A couple of weeks ago, @team members came together for the first Snowdrift.coop (virtual) retreat. After ~6 hours of large and small group discussions, we were able to overcome some snow drifts of our own, and anticipate a renewed vigor in pushing the project forward!
This thread is my post to the team, and to the broader community who has been supporting our efforts.
First, I’d like to thank you all for participating, it is wonderful that everyone is still working together towards clearing the launch path! I really feel as though we made headway in terms of unblocking things. That said, now that they are unblocked, the ball needs to start rolling.
Please take your time and review the notes below. If anything is unclear, or if something was uncaptured, please mention it.
This snow pile may look large, but together we’ll clear the path to a better world!
Takeaways
- We outlined a roadmap for the next iteration of the mechanism in alpha
- The mechanism we launch with will NOT be the final iteration
- Snowdrift.coop is not solving the problem of funding FLOSS, it is solving the snowdrift dilemma
- …which we hope will eventually lead to solving the problem of FLOSS funding
- We all agree that we’re eliminating the “kicking people out” part of the mechanism
- We are charting a new direction in UI/UX development which includes:
- The addition of a frontend lead role, responsible for:
- Development of the steps outlined below
- Communication with ui/ux leads before mockups or prototyping
- Splitting off the frontend into a separate service from the mechanism backend
- A mechanism-agnostic website, with the potential of multiple mechanisms running at the same time
- This is a first step towards establishing a better process for resolving frictions in prototyping
- The addition of a frontend lead role, responsible for:
NEXT STEPS (adroit):
- Explore what we currently have in the prototype
- Explore converting the prototype to Elm
- Research something like elm-pages for noscript patrons
- Work with mray to select one page from the prototype
NEXT STEPS (adroit, mray):
- Select one page from the prototype that has unimplemented changes
- Have adroit implement the page as is in Elm
- Have mray make the changes, with guidance
- Note any pain points and see how feasible they are to resolve
FRONT-END NEXT-STEPS FOR ALPHA:
- [ ] Create an epic in GitLab, make sure these issues are all captured and connected to “launch”
- [ ] Express pledges as $6 toward a $36,000 / 6,000 patrons goal
- shows the proportional concept
- [ ] Express the meaning of $36,000 for Snowdrift.coop in terms of real progress
- [ ] Express value of partial progress towards the full goal
- consider multiple points along the way
- [ ] Express the mechanism version clearly and consistently
- e.g. 1.0, “alpha”, etc.
- [ ] Write statement acknowledging (primary) shortcomings/issues to be improved on in future iterations
- [ ] decide where this statement appears (likely multiple places)
- see below
- [ ] Implement patron dashboard view
- [ ] Implement project page
- [ ] Update video to reflect changes
- [ ] Update how-it-works page to reflect changes
ISSUES NOT ADDRESSED BY ALPHA (to be publicly acknowledged):
- Varying pledge options
- Different patrons have different wealth / willingness
- Different patrons have different relation / enthusiasm for project
- Goal of crowd size vs dollar-amount
- Related to varying pledge options
- Different project scales/ambitions
- How project goals are set
- Adjusting a single goal
- partially addressed, in theory
- Multiple goals
- concurrent or sequential/stretch
- Site wide vs per project goals
- Holding off funding until a threshold is hit
- Patron vs Project decided thresholds