Loomio

Loomio is decision-making software and web service designed to assist groups with collaborative, consensus-focused decision-making processes. It is a free software[3] web application, where users can initiate discussions and put up proposals.[4][5][6][7] As the discussions progress to initiating a proposal, the group receives feedback through an updatable pie chart[5] or other data visualizations. Loomio is basically a web based forum (has optional email delivery interface) with tools to facilitate conversations and decision making processes from starting and holding conversations to reaching outcome.[8]

Loomio
2014 Loomio interface elaboration
Stable release
2.5.0 / 6 November 2020 (2020-11-06)[1]
Repository
Written inRuby, JavaScript[2]
Platformweb
LicenseAGPL v3[3]
Websitewww.loomio.org

Loomio was built by a small core group of developers, based out of Wellington, New Zealand.[9] Most of the work was made by this core group but more than 70 contributors from around the world participated occasionally with small contribution.[10]

In 2014, Loomio raised over $100,000 via a Crowdfunding effort to develop Loomio 1.0. The Loomio web interface supports mobile access and other enhancements.[11] As of 2016, Loomio was used in more than 100 countries, with the software being translated into 35 languages.[12]

History

Loomio emerged from the Occupy movement. In 2012, it launched its first prototype. It was utilized in the Occupy movement in New Zealand. After using the first prototype in this, the team behind Loomio felt that it would be easier to give everyone a voice with an online software, leading to the launch of Loomio 1.0. Since the launch of Loomio 1.0, Loomio has stopped using occupy hand-signals in the interface. It has since been developed into a social enterprise as Loomio Cooperative Limited. and linked to the popular trend of "platform cooperativism"[13][14] and targeting also mainstream markets.

Operation
How Loomio works as diagram

The top-level organizational structure in Loomio is the group. A group is made up of members, who are granted permission to that group. Groups can be both public and private, permitting for both privacy and transparency.

Within the groups, members create discussions on specific topics. During a discussion, members of the group post comments and create proposals.

Proposals solicit feedback from members on a specific proposition. Members can either agree, disagree, abstain, or block. Blocking is essentially a strong form of disagreement.

Funding

Loomio is funded through contracts with government and business, and donations from its users.[15]

Reception

Loomio has been used by the Wellington City Council for discussion with their citizens.[16]

The Pirate Party of Hellas used Loomio[17][18] to create 461 groups, covering 18 federal departments, 13 regions of Greece, 23 prefectures, and hundreds of counties and municipalities. The Internet Party of New Zealand also used Loomio to develop policy during the campaign for the 2014 General Election.[19]

El Partido Pirata de Chile has also adopted Loomio through their own fork called Lumio, offering a slightly different translation into Spanish for the voting options aiming at both remarking the importance of consensus and improving language style by using verbs in the first person singular (Concuerdo, Discrepo, Me abstengo y Solicito Reformular). Additionally, the PPCL has promoted the use of Lumio in different areas of political discussion and group coordination inside and outside the Party.[20]

Loomio won the MIX Prize Digital Freedom Challenge in April 2014.[21]

Product Overview

There are three target items Loomio utilizes to create its collaborative working environment:

Groups: Within the "group" settings, administrators are able to manage the membership of its users and grant access of controls to specific employees, create subgroups of which managers allocate break out rooms to specific departments, and utilize other applications simultaneously with Loomio's active integration system.

LOOMIO 2.5.4 discussion view
LOOMIO polls & notifications

EU specific

Loomio has committed to address the needs and regulations of theEU market. In 2018 the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) came into effect and Loomio confirmed that it is GDPR compliant.[22] In 2019 Loomio started planning a Loomio.eu service to use EU based hosting in response to requests from EU users.[23]

Integrations

Recent versions include more features of integration with other software. It is possible to connect Loomio group notifications to Slack, Microsoft Teams and Mattermost. It is also possible to add a Single Sign On (SSO) using central authentication provider like Microsoft Azure Active Directory.[24]

Projects using Loomio

Prominent projects that have used Loomio for collaborative work based on democratic process:

See also

References
  1. "Releases - loomio/loomio". Retrieved 5 November 2020 – via GitHub.
  2. "loomio/loomio". Github. Retrieved 27 August 2014.
  3. "loomio/LICENSE.txt". Retrieved 27 August 2014.
  4. Pullar-Strecker, Tom. "Group decision-making software ready to run". Retrieved 30 October 2013.
  5. "Can Social Software Change the World? Loomio Just Might". Retrieved 30 October 2013.
  6. "Occupy Democracy: Loomio attempts to re-invent group decision-making… as a co-op". Retrieved 31 October 2013.
  7. de Taar, Charlie. "InterTwinkles: Online Tools for Non-Hierarchical, Consensus-Oriented Decision Making" (PDF). MIT. Retrieved 10 November 2013.
  8. "Overview | Loomio Help". help.loomio.org. Retrieved 2020-12-20.
  9. "Loomio - The Enspiral Network". Enspiral Foundation. Archived from the original on 5 September 2014. Retrieved 27 August 2014.
  10. "Contributors to loomio/loomio". Github. Retrieved 27 August 2014.
  11. "Out in the Open: Occupy Wall Street Reincarnated as Open Source Software". Wired. 28 April 2014. Retrieved 28 April 2014.
  12. Schneider, Nathan (26 April 2016). "How a Worker-Owned Tech Startup Found Investors—and Kept Its Values". Yes Magazine. Retrieved 8 January 2020.
  13. Nathan Schneider (April 26, 2016). "How a Worker-Owned Tech Startup Found Investors—and Kept Its Values". YES! Magazine.
  14. Jackson, Sam K.; Kuehn, Kathleen M. (2016-10-14). "Open Source, Social Activism and "Necessary Trade-offs" in the Digital Enclosure: A Case Study of Platform Co-operative, Loomio.org". TripleC. 14 (2): 413–427–413–427. ISSN 1726-670X.
  16. "Loomio Launches Exciting Collaboration with Wellington City Council". blog.enspiral.com. 15 March 2013. Archived from the original on 6 November 2013.
  17. "Loomio used for large scale citizen democracy project in Greece". blog.loomio.org. 14 March 2014.
  18. "The Largest Loomio Project Yet". techpresident.com.
  19. "LOOMIO GIVES POLICY POWER TO MEMBERS". Internet Party of New Zealand. Archived from the original on 3 September 2014. Retrieved 27 August 2014.
  20. Partido Pirata de Chile (8 June 2017). "Declaración Pública Partido Pirata de Chile sobre el Uso de herramientas digitales para mejorar la democracia". www.partidopirata.cl.
  21. Lumio (3 April 2014). "Wellington Tech Startup Loomio Wins International Award". Scoop.co.nz.
  22. "Loomio GDPR compliance | Loomio Help". help.loomio.org. Retrieved 2020-12-20.
  23. "Loomio dev roadmap 2019 | Loomio Help". help.loomio.org. Retrieved 2020-12-20.
  24. "Integrations | Loomio Help". help.loomio.org. Retrieved 2020-12-20.
  25. "Diaspora* project wiki". Archived from the original on 2013-08-30. Retrieved 2014-10-29.
  26. "Realdemocracy project website". Archived from the original on 2014-05-17. Retrieved 2014-10-29.
  27. "¿Cómo usar Loomio?" [How do you use Loomio?] (in Spanish). Archived from the original on 2015-04-15. Retrieved 2015-02-10.
  28. Shaw, Mike. "Get involved in the Students for Cooperation Loomio!". Archived from the original on 2016-06-02. Retrieved 2016-01-17.
  29. "Board Meeting 2020-01-27 - OSGeo". wiki.osgeo.org. Retrieved 2020-12-20.
  30. Karwowska, Anita (2020-12-22). "Strajk Kobiet: Popracujmy nad pomysłami na Polskę, gdy PiS będzie już przeszłością" [Women's Strike: We're working on ideas for Poland after PiS]. Gazeta Wyborcza (in Polish). Archived from the original on 2020-12-22. Retrieved 2020-12-22. The activists from All-Poland Women's Strike want the work that up to now has been done by the Consultative Council working groups to now include the internet, on the Loomio platform. (Polish: Aktywistki Ogólnopolskiego Strajku Kobiet chcą, by prace, które do tej pory odbywały się w zespołach tematycznych Rady Konsultacyjnej, teraz toczyły się w internecie, na platformie Loomio.)
  31. "Loomio group of Pirate Party of Belgium". Loomio.org. Archived from the original on 2020-12-23.
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