Giving the Community a Voice: Kin Community Council

10 Community Delegates Come Together to Support Kin Ecosystem and Communities

Disclaimer: The Kin Community Council is not a legal entity, these guidelines are a framework for collaboration between independent parties; all contents are subject to change.

— Kin Community —

“Kin Community” is a broad term that refers to the common social configurations between all who gather to participate in and contribute to the public development and evolution of Kin. These participants span every category of stakeholder, from the developer, to the app user, to currency trader, to cryptocurrency enthusiast, and everything in between. Kin is a decentralized incentive platform, allowing millions of people around the world to work together by aligning themselves financially and contributing to the growth of a network, catalyzing a process of self-motivation. Much like a physical economy, the success of a digital economy translates to the success of its participants. Appropriately, the Kin Community is intended to be able to grow into its own free market, with millions to billions of participants able to join and contribute of their own accord, all incentivized by the same thing: the growth of the Kin economy.

— What is the Kin Community Council? —

The Kin Community Council is an informal organization comprised of ten (10) community delegates, who in conjunction with one (1) Kin Foundation representative, have come together to grow, make meaningful contributions to, and represent the best interests of the greater Kin Community to the best of their ability. This is intended to simultaneously seed more distributed ownership but also more focused collaboration to support the accelerated growth and evolution of Kin.

— Applications —

Some months ago, we accepted applications for a Kin Community Council, a coalition of delegates that would work alongside us all to help foster, build, and evolve an independent Kin Community in a way that fairly takes into account every stakeholder, whether they be a developer, user, speculator, service provider, or other participant. As voices that are recognized to represent the Kin Ecosystem’s best interests, delegates would also be asked to provide trusted feedback to different organizations contributing to its development when called upon.

Before continuing, we’d like to thank everyone who took the time to apply. There were actionable insights in these responses that changed my views on the community in many ways, with some even leading directly to the creation of new moderation rules. We will be asking the community for more feedback, more often, as we move forward.

In the end, there were 30 serious applications from long-standing community members with fair, varying visions for how the community should be built. Unfortunately, that is far too many qualified candidates than we could reasonably place into the founding team without compromising efficiency, so we chose to start small. The following ten members have acted as long-term contributors to Kin, but also shown themselves to be capable of being critical, while remaining constructive. This council will likely grow in the future, but the exact process by which members are added, replaced, or removed will be one of the many things the council, in conjunction with the Kin Foundation representative, will be deciding on.

— Kin Community Council (Founding Members) —

• u/kidwonder
• u/leehuk87
• u/scuds31091
• u/hiker2mtn
• u/JD0N3S
• u/KINtrain
• u/reptar2015
• u/emmadrake
• u/DrPoofAloof
• u/The_Kenich

Kin Foundation Representative

• u/Kevin_from_Kin

— Kin Community Council Goals —

1. To facilitate and stimulate healthy and productive participation within the community
2. To provide feedback when asked to organizations contributing to the development of Kin
3. To improve upon the framework and governance of the Kin Community Council itself
4. While doing all of the above, represent the best interests of the Kin Community to best of ability
5. To collaborate to determine and execute on new objectives as a group on an ongoing basis

— Making Changes in a Community —

Every proposed change in a community* must go through the same two stages, (i) Proposal, and (ii) Vote. Whenever they might affect others, these are done transparently via public channels, and must include open discussion with the community in the (i) Proposal stage. (* — change in a community relates to any sort of modification or implementation of any proposal that would affect the limitations of participation in the community)

1. Proposal — Discussion, Feedback, Improvement

• Any member of the Council can make a new proposal, as can the Kin Foundation representative.
• Topics can be self-created or brought up on behalf of the interests of others in the community
• Proposals pertaining to the greater Kin community should be posted in a public, active Kin community, where anyone can join and participate. There must be discussion for at least one week before a vote can be called.

Posts intended to be community proposals should be tagged as such:

[Community Proposal]
Ex. [Community Proposal] New Rule Against Trolls

2. Vote — Yay or Nay

• Votes pertaining to the greater Kin community should be conducted publicly. After a discussion has been had on a subject, a vote should be announced within the council on a finalized version of a proposal. The avenues and channels for the vote should be determined by members of the council based on active channels and efficiency.
• A vote announcement should explicitly list the end date, and must be open at least one week. Vote automatically closes, however, when either (i) a simple majority of all total votes is attained or (ii) all total votes have been casted.
• At the end of the voting window, casted votes are tallied and the majority wins. Number of votes: 11 (10 Council + 1 Kin Foundation Representative). All votes are worth an equal, 1 vote.
• Minimum participation: 7 votes. Until at least 7 votes are cast the window will be extended one week, during which time more votes can be solicited.

Posts intended to be council votes should be tagged as such:

[Council Vote][End Date: (Month, DD, YYYY)]
Ex. [Council Vote][End Date: (Sep. 17, 2020)] New Rule Against Rumors

— Membership —

Members can leave the Kin Community Council of their own accord. If they do, membership and responsibilities are immediately forfeited and a new member should be found to replace them.

Membership is automatically forfeited after two (2) vote absences in a row that were at least two weeks apart, unless there was reasonable and sufficient warning from the missing member.

The addition of new members is a matter to be decided by proposal and vote.

— Checks & Balances —

The Council can veto any community change by rallying 9 members to exercise a veto. This prevents the Kin Foundation from making any changes to the community that are unanimously opposed.

Kin Foundation representation can veto any measure presented by a Council member. This prevents the Council from conspiring to make changes without the consent of Kin Foundation representation.

— Oversight —

Community Oversight
The Kin Community can rally support for the replacement of a Kin Community Council member if they find them to not be representing their interests in votes. If an argument is presented from within the community that a delegate has been voting against the interest of the Kin Community, and the argument gains overwhelming support, the replacement of that member will be brought forth as a vote, and the member in question will not be allowed to vote.

Council Oversight
If the Kin Council decides that a member should be replaced, it can be brought forth as a proposal and vote. The member in question is allowed to vote.

Kin Foundation Oversight
Kin Foundation representation cannot be replaced by anyone other than other members of the Kin Foundation. The Kin Foundation reserves the right to terminate membership of any Kin Community Council member for any reason, including but not limited to lack of participation or public behavior.

Maintenance
In order to not burden the members of the community with the maintenance of the Council, while also maintaining its consistent structural integrity, the Kin Foundation representative will be responsible for the upkeep of these rules and leading the ongoing activity of the Council, until further notice.

— Closing Thoughts —
There was a time when the Kin community had a large number of the hardest working, but also critical minds in crypto. The Kin Community was bustling, full of dreamers and volunteers, writers and artists, developers and service providers, all working together to try and make Kin the vision that we all believe in. It is our hope that over time, this community can take its rightful place as one of the most active communities in cryptocurrency, and that all the talented minds who wish to see it succeed can more effectively work together to make that happen.

— To stay up to date with the latest developments in Kin, follow Kin_Ecosystem on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Kin_Ecosystem

— —

Kevin Ricoy
Comms @ Kin Ecosystem
https://www.kin.org

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Credits:
icon by freepik at flaticon.com