Consumerium governance

Consumerium governance is how it runs itself - the protocol that keeps everything "fair and above board". This should be as close to a formal protocol as possible.

Because Consumerium seeks to empower consumers to affect corporate governance and perhaps government attitude to trade, it should be a very good example of governance responsible to our values. Whatever they are.

It is clear that Consumerium has and will continue to have a Consumerium:Systemic bias based on the values of the people building it. This must be inverted, by applying a counter-bias in the governance protocol. Specific issues in Consumerium governance are:

• choice of a Consumerium board - by default now it is just User:Juxo or "Chairman Juxo" or "Chief Gardener Juxo" or "Janitor Juxo" or whatever title he likes. see m:Wikipedia Governance for debate on one-man rule over there.

• choice of licenses - note that there are few contributors now, and it is not too late to require that all contributions accept that a change of license be possible later, under the terms of governance we eventually work out for that (in other words notify that unless you object in such and such a time after a notice of change of license, the material is under a new license, and you lose rights to say fork off a new project with the old material without problems).

• ways of assessing project future and project status quo - see m:governance for some ways to do this, not sure if they've been tried.

• other things that might have to be listed in a board manual - see m:board manual for a possible starting point for Consumerium's board - and m:Wikimedia board for an example of how not to do things!

• picking the right balance of tools, rules and fools. We hate bureaucracy for practical reasons, but sometimes zero-bureaucracy (like GPL) just leads you into more control by official bureaucrats and wasting your life defending your work. High-bureaucracy (like Business Software Alliance) has some benefits but is mostly just oppressive. Consortium usually fall in between and balance a little more bureaucracy and obligation up front with a way to manage unforseen events later on, the main reason to even consider governance important.

Eventually a Consumerium Governance Organization must take over from the founders, and regulate the Consumerium governance protocol in a fairer way than any of us can manage - we are not so foolish as to imagine that this means always relying on the original Consumerium board. It must be assumed that eventually the project is too complex and contentious to be "controlled" by anyone, and that the organization/board is primarily trying to obsolete itself. This probably is its only "job". A Transparent Consumerium would use the CGO only to resolve disputes that arise about the CGP fairness.