Governance - Revision history

TiberiusB at 17:00, 3 July 2026

2026-07-03T17:00:13Z

TiberiusB at 19:42, 19 April 2026

2026-04-19T19:42:29Z

TiberiusB: /* Work in progress */

2026-03-18T02:13:36Z

Work in progress

TiberiusB: /* Governance and economic model */

2026-03-18T02:03:31Z

Governance and economic model

TiberiusB: /* Non binary */

2026-03-18T01:59:12Z

Non binary

TiberiusB: /* Blockchain onchain/offchain governance */

2026-03-18T01:55:28Z

Blockchain onchain/offchain governance

TiberiusB: /* Embedded governance in NDO */

2026-03-18T01:55:12Z

Embedded governance in NDO

TiberiusB: /* Onchain and offchain governance */

2026-03-18T01:54:34Z

Onchain and offchain governance

TiberiusB: /* Embedded governance */

2026-03-18T01:53:51Z

Embedded governance

TiberiusB: /* Related to the process of organising with a common goal */

2026-03-18T01:48:19Z

Related to the process of organising with a common goal

← Older revision		Revision as of 17:00, 3 July 2026
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−	Working definition: '''Governance''' is a means of direct influence for an [[organization]].	+	Working definition: '''Governance''' is a means of direct access and influence for an [[organization]].

	Governance is part of the [[organizational structure]]. It must be considered at the same time with other structural elements such as [[culture]] and [[ethos]], [[methodologies]], [[infrastructure]], and [[organizational interface]], because all these elements are interrelated and form a holistic system. In other words, it cannot be considered in abstraction of these other structural elements.		Governance is part of the [[organizational structure]]. It must be considered at the same time with other structural elements such as [[culture]] and [[ethos]], [[methodologies]], [[infrastructure]], and [[organizational interface]], because all these elements are interrelated and form a holistic system. In other words, it cannot be considered in abstraction of these other structural elements.

@@ Line 93: / Line 93: @@
 Decentralization is about autonomy of [[agents]] within the organisation.
-Rationale: The idea is that good decisions are made by [[agents]] in context, based on local conditions. Providing autonomy, or the ability to make decisions and to play by own rules, in context, can lead to very efficient processes, assuming that these [[agents]] are aligned with the overall goals of the organisation and have the required competencies to act. We also need to take into consideration that part of the [[resources]] used within an OVN are under a private [[property]] regime ([[affiliates]] provide [[resources]]), which confers owners influence within the network. In other words, unlike in a traditional firm where all things belong to the company and all workers are not in possession of the means of production, in an OVN some [[affiliates]] are in possession of means of production. This reality makes it almost impossible to exclude these [[affiliates]] from governance, therefore centralized governance is incompatible with open networks. To expand a bit on this subject, within an OVN [[resources]] belong either to a [[custodian]] (bound by a [[nondominium agreement]]) as [[commons]] or are part of a [[pool of shareables]] or they belong to [[affiliates]]. Allocation of privately owned [[resources]] is a matter of individual informed choice or a matter of established rules in the case of shared resources. See more on [[Physical resource governance]].
+Rationale: The idea is that good decisions are made by [[agents]] in context, based on local conditions. Providing autonomy, or the ability to make decisions and to play by own rules, in context, can lead to very efficient processes, assuming that these [[agents]] are aligned with the overall goals of the organisation and have the required competencies to act. We also need to take into consideration that part of the [[resources]] used within an OVN are under a private [[property]] regime ([[affiliates]] provide [[resources]]), which confers owners influence within the network. In other words, unlike in a traditional firm where all things belong to the company and all workers are not in possession of the means of production, in an OVN some [[affiliates]] are in possession of means of production. This reality makes it almost impossible to exclude these [[affiliates]] from governance, therefore centralized governance is incompatible with open networks. To expand a bit on this subject, within an OVN [[resources]] belong either to a [[custodian]] (bound by a [[nondominium agreement]]) as [[commons]] or are part of a [[pool of shareables]] or they belong to [[affiliates]]. [[Allocation]] of privately owned [[resources]] is a matter of individual informed choice or a matter of established rules in the case of shared resources. See more on [[Physical resource governance]].
 Important note: Sometimes peripheral [[agents]] making decisions based on local conditions are not aware of the big picture, and the network can loose its cohesion.

@@ Line 499: / Line 499: @@
 Sensorica is working on [https://docs.google.com/document/d/1MWVZ8IonlHZGTigydxE2-rnhwZsSIikM_--NnwTmd2g/edit# OVNi 3.0 Governance], an improved version of Sensorica's governance, compatible with a p2p IT infrastructure.
-See also governance as operator for changing state of [[resources]]. This is being implemented in Nondominium hApp.
+[[Governance as operator]]
 =Tools=

@@ Line 400: / Line 400: @@
 Architecture governance in a way that it becomes compatible with organizational and economic model architecture. [[REA]] is used to model the economic reality of the network, use the same structure to describe governance. Talk about [[Agents]], [[Resources]] and [[Events]]. Talk about the [[Policy]], [[Scheduling]] and [[Accountability]] layers, or knowledge, planning and operations.
 See discussion about SEEDs in the Embedded Governance section, their chain from Constitution, to a Game plan - game theory.
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 This is seen in parenting. Some parents use the strategy of applying incentives (giving candy, positive reinforcement) and others set rules and punishments (if you do this, that’s going to happen to you). A milder approach is by explanation, which is using rationality and the satisfaction of doing the right thing to positively incentivise desirable behavior.
 =Deontic Ontology=

@@ Line 104: / Line 104: @@
 ===Non binary===
-Treat decision-making as a signal processing process.
+Governance (decision-making) as signal processing, not rule enforcement. Voting is usually yes or no. When aggregated this provides only a vague information of actual preferences. New decision making methods and associated tools go beyond that. Examples are: conviction voting ([[Commons Stack]]), quadratic voting (Radical Exchange), rank choice, etc. Most of these methods are composable, which means that we can use them as basic decision-making patterns to build more complex patterns.
-To be developed further...
 ===Vertical Forms===

@@ Line 294: / Line 294: @@
 OVNs rely on [[stigmergy]], which in turn relies on embedded governance. In other words, in order for OVNs to scale, we believe that most of the rules need to be already embedded in the design of the OVN's physical and digital environment, as well as in its methods and processes.
-==Blockchain onchain/offchain governance==
+==Blockchain - onchain/offchain governance==
 Onchain governance refers to [[smart contracts]], which are self-enforcing programmable rules, i.e. programs that are implemented on blockchain-based infrastructures to execute with certainty whenever certain conditions are met. A bundle of such smart contracts form a Distributed Autonomous Organization ([[DAO]]) or Distributed Autonomous Corporation ([[DAC]]).
 Offchain governance refers to the residual rules and decision making process that are not automated in such way and rely on human action.

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 Infrastructure needs to support and facilitate the network. Human-centric infrastructure and governance. Let the humans finetune the algorithms.
-==Embedded governance in [[NDO]]==
+==Holochain - [[NDO]] embedded governance==
 The most important governance concept for the [[NDO]] is ''embedded governance'': engineering the environment so that desirable behaviour is facilitated and undesirable behaviour is made impossible or costly, rather than relying on policing. This is about engineering the environment in which actions are deployed to direct, channel or shape action, to take away the possibility of undesirable or less desirable action alternatives.

← Older revision		Revision as of 01:53, 18 March 2026
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	Infrastructure needs to support and facilitate the network. Human-centric infrastructure and governance. Let the humans finetune the algorithms.		Infrastructure needs to support and facilitate the network. Human-centric infrastructure and governance. Let the humans finetune the algorithms.

		+
		+	==Embedded governance in [[NDO]]==
		+	The most important governance concept for the [[NDO]] is ''embedded governance'': engineering the environment so that desirable behaviour is facilitated and undesirable behaviour is made impossible or costly, rather than relying on policing. This is about engineering the environment in which actions are deployed to direct, channel or shape action, to take away the possibility of undesirable or less desirable action alternatives.
		+
		+	In practice: instead of writing a rule "you must not transfer a resource without a validated custodian," make it technically impossible to record a ''custody transfer'' without a prior ''commitment'' accepted by an ''accountable agent''. '''The rule is in the architecture''', not in a policy document that humans can ignore.
		+
		+	This is also [[stigmergy]] in the [[complexity economics]] sense: governance through environmental modification. Ants do not follow written rules — their collective behaviour emerges from pheromone trails (environmental signals) that individual agents respond to locally. The NDO's capability slot surface (Layer 0 stigmergic attachment) is exactly this: governance emerges from what [[agents]] choose to attach to resources, without central coordination.
		+
		+
		+	The distinction between '''soft''' and '''hard''' embedded governance matters:
		+	* '''Hard embedded''': cryptographic impossibility of the prohibited action (Holochain validation rules, [[capability tokens]])
		+	* '''Soft embedded''': social norms encoded as discoverable defaults (GovernanceRules marked as required, reputation consequences)
		+
		+	The [[NDO]] primarily uses ''hard embedded governance'' ([[Holochain]] ''integrity zomes'' are cryptographic) with ''soft embedded governance'' at the application layer (GovernanceRules are data that [[agents]] must choose to enforce in their ''coordinator'' logic).

	=Tibi's view on governance=		=Tibi's view on governance=

← Older revision		Revision as of 01:48, 18 March 2026
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	* '''enforcement''': enacting and reinforcing the choice / decision.		* '''enforcement''': enacting and reinforcing the choice / decision.
	* '''adaptation''': inquiry or research, sense-making or structuring, informing, feedback, and adaptation.		* '''adaptation''': inquiry or research, sense-making or structuring, informing, feedback, and adaptation.
		+
		+	In traditional [[organisations]], governance is largely concentrated: a small group selects, enforces, and adapts. In P2P open networks, all three functions must be distributed across a large, permeable, changing set of participants, without centrally controlled bottlenecks. This is not a political preference; it is an ''information-theoretic'' necessity. Bar-Yam's ''complexity matching'' principle: the governance system's complexity must match the organisational complexity it manages. As the network grows and its challenges diversify, only distributed governance can keep pace.