Meoh guidelines and principles
What is MEOH?
MEOH aims at being a site helping project promoters to gather surrounding resources by the means of participative production in money and services in exchange of rewards and social capital derived from members reputation.
Mission
Individuals and nonprofit organizations can promote creative projects online and realize them offline by tapping surrounding resources, skills and talents in their communities. Positive contributions and interactions increase reputation score and therefore social capital which can be invested in own projects to facilitate their completion or given away to other members. Such behaviour dramatically improves one's recognition and esteem from the Meoh community while having a dynamic effect on the whole. These benefactors increase their influence and access more resources in the community. Meoh's attempt is to engage virtuous loop processes by igniting self-fueling cycles where individual, collective and public interests feed each other on a project-based approach.
Values
- Social and environmental responsability
- Free access and equipotentiality
- Autonomy and interdependence
- Room for self-organization
- Consent based decisions
- Multiple bottom lines
- Open system
Production process
The production cycle is :
project validation > crowdfunding campaign > project production > mutual rating > reputation > social capital
Validating a project : The Incubator
The incubator is a space where project promoters post their bulk ideas or project proposals to the attention of the community. Community members give the necessary feedback that help project promoters refining their scope. Prior investigations favor emergent forms of interest and commitments in terms of funding and volunteering and gives a better overview on what can be done and at what cost. When a proposal collects enough interest (likes or thumbs up) from the community, the project is allowed to enter the crowdfunding stage. Social capital is invested in a project in order to skip the incubating process (similar to an invitation to join in).
We believe in the equipotentiality of any creative projects. Therefore, the process of project validation should remain in the hands of the communities from where they originate. To do so, we came up with the idea of giving a space for new ideas to develop in an incubator where project promoters and their potential supporters can collectively figure out how to strengthen the proposals and acknowledge the best way to acheive their goals.
Crowdfunding campaigns : micro funders / backers helping with money
Project promoters set a funding goal, a deadline and non-monetary rewards, then they look on their networks for potential micro funders or backers who pledge micro money for the funding goal being successful. Production starts when the financial risks have been covered making everyone more comfortable and focused. The more backers, the more chances to spread the word and to reach the project's funding goal. This type of large-scale micro financing further motivates promoters to achieve their objectives and activates viral communication. Moreover, funding is pledged in an all-or-nothing fashion until the deadline is reached, giving backers an increased safety feeling. In exchange of their help, backers can choose to receive either a reward or reputation points for increasing their social capital.
Volunteers helping with services
Real life shows that even within small communities a large amount of needs can be fulfilled by members skills and talents. Two factors prevent organizations to benefit from them. On one hand they lack the money to afford the services one may provide and, on the second hand, the lack of social recognition refrain services being provided on an altruistic manner. A proper vizualisation of member's participation and commitment will awaken unused skills and talents as good reputation brings attention and esteem from their peers. Good reputation opens doors. Good reputation is the passport to attract help, expertise and passion. Like backers, volunteers can choose to receive either a reward or reputation points for increasing their social capital.
Project production and realisation
Project promoters are free to use the funds collected the way they want. Their good reputation in the community and eventually their chances of future earnings and collaborations depend on the output they provide. This way, project promoters are intrinsically motivated to acheive their best.
Mutual rating, reputation score and social capital
Members receive reputation points whenever their interactions are positively rated by other members. Reputation mirrors the quality of the contributions specific to each member and cannot be transfered. However, the level of commitment (quantity of positive interactions) is rewarded with social capital. Out of the reputation score, social capital are points which can be invested in projects. Members invest their social capital in their own projects for lowering thresholds required at the incubator stage or give it away to other members for the same purpose. This type of patronage increases the social recognition of the benefactors. Benefactors are the outstanding members of the community who receive greater esteem, influence and attention that can leverage engagement for their next projects.
Collective decision making (and conflict management)
Within a group and with a one member, one vote ratio, tools that can be involved in decision making and managing conflicts are :
- Feedback and comments to acknowledge the level of agreement on a topic and then to refine the proposal ;
- Forums are places where potential conflicts are debated, moderated and resolved when simple decision modules no longer suffice ;
- Poll modules with multiple choice* ;
- Proxyvoting** to transfer a vote to another member without notice ;
- Peer-to-peer voting and communicative assent***.
* When the single transferable vote (STV) voting system is applied to a single-winner election it is sometimes called instant-runoff voting (IRV), as it is much like holding a series of runoff elections in which the lowest polling candidate is eliminated in each round until someone receives majority vote.
** Proxy voting and delegated voting are procedures for the delegation to another member of a voting body of that member's power to vote in his absence. Proxy appointments can be used to form a voting bloc that can exercise greater influence in deliberations or negotiations. A person so designated is called a "proxy" and the person designating him is called a "principal." The proxy shouldn't know that he is one for not modifying his initial behavior.
*** Introduces a medium of communicative assent for the purpose of consensus building. The backbone of the medium is a peer-to-peer voting mechanism that is open to continuous recasting (delegate cascade). It differs from the conventional media of mass assent in preserving the deliberative basis of consensus, regardless of scale.
MEOH stands for Many Embers One Heat and the pulse is :
" OPERATE > COOPERATE > CREATE > RADIATE "