Documentation

Community

Governance

Cooperative governance is how the membership makes collective decisions: electing coordinators, approving treasury spending, updating policies, and managing the lifecycle of the cooperative itself.

Governance model

irl.coop uses a delegated governance model. Members elect a governing council that handles day-to-day operational decisions. Significant decisions — changes to bylaws, treasury disbursements above a threshold, dissolution of the cooperative — require a full member vote.

Proposals

Any member can submit a governance proposal. Proposals go through four phases:

  1. Submission — the proposer writes the proposal, specifying the action, rationale, and proposed outcome
  2. Discussion — a configurable period (default: 7 days) during which members can comment and the proposer can amend
  3. Voting — a configurable period (default: 5 days) during which members cast votes
  4. Execution — if the vote passes, the Workflow pillar executes the approved action automatically

Voting

Votes are cast through the cooperative dashboard. Each active member has one vote. Votes are recorded on-chain (signed by the member's wallet) and cannot be altered after submission.

The default quorum is 20% of active members. The default passing threshold is simple majority (50% + 1). Supermajority requirements (typically 2/3) apply to constitutional changes and dissolution.

Coordinator roles

Coordinators are elected for specific resources or working groups, not for the cooperative as a whole. Any member can be nominated; election uses simple majority vote among the members of the relevant resource or working group. Coordinators serve for a configurable term (default: 6 months) and can be recalled by majority vote of their constituents at any time.

Governing council

The governing council is elected by the full membership. Council members handle:

  • Platform-wide policy decisions within approved bylaws
  • Treasury disbursements under the council authorization threshold
  • Member status decisions (suspension, appeal review)
  • Emergency operational decisions between member votes

Policy documents

All governance policies — the bylaws, membership terms, code of conduct, and treasurer guidelines — are published as Ceramic data streams. Every change is versioned and cryptographically signed. The full history of every policy is permanently accessible.

See also