In a world going sideways, people are coming together to create new ways: ways on the side of the existing system; ways that are feeding from and feeding into the existing system. These side-ways offer promise to evolve out of the existing breakdowns and become the new ways, the new evolution of social, economic, and governance systems as the existing ways break down.
At Sideways we build coherence among groups through shared experiences, stories and network infrastructure. We believe that systemic transformations happen at the ground level through small groups that create clusters of coherence around a new system, which can emerge as existing systems become outdated.
Evolving Shared Infrastructure for Planetary Governance
If you’re in the Web3 field or a volunteer organization, probably there’s no official way to resolve a complaint. Now think of one of those conflicts that you weren’t involved with but you saw them battling it out on Twitter or Telegram (cringe).
In Elinor Ostrom’s work, conflict resolution needs to be easy and sanctions need to be graduated. Instead, we gossip mills, twitter threads, blacklisting, general discomfort and many repeat offenders. In the worst case, people end up in police or court action.
If we want to have a safe industry, we need to self-regulate.
ideways is inventing a new type of organization that will allow us, in our own communities and networks, to decide on our own graduated remediation and sanctioning. Often, problems can be resolved by a facilitated conversation, by sending someone to sensitivity or communications training, or by simply knowing that there is a way for people to file formal complaints about their behavior.
Here’s how it works:
The Ostrom5 issues a digital certificate that the organization can display. The certificate shows its membership in the Ostrom5, allowing people who join or interact with the organization to know it adheres to the mediation process of that Ostrom5 (there may be different Ostrom5s that an organization can join).
When any member of a participating organization has a complaint or dispute, they submit it to the Ostrom5.
The Ostrom5 assesses whether the complaint should be addressed, and if so, they request for the relevant members to show up for a mediation effort between the parties.
The organization may agree or disagree to come to mediation.
- If the organization does not agree to mediate, they get a warning. After 3 warnings, their certificate is withdrawn (because they have opted out of the process).
If the organization agrees to mediate, the Ostrom5 will reach an agreement between the two parties. There may be conditions, reparations, or training involved.
Over time, if there is an organization that gets a lot of complaints, or who does not keep their end of the agreement in the resolution, they can have their certificate withdrawn.
Participating organizations pay membership fees for governance services
Want to grow through just grant funding
Global
200K USD