Nathan Schneider

CommunityRule is a Web app we've been building at MEDLab to help communities design, edit, and share their own governance systems. You can think about it as an effort to re-think the idea of bylaws in an Internet-native way. It's something that

Modpol is a self-governance toolkit for communities in online worlds. We are creating the first implementation in a multiplayer game called Minetest. Consider a group of friends meeting for a picnic in the park. How do they make decisions, such as

This post was originally written for the Smart Contract Research Forum and is cross-posted there. The user experience for most organizational governance is pretty lousy. In meatspace, it generally consists of impenetrable legal prose that, in order

Download here Creating communities has never been easier. Online social networks enable groups to form among people who might never otherwise meet—across borders, even within neighborhoods, and around common causes that might

Alongside whatever else mothers and sons talk about, I have begun receiving regular updates on the governance of my mother’s neighborhood garden club. They make me jealous. The club has survived from the heyday of suburban housewives—which my mother

DOWNLOAD: SCREEN / BOOKLET What is a startup for? Who are startups for? The usual answers begin sounding strange the more you think about them. A startup is kind of like a child, some say. Founders pour themselves and their resources and energy into

One of the most inspiring outgrowths of the COVID-19 pandemic has been the rise of local relief efforts under the banner of "mutual aid" and a commitment to "solidarity, not charity." These groups seek to address the impacts of the pandemic while

Isn’t it weird that the radically democratic miracle of open-source collaboration is so full of monarchical dictatorships? Take your pick of projects; “benevolent dictators” are everywhere. Linux has Linus Torvalds, WordPress has Matt Mullenweg,

Founders create startups for all sorts of reasons. Often, the motivation is a mix between the founders’ desires to do well for themselves and to do something worthwhile for others. Dreams of greatness might figure in there too. Rarely, however, is

Alphonse Desjardins (photo by Vista Stamps, used without permission) I have been trying for some time to put my finger on the difference—between the stories of co-op origins I read about for years while working on my book, Everything for Everyone,