There should be, i should make one
this post was submitted on 02 Jan 2025
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Genuinely, it makes more sense to join an org local to you than it does to organize over social media.
I'm part of many local orgs and I'm not talking about "organizing over social media", but rather to discuss the topics surrounding the practice and theory of organization building with other people interested in the topic and practicing it.
Copying my other answer to your other response:
Oh, well there's a decent deal of that, mostly on Hexbear.net and Lemmygrad.ml. I even made an intro Marxist reading list and linked it on my profile, and share it frequently. There are several communities dedicated to learning and sharing.
Why would you go to Lemmy for that? I'm politically active in several local organisations and if I have anything to discuss about that I discuss it with them, not with random people on social media. This is just not the platform for that.
because the techniques, practices, assets, learning material and so on should circulate and the format of social bookmarking platforms like lemmy is good for that.
I have several telegram groups, discords, facebook groups, and slacks, together with traditional forums hat collect people from all over the world interested in organization building, facilitation, strategy development, tooling, and so on and so forth. On lemmy though, there's very little and it's a pity.
I guess my experience with open social media is that there are far too many radlibs who insert themselves into communist discussion spaces. On platforms like Twitter the effect is less bad as you can select who to follow and your followers will select themselves too. But the maximum extent of discussing organising strategies etc I do with online people I don't organise with, is discussing things with a private Matrix group of some online friends who all have solid politics and are good organisers in their local scene (we mostly live in different countries). I think a lemmy community around organising would probably attract a lot of low-quality discussion, based on what I've seen of organising talk on public social media.
And I just don't see the necessity of going beyond your orgs to discuss strategy. People do write articles about strategy you can share and discuss with your org, but we've never discussed social media posts about strategy. You can discuss union strategy with your union; unions should provide organising training to its members. Unless unions are practically nonexistent where you are and you're starting from scratch, but at least here you can join the union for your trade and you'll be trained on how to organise by union organisers. For non-union orgs, if it's self-sufficient and large enough you can get plenty of fruitful discussion among your comrades, and it will be tailored to your specific context and organisation. I don't even know what country you live in; how am I supposed to give you the most effective advice as an internet stranger?
Indeed context matters and a lot of knowledge cannot be transferred across domains, legal frameworks, or even outside an org. Nonetheless a lot of this knowledge is indeed transferable. How to effectively facilitate a meeting can have culture-specific details, but most of the know-how is transferable. To discover which software is best to adopt to build a CRM is a discussion that can be had before knowing any specifics of your org, and when you know the specifics, you can apply what you know about CRMs to pick the best one. Organizational models can and must be discussed across orgs and countries, to understand if some problem is just an accident or a model is fundamentally unfit for a specific goal.
I guess my experience with open social media is that there are far too many radlibs who insert themselves into communist discussion spaces.
I wonder if the easy win for this situation is to redirect any radlibs to designated communism101 communities with learning resources to avoid them derailing discussion among communists. That way, they're not simply rejected and banned (that is, alienated and possibly offended) for their arrogance, they have an opportunity to learn without the community either getting annoyed or wasting time in arguments.
because the techniques, practices, assets, learning material and so on should circulate and the format of social bookmarking platforms like lemmy is good for that.
I'd have to disagree, these sites aren't really designed for archiving such knowledge for easy access. Wikis and libraries, for example, are more suited to purpose, although they're less social and less about discussion. Even other types of messageboards, like traditional internet forums are alright. But on here, older conversations tend to leave the front pages and become near undiscoverable within days or weeks. reddit and the like are designed to for news and novelty more than real information sharing.
For that, I'm already collaborating on activisthandbook.org and I curate my own lists of content. What I see social bookmarking is good for is circulation of less structured knowledge, short-lived information (i.e. about events or courses), news like publication of relevant books and so on. Wikis take a lot of effort to curate and are the last step of a process of information discovery and processing from certain environments that starts somewhere else. Lemmy or other social media can work at an intermediate level between personal knowledge and structured, consolidated knowledge shared in the commons.
Exactly. Lemmy can be a cool place to discuss theory and check up on the news with likeminded comrades, but that's close to the extent that it can handle with political organization. Actual org work is handled in orgs.
Actual org work is handled in orgs.
I fundamentally disagree. This mindset is why so many leftist orgs still operate through processes, governance structures, and methodologies invented when the horse was the main vector to transfer information. There are plenty of spaces to become better at organizing, and digital spaces to exchange expertise and grow are important.
You can use digital communication to organize large-scale orgs, I never disputed that. My point is that an open forum based social media platform is not going to be the vanguard of the revolution, or even a good union platform. Security and privacy are far too important for organizing, and social media is far too easy to attack from bad actors.
I'm not talking about organizing on social media platforms. I'm talking about learning, sharing expertise, and interesting material on how to build organizations.
Oh, well there's a decent deal of that, mostly on Hexbear.net and Lemmygrad.ml. I even made an intro Marxist reading list and linked it on my profile, and share it frequently. There are several communities dedicated to learning and sharing.
Indeed, but these seem to be mostly focused on political topics, rather than organizing per se. I've rarely seen content about organization design, facilitation, effective communication, process design or other similar topics. It's usually sociology/economy/political theory stuff for what I've found.
The lemmy users have only interpreted the world in various ways, the point, however, is to change it.
There's a good deal on org theory as well, such as theory on Democratic Centralism, the Mass Line, how to conduct yourself within orgs such as Liu Shaoqi's How to be a Good Communist (on my reading list, in fact), and more. If you have specific questions, there are also comms for asking those as well.
I was thinking more about practical knowledge to employ today, rather than political speculation on hypothetical societal/political structure. I need people to get better at facilitating meetings, tracking tasks, and writing notes. Until then, discussing democratic centralism is sterile escapism.
I think you're a bit confused here, Democratic Centralism and the Mass Line are organizational principles. They are primarily for party structure, not only mass societal structure, and Liu Shaoqi's work is on behavior within orgs. Any union, political party, etc. can and would benefit from learning these and discussing them.
Is there something specific you are asking about? Like, how to file for specific legal status or something?
I don't think they are.
They aren't looking to take a class on theory. They want a set of resources and knowledge base to discuss how to build labor organizations and discuss issues with the actual building of these organizations.
You'll see some discussions on theory on Lemmy, but I've never seen discussions on actually building a union, co-op, or other collectivist organization.
I mean, that falls under the subset of theory, though, and concrete discussion of local org building should be done in private among those actually involved for OPSEC reasons.
Not really. Building an organization is not a theoretical exercise, but a practical application that involves dealing with people. It is like saying that getting a degree in political science makes you qualified to be a politician. There is a lot in the application of politics that doesn't perfectly align with theory.
And the person isn't talking about setting up the organizational building online, but to know where there are resources to discuss how. There are basic strategies that are effective in building unions and union busters already know them.
Building an org is a practical application of theoretical principles, you don't form an org by praying it into existence but by studying proper org mechanics and building them, adjusting as you go and figure out what does and does not work. Any actual discussion on the particulars of org building should be done within the org being built, by the organizers of the org.
Building an org is a practical application of theoretical principles
Having seen organizations get built and operate, it is far more than just an application of theoretical principles. There are a lot of soft skills that the leaders need to develop and there may be other types of knowledge that are needed as well; for instance forming a union is probably going to require a basic understanding of labor law in the area they are in.
Yes, hence why I asked OP to clarify if they mean discussing particular legal problems, or practical techniques for building an org and how to operate within them.
I think youβre a bit confused here, Democratic Centralism and the Mass Line are organizational principles. They are primarily for party structure, not only mass societal structure, and Liu Shaoqiβs work is on behavior within orgs. Any union, political party, etc. can and would benefit from learning these and discussing them.
Fair enough, but I don't believe mass parties can be built anymore without a mass society, so it's stuff I don't really read about because again, it's not really actual or usable.
Is there something specific you are asking about? Like, how to file for specific legal status or something?
In other spaces like the ones I would like to find on lemmy, the areas that get discussed are stuff like organization design, process design, software and software practices, facilitation, mediation, consensus building, effective communication and so on and so forth. You know, the stuff you need to build an organization that is effective in the world.
I don't know what you mean by a "mass society," these principles and methods are practical even in starting small orgs in existing Capitalist society. You'll have to be more clear on why you think they aren't.
Secondly, the theoretical principles and works I listed are absolutely in line with what you describe, particularly the subjects of Mediation, Organization Design, Effective Communication, Facilitation, and Process Design. I struggle to see why you think what I already listed doesn't fulfill those.
Because some of us have no cars and transportation, and online spaces could help with arrangements for people willing to do the groundwork.
I think you're right but I just keep chuckling at the irony behind your username and then your comment haha
? What irony? I don't think the username of communism implies you're... organising on Lemmy lol
You don't see the irony there? In your username being communism@lemmy.ml and your comment being
Iβm politically active in several local organisations and if I have anything to discuss about that I discuss it with them, not with random people on social media. This is just not the platform for that.
It just tickles my humor. Its not a dig at you or anything. Local organization is most effective.
No, I don't see the irony, and I didn't take it as a dig either. I just don't see the two being contrary to each other. "I don't think political discussion on social media is particularly fruitful" doesn't mean I'm going to pretend I'm not a communist or not mention it at all online.
Ahh. Well, you gave me a chuckle so thanks for that and have a great day!
Which part is ironic?
"This is not the platform to discuss organizing," communism@lemmy.ml said.
Obviously there is more to their comment, and they are totally right. But it's ironic because it subverts your expectation of what a user called communism@lemmy.ml would say
I think it's perfectly in line, Communists more than anyone know that "organizing" on Lemmy isn't practical in any way, discussing theory and the news sure, but not organizing.
it could be interesting for discussing the practice of oeganization, not for actually organizing through lemmy. Like there are forums for discussing self-hosting online services and so on.
Yep, there are good spots for that on Lemmy.
Alright, sure... we'll just move past it then lol
I love giving advice on organizing, but I tend to agree with the other person that social media is a poor format for building long term collective action. The best place to share this stuff is with a union. I learned everything I know about organizing from my union CWA, including the classes needed to learn how to organize (they're free and offered every weekend).
I'm fighting an unjust firing, and went to my union. When we had a violation of status quo, we turned to our union. When we're unsure how to organize, our union forms a committee to figure it out. When we need more people, we recruit among coworkers. When we have an idea for political action, we talk to our local president to get it proposed during membership meetings. When we have questions we can't answer, we talk to our executive board.
There is space for a community like what you're proposing and I'd participate in it, but I don't know how much active interest there would be.
I'm one of the people organizing such activities, not within a union but through a similar dynamic. While that's a great way to build capacity and know-how, it's very narrow and slow to evolve. There's plenty of research and discussion on how to build democratic organizations more effectively, and this kind of discussion doesn't happen within a single org. When it does, it's often very disconnected from reality and uninteresting. This kind of know-how can totally be circulated through social networks (not necessarily social media, but also) when the exchange is on topics of interest on a global scale.
What are your goals, how will you achieve them, and how will you maintain cohesion? To me, it seems you have an idea and a lot of resistance to joining anything that has existing problems. One of the biggest obstacles facing this idea in the long term is how organizing is usually very specific to local problems, so most information that would be shared is only relevant to a single campaign at a specific point in time. Like for example I created a shortened organizing training for my campaign, we were able to turn a 4 hour, 2 class course into a single 1.5 hour session because we tailored the info specifically to the ongoing campaign. It could be useful for some very limited purposes, but by and large it's just a relic of my campaign history.
Unions can be slow, but they also move incredibly fast. CWA still has work to be done, but members won't allow it to be anything other than democratically controlled. The labor activist world is small and full of plagiarism, the conversation is never held to just one group with unique ideas. Conversation about democratization jumps from the 1920s IWW to 2000s Ver Di to 1970s teachers to modern examples that were just implemented.
What are your goals, how will you achieve them, and how will you maintain cohesion?
My goal is to build more effective political organizations. I abandoned my career to do this as a consultant, I do this as a volunteer for the orgs that cannot afford me, and I do it in the orgs in which I'm politically active first-hand. Building communities of experts and people interested in improving, on a global scale, is part of the process.
To me, it seems you have an idea and a lot of resistance to joining anything that has existing problems.
There are effective orgs with problems and there are orgs with no chance of having a positive impact because they spend all their resources reproducing themselves. No problem joining the first kind, but I don't believe there's a point beating a dead horse with the second.
One of the biggest obstacles facing this idea in the long term is how organizing is usually very specific to local problems, so most information that would be shared is only relevant to a single campaign at a specific point in time.
I'm not American, so campaign organization is not really the frame I'm immersed in. I do a lot of organizing with Americans, so I understand the context, but if you want to build a political org that can last a century and it's able to evolve and fit changing needs, that kind of know-how is generic and reusable. There are intrinsic dynamics of how humans behave within organizations and how organizations grow, and anything pertaining to those aspects is knowledge that is transferable and can live a long time. If you build for the short-term, you are subject to the ebbs and flows of the current moment and your impact will be short-lived. I'm not against this way of doing things, but I just don't find it interesting or ambitious enough.
Conversation about democratization jumps from the 1920s IWW to 2000s Ver Di
A suspicious amount of my peers are past-IWW members who are now part of VerDi, lol.
I abandoned my career to do this as a consultant
It makes me feel much better knowing you're (probably) familiar with my type of questioning, it's become too ingrained to stop.
Now that I understand how this would differentiate itself from actual orgs, I'm definitely on board. I have some good things worth sharing already for tenant organizing
!unions@sh.itjust.works?
Edit: not solely for organizing