Governing Differences in Online Peer Communities Through Dissensus Protocols

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* Article: The Dissensus Protocol: Governing Differences in Online Peer Communities. By Jaya Klara Brekke, Kate Beecroft and Francesca Pick. Front. Hum. Dyn., 26 May 2021 | doi

URL = https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fhumd.2021.641731/full

Abstract

"Peer-to-peer networks and protocols have inspired new ideas and ideologies about governance, with the aim of using technology to enable horizontal and decentralized decision-making at scale. This article introduces the concept of “dissensus” from political theory to debates about peer governance in online communities. Dissensus describes the emergence of incompatible differences. Among peer-to-peer technologies, blockchain stands out as a set of ideas that explicitly seek to resolve dissensus through consensus protocols. In this article, we propose dissensus as a “protocol” for foregrounding the often sidelined yet productive aspects of incompatible differences. The concept highlights that there might not always be consensus about a consensus algorithm, and that indeed, dissensus is the precondition for new possibilities and perspectives to emerge. We discuss the concept in relation to the histories of governance ideas in blockchain, namely, a “materialist,” “design,” and “emergent” approach. We then describe moments of dissensus in practice through two cases of online communities, Genesis DAO and Ouishare, discussing their different ways of recognizing and navigating dissensus. Finally, we give a critical overview of consensus algorithms, voting, staking, and forking as the mechanisms that make out blockchain governance ideologies. In conclusion, we argue that dissensus can serve as a useful concept for pointing attention to governance as it is conducted in practice, as historically and culturally specific practices, rather than as a problem to be solved through supposedly universal mechanisms."


Content

"Part two comprises a discussion of dissensus in relation to two cases of peer-to-peer online communities, Genesis DAO and Ouishare, who each has formed around the possibility of technology to scale nonhierarchical forms of governance and organizing. Governance technologies are iterative efforts, evolving in relation to and alongside communities of people using and developing technologies, and thus occasionally facing dissensus and requiring the negotiation of incompatible differences. This part comprises reflections on the concept of dissensus in relation to experiences of the two authors, Pick and Beecroft, as participants in the Genesis DAO from early in the project, and Pick’s role as a core organizer in Ouishare. Both held part-time paid roles with DAOstack as facilitators of the community at the time, and as a result hold GEN tokens, but neither work with DAOstack or hold positions at Ouishare any longer.

In part three, we introduce some of the main mechanisms that make up the approaches to governance in blockchain communities, namely, consensus algorithms, voting, staking, and forking, and what has become the dissensus protocol par excellence, namely, the “hard fork.” We conclude with a broader discussion of the concept and its relevance for online communities. The concept of dissensus points to the continued possibility that there might not always be consensus about the consensus mechanism itself. There are therefore limits to solving governance through technical means."


Excerpt

Dissensus

Jaya Klara Brekke, Kate Beecroft and Francesca Pick:

"Dissensus describes a rupture to consensus (Rancière, 2004; Rancière, 2015). It therefore points to the possibility that incompatible positions might arise, forcing either significant negotiation and transformation in order to accommodate for these, or a split and exclusion. In the context of technology, dissensus, for example, entails foregrounding the conflicting possibilities in the context of algorithmic decisions (Crawford, 2016), or, as we discuss in this article, the possibility of many different and conflicting development pathways. The concept also points to the limits of formalized governance (whether algorithmic or parliamentary) as the established means to negotiate disputes and conflict, because governance methods and mechanisms might themselves become a site of dissensus, forcing significant negotiation and transformation of the given project, or a “fork.” Rather than a problem to be solved, the potential for dissensus to arise is better understood as an inevitable and necessary precondition for different perspectives and possibilities to emerge, and therefore for transformation, growth, and change. In the work of political theorist Mouffe, it is nothing less than the necessary preconditions for a free society (Mouffe and Laclau, 1998). The concept thereby also points to the precise limits of efforts that approach governance as a problem to be solved in any final manner through mechanisms, incentives, and algorithms."

(https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fhumd.2021.641731/full)

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