2. What eases

At people's level

• Physical meetings, friendliness
• Esteem assessment, quotation of all contributors
• Mixing up of audiences (see forum)
• Reduction of the risk of participating, enabling exit and multi : -membership : simplified membership procedure, possibility of disengagement!
• Virtuous circle of motivation :
  • Project / meaningful action
  • Feeling of ability
  • controllability :
    • cognitive engagement
    • perseverance
    • success.
• Making up individual interest with collective interest.
• Showing the mechanism.
• Win-win strategy
• Questioning people on their objectives
• Welcoming new comers, sponsoring.
• Technical back up : knowing where to find the technical referent, getting instructions for use, assistance sections

At tools level

• Behaving rules
• Netiquette
• Progressive implementation
• Simplify !!! Hide features
• Instructions for use, assistance section, trainings...

At organisation level

Upload file Cea.jpg

• Showing the group's activity : summary, reformulation, historical background, showing what is happening in sub-groups, regular news : summaries (TST)
• Strong incentive to develop habits : only put reports on the wiki, make mistakes in the spelling of people's names on purpose
• « Professional » facilitators :
  • emerging jobs
  • separating organization from facilitation
  • know how to be rather than know how to do
  • being in permanent alert
• Synthesizing, reformulating, gardening

At project level

• Propose an historical background, an notebook of events
• Minimize the needs at the beginning : putting on line unfinished productions
• Control critical tasks : compromise between flexibility and continuity of the system, the project must content itself with a minimum contributions
• Work rather with thoughtfulness than with intention : and projects emerge by listening to the group, pinpointing objectives instead of expected results
• Risk analysis : will of success or fear of failure ?
• Definition of purposes and running (SAGACE matrix)
• Clear objectives , charter
• Productions : Free Licenses to turn them into common properties

The 9 laws of cooperation

• Reduce participation risks
• Lower the threshold of acting out
• Non consumables goods and environment of abundance
• Communities which last converge on cooperation
• Evaluation by esteem
• Minimizing needs at the beginning
• Minimizing failure risks by controlling critical tasks
• Time for opportunities
• Never forget any of the rules !

Lowering the threshold of acting out

Acting out with human beings tallies with a rude fall

• Free software :
  • Giving, before any other action, an a priori authorization for use and modification thanks to a license rather than imposing an authorization request is another example of elements which ease the acting out. (Jean-Michel Cornu)
• Tela Botanica :
  • Registration is easy, licence and charge free.
  • Use of Forum and Wiki
• Incentive to participation with simple exercises :
  • Make a mistake on purpose in the spelling of a person's name to have her react and encourage her to correct it by herself

Non consumables goods and environment of abundance

• Tela Botanica : the Flora of Metropolitan France project
  • Stemming from the work of one person : work of naming and taxonomy on 75 000 names.
  • 55 599 files modified by members of the community
  • Adding of 46 794 vernacular names (several languages)

Communities which last converge on cooperation

• Joining very much upstream to avoid competition downstream.
  • GNU/Linux
    • GNU and Free Software Foundation : 1985
    • Linux : 1991
  • the Flora of Metropolitan France project : 2001

Evaluation by esteem

• Tela : Project of compiling botanical articles (25674 articles)

• De Boissieu Henri - Un acer hybride nouveau pour la flore française. - 1912 - dendrologie, plante hybride, acer x bormulleri, localité, p. 77-78 - Société Botanique de France, Bulletin de la Société Botanique de France, Bull. Soc. Bot. Fr. (1904), Tome 59 - Fascicule 1 - Saisie : Jean TIMBAL -Art. n°13807.

• Delahaye Thierry, Henze Gaston, Lequay Arthur - Les orchidées de Monthoux - 1996 - Savoie, Avant-pays, Acéracées, acer monspessulanum, Fabacées, Argyrolobium zanonii, p. 15-19 - Départ./Région : 73 - Société Mycologique et Botanique de Chambéry, Bull. de la sté Myco et Bota de la Région Chambérienne, N°1 - Saisie : Sylvie SERVE - Art. n°479.

• Delahaye Thierry, Lequay Arthur, Prunier Patrice - Les découvertes botaniques de nos sociétaires en 1996 - 1997 - Savoie, violacées, Viola collina, loranthacées, Viscum album, acéracées, acer monspessulanum, joncacées, Juncus arcticus, liliacées, Erythronium dens-canis, p. 31-32 - Départ./Région : 73 - Société Mycologique et Botanique de Chambéry, Bull. de la sté Myco et Bota de la Région Chambérienne, N°2 - Saisie : Sylvie SERVE - Art. n°495.

Minimizing needs at the beginning

• Linus started by re-using codes and ideas of Minixa (the whole of Minix code has been given up or completly re-wrote since)
• The "Cathédrale et Bazar " example : Fetchmail based on popclient and Fetchpop
• Tela :
  • Recovery of a synonymy work by M. Kerguelen on 75 000 names
  • recovery of numerous data bases constituted by amateurs.
• Putting online unfinished documents because they can be improved by contributors. If the putting-online needs the completion of the document, the group's dynamics won't get under way.

Minimizing failure risks by controlling critical tasks

• Brooks Law : "adding manpower to a late software project makes it later " : complexity increases as well as the number of exchanges and therefore as the square number of persons.
• Tela Botanica :
  • The association contracts partnerships and et takes responsibility for the consequences
  • Employees are on duty and provide tools and services
  • Members of the community carry out plans and give sense to the network
  • The piloting committee operates coordination and validates decisions

Risk analysis

• The fear of failure leads to a minimum risk-taking. One is then tempted to protect everything, and this is typical of today : everything is tagged, locked (in particular legally saying). For example, within administrations, there is a lack of opening which reflects a rigid mental functioning.
• On the contrary, willing to succeed implies the implementation of means to reach the appointed aim. This approach refers to a mental model much open and dynamic.

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Auteurs : Association Outils-Réseaux et tous ses stagiaires
Crédits illustrations sous licence Creative Commons : CC-By Outils-Réseaux - CC-By Ell Brown - CC-By Cea - CC-By Marc Smith