# Principles of Authentic Participation: continuing the Sustain conversation

**URL:** <https://discourse.sustainoss.org/t/principles-of-authentic-participation-continuing-the-sustain-conversation/284>\
**Category:** Accountability & Transparency\
**Tags:** sustain-summit, accountability\
**Created:** [February 17, 2020, 9:42pm UTC](https://discourse.sustainoss.org/t/principles-of-authentic-participation-continuing-the-sustain-conversation/284 "2020-02-17T21:42:32Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 11\
**Page:** 3

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**Author:** ![RichardLitt](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex032/user_avatar/discourse.sustainoss.org/richardlitt/32/8_2.png) [@RichardLitt](https://discourse.sustainoss.org/u/RichardLitt)\
**Post date:** [May 8, 2020, 12:39pm UTC](https://discourse.sustainoss.org/t/principles-of-authentic-participation-continuing-the-sustain-conversation/284/42 "2020-05-08T12:39:24Z")

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I think an advocate kit makes sense. I’m just aware that notes as notes don’t travel well, and the goal of disseminating information is to pass it on. A page on the website, like the Sustain Manifesto, would also work well, I think.

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**Author:** ![jwf](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex032/user_avatar/discourse.sustainoss.org/jwf/32/1093_2.png) [@jwf](https://discourse.sustainoss.org/u/jwf)\
**Post date:** [May 8, 2020, 5:15pm UTC](https://discourse.sustainoss.org/t/principles-of-authentic-participation-continuing-the-sustain-conversation/284/43 "2020-05-08T17:15:45Z")

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> [@RichardLitt](#):
>
> I’m just aware that notes as notes don’t travel well, and the goal of disseminating information is to pass it on.

Good point. My initial thought was to publish this on the same site as the Principles so it all lives together. But I could also do an online article with an overview of the Principles and leave that as a descriptive resource for others in the future. This could go on my personal blog, the Sustain website, [Opensource.com](http://Opensource.com), or a number of other places…

I’m still sitting on this for a bit.

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**Author:** ![jwf](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex032/user_avatar/discourse.sustainoss.org/jwf/32/1093_2.png) [@jwf](https://discourse.sustainoss.org/u/jwf)\
**Post date:** [May 18, 2020, 10:28pm UTC](https://discourse.sustainoss.org/t/principles-of-authentic-participation-continuing-the-sustain-conversation/284/44 "2020-05-18T22:28:12Z")

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> [@jwf](#):
>
> ## How to wrap up Spring 2020 Principles Working Group meetings
> 
> But folks (mostly looking at @DuaneOBrien @kpfleming @awright @jdorfman @RichardLitt who have all been excellent co-conspirators), **is a first draft “Advocate Kit” a potentially practical resource for you to take away from your participation in this Working Group?**

To give an update in this thread, I shared a first draft of the Advocate Kit here:

> [@Principles of Authentic Participation: Advocate Kit ready for first review](https://discourse.sustainoss.org/t/principles-of-authentic-participation-advocate-kit-ready-for-first-review/389):
>
> Hi folks, this thread provides an update on new deliverables for the Principles of Authentic Participation. Since the last time we met, we discussed creating an Advocate Kit to provide conversational tools and context about how to talk about and share the Principles: Feedback is welcome and encouraged. Either in GitHub or this thread works! Catch the rest of the discussion in the original thread:

I split it out as a new thread from this one since the thread is months old and starting to get super long!

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**Author:** ![kpfleming](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex032/user_avatar/discourse.sustainoss.org/kpfleming/32/209_2.png) [@kpfleming](https://discourse.sustainoss.org/u/kpfleming)\
**Post date:** [May 20, 2020, 8:53pm UTC](https://discourse.sustainoss.org/t/principles-of-authentic-participation-continuing-the-sustain-conversation/284/45 "2020-05-20T20:53:49Z")

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Going a bit off the wall here, and with full credit to Stormy Peters who mentioned this today in the Open Source Hallway Track videoconference…

We need to find a graphic artist who can use this as inspiration for a branding image for the Principles!

![hows-my-driving-white](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex032/uploads/sustainoss/original/1X/b6189cd4695ccd5c9371bd38e559f0afe8983ea5.jpeg)

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**Author:** ![jwf](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex032/user_avatar/discourse.sustainoss.org/jwf/32/1093_2.png) [@jwf](https://discourse.sustainoss.org/u/jwf)\
**Post date:** [May 20, 2020, 11:54pm UTC](https://discourse.sustainoss.org/t/principles-of-authentic-participation-continuing-the-sustain-conversation/284/46 "2020-05-20T23:54:39Z")

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> [@kpfleming](#):
>
> We need to find a graphic artist who can use this as inspiration for a branding image for the Principles!

Not sure if you are serious or joking, but this makes a good point! We could collaborate with the Design & UX Working Group. Or at least ask them for pointers:

> [@Design & UX working group](https://discourse.sustainoss.org/t/design-ux-working-group/348):
>
> Adding in a topic for the [Design & UX WG](https://sustainoss.org/working-groups/design-and-ux/). We had our first meeting on 23rd April (16:00 GMT) and largely discussed what Design & UX OSS sustainability means to each of us and some of our key, personal concerns. We have a notes docs I’ll drop here. Generally, though, the work of Design/UX + OSS Sustainability was advocacy (OSS \<-\> Design community both ways), funding, processes, mentoring, resources and structures. Largely things the WG have been grinding on for a while. We’ll use the #open-…

I am joining a call for the Design Working Group tomorrow. If there is an open floor discussion, I’ll plug this as a discussion topic.

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**Author:** ![kpfleming](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex032/user_avatar/discourse.sustainoss.org/kpfleming/32/209_2.png) [@kpfleming](https://discourse.sustainoss.org/u/kpfleming)\
**Post date:** [May 21, 2020, 10:12am UTC](https://discourse.sustainoss.org/t/principles-of-authentic-participation-continuing-the-sustain-conversation/284/47 "2020-05-21T10:12:47Z")

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Completely serious, although I understand that this sort of vehicle sign/sticker tends to be a US thing 🙂

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**Author:** ![jwf](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex032/user_avatar/discourse.sustainoss.org/jwf/32/1093_2.png) [@jwf](https://discourse.sustainoss.org/u/jwf)\
**Post date:** [June 4, 2020, 2:24am UTC](https://discourse.sustainoss.org/t/principles-of-authentic-participation-continuing-the-sustain-conversation/284/48 "2020-06-04T02:24:28Z")

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Hey folks. My final action item for this Working Group is a blog post that talks about how this collaboration unfolded from February to May. I have a blog post draft done, but I am not really happy with it. I can’t put my finger on why though.

Any feedback is appreciated on my draft (this is not public yet):

> **[Facilitation, collaboration, and webcams: A story about Principles of...](https://blog.jwf.io/?p=1707&preview=1&_ppp=ea41f7bab1)**
>
> This is the story of the Principles of Authentic Participation. What are the Principles? What do they mean? Why were they made? And how did they take form over three months of virtual facilitation during the COVID–19 crisis? This post explores these...

I will probably end up publishing this sometime next week.

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**Author:** ![abitrolly](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex032/user_avatar/discourse.sustainoss.org/abitrolly/32/845_2.png) [@abitrolly](https://discourse.sustainoss.org/u/abitrolly)\
**Post date:** [June 4, 2020, 5:45am UTC](https://discourse.sustainoss.org/t/principles-of-authentic-participation-continuing-the-sustain-conversation/284/49 "2020-06-04T05:45:12Z")

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The post is titled “A story about Principles of Authentic Participation”, but never defines what is this “authentic participation” instead referencing to [https://authentic-participation.readthedocs.io/](https://authentic-participation.readthedocs.io/) which doesn’t define it either. Rather saying that this is the main page for these principles, and the purpose of principles is to define a core set of principles.

Maybe it is too high level for me, but in the end I don’t see how to check that the principles that the group drafted correspond to any measurable goals that the group had set in the first place. The story is not about principles or their goal, but about the process, and maybe because I didn’t get the definition of what “authentic participation principle” is I fail to see the value in describing the process in such detail.

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**Author:** ![jlcanovas](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex032/user_avatar/discourse.sustainoss.org/jlcanovas/32/240_2.png) [@jlcanovas](https://discourse.sustainoss.org/u/jlcanovas)\
**Post date:** [June 4, 2020, 7:09am UTC](https://discourse.sustainoss.org/t/principles-of-authentic-participation-continuing-the-sustain-conversation/284/50 "2020-06-04T07:09:07Z")

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After reading the blog post, I understand it mainly reports on your experience as a facilitator for the working group. However, the starting paragraph is a bit misleading, as it includes a set of open questions not answered later (e.g., what are the principles). This is maybe what @abitrolly also comment. I think this issue can easily be fixed rephrasing that starting paragraphs.

The overview section is the main driver of the post. In my case, it encouraged me to read on 🙂

While the first and third points are short and descriptive, I was expecting more content in the second point (i…e, “Facilitation, Roosevelt-style”), where you describe your experience. In particular, you shared your feelings about the first fireside chats, but I would like to know more about the other chats and how they evolved (and what you learned). I think this kind of information is precious for other facilitators (like me).

I believe these ideas could improve the article, but note that it is informative and useful per se. Thanks for sharing it!

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**Author:** ![jwf](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex032/user_avatar/discourse.sustainoss.org/jwf/32/1093_2.png) [@jwf](https://discourse.sustainoss.org/u/jwf)\
**Post date:** [June 4, 2020, 8:39pm UTC](https://discourse.sustainoss.org/t/principles-of-authentic-participation-continuing-the-sustain-conversation/284/51 "2020-06-04T20:39:37Z")

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Thanks, the feedback is helpful. My goal is to document the process, especially for other facilitators, in this specific post. I’m going to work through the feedback today to reorganize the opening paragraph and expand on the second half of the post.

> [@jlcanovas](#):
>
> After reading the blog post, I understand it mainly reports on your experience as a facilitator for the working group. However, the starting paragraph is a bit misleading, as it includes a set of open questions not answered later (e.g., what are the principles).

True. 😄 This is what happens when I decide to change focus of what I am writing halfway through.

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**Author:** ![jwf](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex032/user_avatar/discourse.sustainoss.org/jwf/32/1093_2.png) [@jwf](https://discourse.sustainoss.org/u/jwf)\
**Post date:** [June 12, 2020, 8:31pm UTC](https://discourse.sustainoss.org/t/principles-of-authentic-participation-continuing-the-sustain-conversation/284/52 "2020-06-12T20:31:51Z")

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Hi folks! I published my blog post with edits this afternoon:

> **[Facilitation, collaboration, and webcams: A story about Principles of...](https://blog.jwf.io/2020/06/facilitation-collaboration-principles-authentic-participation/)**
>
> This is the story about the facilitation of the Principles of Authentic Participation. This blog post is a story, or perhaps open source lore.

I think I was able to address the earlier feedback while also focusing on the “how we did it” aspect instead of “what are they”.

With this published, I do not have any future plans to facilitate or lead work on this Working Group. I will watch out on the GitHub repo for folks to bring their stories. I might also do some outreach and collection of my own too. But for now, we are going dormant.

It doesn’t mean we will never meet or never talk about these Principles again… but I am out of agenda items and topics. If anyone else wants to facilitate a follow-up conversation or raise other questions, I’m here for it! 🙌

Thanks everyone who participated in the discussions and ideation process since February. I’m proud of what we pulled off, and I’m glad we could be a model for other Sustainers in the community too! ❤

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