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Pat put together a fantastic review of Loomio that summarizes our
experience with it over the last couple of days:<br>
<br>
<blockquote>So, I've spent a little time looking at Loomio over the
last couple of days. It's a nice system, for what it does.
<br>
<br>
Before I start to describe my experience, I want to make it clear
that (unless otherwise indicated), things I point out as issues
with Loomio in no way means that the Loomio system is "bad" or
broken, and in fact it does what it's designed to do (building
consensus online) fairly well. Issues I point out are just things
that an organization like WPLUG would need to consider before
attempting to use this tool (or any tool of this nature). I'll
also point out that the Loomio system is evolving and is in active
development - things that don't work today could very well work
tomorrow. On the other hand, things that work today could be
broken tomorrow, in that people are actively touching the code in
many areas.
<br>
<br>
It turns out that the system really does require PostgreSQL (I
don't know if it'll work with MySQL, I didn't try - but it
definitely doesn't work with sqlite3, it mostly came up but then
the app fell on it's face as soon as I tried to create a group).
It also really does require ImageMagick, presumably for drawing
it's pie chart graphs. As this is a Ruby on Rails application, it
of course also requires a properly functioning Rails environment.
It is actually a fairly sizable app (it pulls in a <b
class="moz-txt-star"><span class="moz-txt-tag">*</span>lot<span
class="moz-txt-tag">*</span></b> of Ruby gems), which is
somewhat surprising given the limited functionality it offers at
the moment. In my experiment, I ran the system both using the
standalone server (invoked as "rails server"), and deployed under
"passenger" with it's embedded ngnix web server . The passenger
setup was significantly faster (which is not surprising). I
didn't attempt to run it as a Rails app integrated into Apache.
<br>
<br>
Loomio's model is very simple - it supports creation of groups
(online communities), and subgroups within those groups. Groups
may be open (anyone can join), or closed (a group administrator
must add people to the group manually); only those who are members
of a given group may participate in that group's discussions and
voting. Within each group or subgroup, it allows discussions to be
conducted, and allows proposals that result from those discussions
to be voted on. It is essentially a very simple discussion board
with integrated voting.
<br>
<br>
Proposals that are put up for voting can really only be of the
form "Should this proposed thing be done?", in that each proposal
can only have four specific answers, which are hardwired into the
system: "Yes" (indicating agreement with the proposal), "No"
(indicating disagreement with the proposal, but a willingness to
live with it if it's what the group wants), "Block" (indicating
strenuous disagreement with the proposal and an unwillingness to
support it even if the group wants it), or "Abstain" (indicating
no vote one way or the other). All proposals can have only these
four specific responses - no other responses may be added, and
none of these potential responses may be removed. <br>
Given the proposal model, it is not possible to conduct a vote on
a proposal of the form "Of the following alternatives, which
should we choose?" In other words, if you wanted to get votes on
"When should we meet next week - Tuesday, Wednesday, or
Thursday?", you can't do that with Loomio as it's currently
implemented.
<br>
<br>
In the Loomio system, all votes are public. It is possible to see
how any group member voted on a proposal, and it is possible to
see which group members have not voted at all. Group members may
attach a comment to their votes, that presumably may be used to
provide some explanation for why they voted the way they did.
Votes may be changed at any time up until the proposal closes.
These features encourage discussion and negotiation on proposals.
Unfortunately, this means it is not possible to conduct any kind
of secret ballot with Loomio. Even if secret balloting were
supported (in terms of how the voting results are presented in the
app), the way Loomio stores voting records would allow anyone with
administrative access to the underlying database to determine how
any group member voted, or even modify anyone's vote; this could
be seen as undesirable, especially if the people managing the app
are the same people who would be bound by the results of the
voting. Some organizations might be comfortable using a system
implemented like this only if it were hosted by a third party with
no interest in the voting results.
<br>
<br>
Technologically, the app is fairly clean from the user
perspective, but there is no administrator interface to speak of
at the moment. Administrative operations (such as adding users,
and changing passwords) have to be done either by starting a
"rails console" session and typing the appropriate Ruby method
invocations directly at the app, or using "pgsql" to operate
directly on the underlying database's tables. One user-visible
administrative issue is that it is currently not possible for a
user to change his/her own password. It also appears that, at
least at the moment, login is done over an unencrypted connection,
which (of course) is bad. I would expect all of these problems to
be addressed as the system evolves.
<br>
<br>
In conclusion, Loomio is nice for what it does, and shows some
promise, especially in view of the fact that the system is still
evolving. But at the moment, it really doesn't provide anything
that you couldn't get by, for instance, using a phpBB message
board and implementing voting on threads (in fact, that is
actually more flexible, as things stand right now).
<br>
</blockquote>
<br>
He and I have started looking for alternatives that are more
polished. If you know of one, let us know. Keep in mind that we
don't necessarily have to stick to software that's 100% complete; if
it's just missing a few odds and ends, it might be fun to set aside
a few "coding days" to work on it as a group. Wouldn't it be cool if
WPLUG used FOSS that it's helping to develop? It's an interesting
idea even to me as a non-programmer. I'd be willing to help with
documentation.<br>
<br>
<div class="moz-signature">-- <br>
<b>Justin S. Smith</b><br>
Electronic Communication Specialist<br>
724-612-2837<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.js-wordsmith.com">http://www.js-wordsmith.com</a> ♦ My résumé and references</div>
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