ASSIGNMENT 4: How does your community make tough decisions? What is it's governmance model--for example, is it a benevolent dictatorship, or consensus driven?
The governance model at Hypothes.is is very much consensus driven, which makes sense given the small size of the team (6 people) and the need to get along.
How did it get to be that way? Do you think this governance model is conducive to cooperation on your project?
My understanding of how it got to be this way is that it was the preference of Dan Whaley our founder. Dan is not much of a programmer but has lead successful startups before and likes to engage the team into contributing their thinking. While slightly less ambitious projects might benefit from a benevolent dictatorship, we very much feel that the concensous driven approach works very well for our project.
Are there hidden power dynamics in your project that influence decision-making but are not explicitly part of the governance model?
Not really, but I might not be the person to answer (since I am employed by the project and probably a part of such power dynamics).
Think critically about the social organization of your project: could you improve on it? Where possible, link to your community's policy documents and examples of community behavior.
I think we eventually could benefit from a bit of a more formal process to contributing, but for the current stage of the project things seems to be working well.