. Strickler’s story started on a farm in Virginia before he became a music journalist and founder of a leading tech company. Most recently, he co-founded Metalabel, a new platform that fosters creative expression and meaningful collaboration among artists. He has also been a leading storyteller about life online, including through his influential 2019 essay, “The Dark Forest Theory of the Internet.”
Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or directly through our website. You can also follow the show on Instagram, Mastodon, and X.
