Empathic access

A practice of mutual support among affiliates in the context of an open venture, or applied to an entire OVN and even across OVN membranes. This is mostly about transfer of tokens (monetary currency) between affiliates, but it can be also about material resources and mutual services.

The practice

This practice has been introduced to Sensorica by Vinicius in 2021, based on practices developed by the TaoDAO community in Brazil, through the RWI - reimagining wealth initiative, and adapted to Sensorica's culture and processes. See the first trace of this practice in Sensorica's NRP.

At the core of the practice lies a pool of shareable resources that is constituted by commitment. In other words, a number of affiliates commit to give or borrow some type of resources to other affiliates, based on needs, without bothering with complex metrics to provide access to these resources (no need go through a benefit redistribution algorithm). A threshold of involvement can be implemented to avoid easy attacks on the pool of shareable of that particular context. Note that this pool of shareable doesn't exist physically in one place. All resources reside with their original owners. Then, whoever needs a resource can make an empathic access, which is to

• Make sure that you can, based on governance - a threshold of contributions may apply.
• Consult the pool of shareable for the availability of this resource
• Contact these affiliates that have made the commitment to offer it, to provide it to you, and arrange for a transfer. Transfers can be of entire amount committed by a single affiliate or less. Multiple transfers can be made if the need exceeds any commitment listed.
• record transactions in the NRP-CAS.

Also note that commitments may have an expiration date.

IMPORTANT: The commitments as well as the transfers are recorded in the NRP-CAS to leave traces. Commitments can be considered as contributions or as unconditional donations.

NOTE: Empathic access is not the same as access to financial benefits based on contributions, according to a benefit redistribution algorithm, to the budget or to the planning. This is a new practice that Sensorica is experimenting with since 2022, and it is accessible to anyone that meets the above requirements. One of the merits of this practice is to provide access to funding to affiliates that need it, when they contribute to tasks for which there is no more cash in the budget. But this practice is not restricted to these cases.

Ethics

The ethics of the empathic access prescribes that affiliates of the venture access based on their needs. Any affiliate of this venture can make an empathic access.

Asking around for cash from peers is annoying, not a good practice and it is highly discouraged. The empathic access process is there to provide based on idle wealth within the pool of participants and needs. Reminding your peers about the empathic access process and inciting them to use it, both ways, is encouraged.

Once a commitment is made it must be kept. Reputation scores may be applied to the practice and a broken commitments in this practice can be treated like any other broken commitment, reducing the reputation score. Commitments can be set with an expiration date, after which the affiliate is released from the obligation of keeping the commitment.

NRP implementation

The practice requires an affiliate to make a Commitment (I promise X) and another affiliate to ask for X or a portion of it, to satisfy some immediate needs, in which case a Transfer is created.

The Commitment is recorded in the NRP-CAS under Supply - see example in Sensorica's NRP. It can only be of two types:

• Cash contribution exchange type: this option considers the transferred cash (once the commitment or a portion of it is fulfilled, whenever another affiliate makes an empathic access) as a contribution to the venture, and it will be taken into consideration by a benefit redistribution algorithm whenever it is executed.
• Donation exchange type: this option will not be turned into a contribution, which means that it will not be visible by any benefit redistribution algorithm.

Note that commitments have an expiry date in the NRP-CAS.

When an affiliate makes an empathic access a transfer must be created. The affiliate can access the full amount committed or a portion of it. One needs to go back to the same exchange page where the commitment(s) have been created and convert the commitment into a transfer. If only a portion of the commitment is used, the balance needs to be reflected on the same exchange page, visible for future transfers. If the need is larger than one commitment it can be sourced from different commitments, made by different affiliates.