Deliberation Village: guide
What the Deliberation Village does
The Deliberation Village is where a group works a question through together and then decides. A facilitator sets up a session and a map of what affects what. Teams take a strand of the map each, talk it through in a thread, and the group can put questions to a vote, check how the strands depend on each other and ratify an outcome. Decisions are made and recorded here, by members.
It is the place the Village Assembly and Open Floor hand over to when the group is ready to decide.
Setting up a session (facilitators)
- Name the session and create it. You become its facilitator.
- Set up the map from three plain lists: the teams, the variables (add @Team to give one to a team) and the links (cause -> effect, + or -). The map is laid out for you. A session's map is set up once.
- A facilitator claims each strand of the map for a team, and the team's members open the session and work it.
Working a session
- Tap a strand to see its team and open its thread. Members talk it through there.
- Decisions: put a question to a strand, confirm it, open it for voting and close the vote.
- Checkpoints: start a checkpoint, review the digest and approve it.
- Cross-checks: recompute from the map the places where two strands depend on each other, then record each strand's position or file a rebuttal.
- Ratification: start a round, approve the briefing, open the vote and close it as ratified or returned.
More situations
- A hall committee splitting a decision into strands: the roof, the money and the volunteers. A facilitator sets up the map, claims each strand for a team, and the teams work their own threads without reading each other's.
- A funder who wants to watch. Add them as an observer from the People tab: they read the map and see no team threads.
- A team that cannot agree. Put the question as a decision point, a facilitator confirms it, members vote through Polls, and the facilitator closes the vote. The tally is kept with the strand.
Records
Where sealing is available for your Village, a session's outcome is sealed as a signed record that can be checked later against its seal.
What it does not do
- It does not decide for the group. Members vote and ratify.
- Only a session's facilitator can set up its map, and only once.
- The Deliberation Village screens are in English only. This guide is available in five languages.