Keepers
The people who run an enterprise and stand behind it. How to join, object, and step down.
What a keeper does
Keepers run an enterprise: they post its Offers and Needs, pay out its beans and look after it. One of them is the lead keeper.
A project's keepers are its leader and collaborators: the app uses those words on a project. A collaborator is a keeper: they can post the project's Offers and Needs and they stand behind it the same way. Everything on this page applies to them too.
A keeper can back the enterprise with some of their own trust. That deepens the enterprise's credit line. It never takes beans from your balance. Where your community uses the known floor, backing beyond your earned standing comes off your own credit line, bean for bean. See "Your credit line".
The full rules, including what happens when a lead goes quiet, are in "Rules and how decisions work".
Asking to join
- Open the enterprise.
- Under Ask to join as a keeper, enter how much of your trust to back it with. Zero is allowed.
- Tap Request to join as a keeper.
The lead keeper approves or declines. If the enterprise already has more than one keeper, you become a keeper after 3 days, unless another keeper objects.
Only you see how much trust you have left to back with. The lead keeper sees your pledge and whether your standing still covers it, never the figure. If approving you is refused, or your change is cancelled when its objection window ends, they are told only that your standing doesn't cover the pledge: never your figure, your balance or a freeze.
For keepers
On the phone, all of this is under Manage at the top of the enterprise's page. In the web app it is on the page.
- Approve or Decline requests under Pending keeper requests (Asking to join as keepers in the web app). Each request shows the pledge and says whether the person's standing covers it. If it doesn't, approving is refused until it does.
- Changes waiting under Keeper changes waiting show the objection window. Tap Object to stop one. Object works on the first tap, with no second question. One objection cancels the change.
- The lead can remove a keeper with Remove and their name. Other keepers can object in the same way.
- Operator controls let keepers post the enterprise's Offers and Needs.
Stepping down
Tap Step down as a keeper (under Manage on the phone), then confirm (Step down on the phone, OK in the web app).
- The only keeper cannot step down. They can wind the enterprise up instead.
- If the enterprise is below zero and needs your backing to cover it, the app says you can't yet (on the phone, Not yet).
Votes among the keepers
When an enterprise has two or more keepers, any keeper can open a vote among them. Open the enterprise (on the phone, then tap Manage): its votes are under Decisions, and only its keepers see them. Tap Propose a vote and choose what should happen:
- Pay Beans out of the enterprise's own account, to a keeper you pick. It can never pay more than the enterprise holds, and never from its credit line. You can't propose paying yourself. Paying a keeper is a wage, so it only comes out of what the enterprise has earned. The usual 1.5% trade fee comes out of the amount and goes to the Commons; the form shows both figures before you send it.
- Remove a keeper. The lead keeper is not removed this way: they are replaced.
- Make another keeper the lead. Only in an enterprise. A project's leader can't be voted out by its collaborators.
Everyone who was a keeper when the vote opened can vote Yes or No, the person who proposed it too. More than half of them must vote. Paying out and removing a keeper need 60% Yes; choosing a new lead needs more than half. A vote runs 7 days, or ends sooner once the answer can't change. When it passes, the app carries it out by itself.
While a vote is open, everyone sees how many have voted, not how. Yes and No show once it closes. Nobody sees who voted how. In a very small group, though, the result and who has voted can show it: if three keepers all vote and it ends 3–0, everyone knows how everyone voted.
Every keeper on the vote but the one who proposed it gets one notification when it opens, unless they muted the enterprise's chat or turned chat notifications off. It names nobody: it says a vote opened in one of your groups, and the app shows the rest. On Home, an open vote you haven't cast shows under Needs you and opens the enterprise's Manage, where its votes are.
A keeper who steps down during a vote leaves it, and their vote goes with them. A keeper removed during a vote keeps the vote they cast. If the enterprise starts winding up, its open votes end without doing anything.
When the lead goes quiet
If the lead keeper has not been active for a long time, the other keepers see Propose Active Keeper as Lead (under Manage on the phone) and can vote Yes or No. In the web app, pick an active keeper from the list, then tap Propose Lead (on a project it reads Propose Leader). Votes on keepers cannot be changed.
Related
- Projects and enterprisesShared ventures with their own beans: find one, back one, or start one.
- Rules and how decisions workVoting, turnout, secret ballots, who may vote, suspension, removing a member, keepers, and convenors and lead convenors.
- Your credit lineHow far below zero you can go, and how it grows.
- The CommonsYour community's shared beans: where they come from, and how they are spent.
The same guide is in the BeanPool app, and works there without a connection: open Settings, then "Help & how it works" under BeanPool. Every other rule, guide and manual is in the Help Centre. Guide version 162.