Rules and how decisions work

Voting, turnout, secret ballots, who may vote, suspension, removing a member, keepers, and convenors and lead convenors.

Two ways to ask the community

A Poll is a question in the feed, like "Market on Sunday?". It shows what people think. It never changes anything by itself.
A Decision is binding. If it passes, your community's server carries it out by itself. Nobody has to press a button, and nobody can quietly ignore it.

The global community has Polls but no Decisions: anyone can join it, with 12 words or a sign-in, so one person with several accounts could swing a vote. Everything below about Decisions is about local communities.

What a Decision can do

About a member:

Suspend a member, or lift a suspension.
Freeze a member's credit, or unfreeze it.
Give a member the right to vouch for newcomers, or take it away.
Remove a lead keeper from an enterprise.
Remove a member from the community, or reinstate them.

About the Commons:

Give beans from the Commons to an enterprise.
Give a hardship grant from the Commons to a member.
Pay off an enterprise's debt from the Commons.

Who can start a Decision

Any active member whose credit is not frozen, and who has traded in the market or was given a trust badge by an admin. A vouch on its own is not enough. Admins can too. You can have one open Decision at a time. You must explain why, in at least 10 characters.

Who can vote

Any active member whose credit is not frozen, and who joined before the Decision opened. People who join during a vote cannot vote on it. Enterprise accounts cannot vote.

How votes count

Decisions about a member: one member, one vote. Yes or No.
Decisions about Commons beans: votes are weighted by trading. You can cast more than one vote, but it gets expensive: 1 vote costs 1 voice credit, 2 votes cost 4, 3 votes cost 9. Your voice credits come from your completed trades, counted up to 500 beans per trading partner. You get your full voice credits again on every Decision. They are never used up.
If you have never completed a trade, you cannot vote on Commons beans yet.
You can change your vote at any time until the vote closes.

Secret ballots

The app never shows anyone how you voted, admins included. Everyone sees the totals, and you see your own vote. Your vote is stored on your community's server with your account, so that it can be counted and checked. The owners and admins who run the server can take a copy of its files, and could look up your vote there.

Polls are anonymous too, unless the person who starts one makes it an open vote: then members can see who picked what. The poll says which it is.

How long a vote runs

Every Decision runs for exactly 7 days. Voting opens at once. When the 7 days are up, your community's server counts the votes and acts on the result.

Turnout

A vote only counts if enough people take part.

Enough people means 30% of the members who could vote and were active in the last 30 days. It is never fewer than 3 people.
For removing a member it is 25%.
"Active" means you did something in the app in those 30 days: posted, traded, voted, sent a message. Only opening the app to look does not count.
Turnout counts people, not the weight of their votes.

If too few people vote, nothing happens. The Decision closes as "unresolved".

How much Yes is needed

Most Decisions: 60% Yes.
Removing a member: 66% Yes.
Undoing something (lifting a suspension, unfreezing credit, reinstating a member): more than half.
A tie always fails.

When a Decision passes

Your community's server checks that it still makes sense: the member still exists, the Commons has enough beans. Then it acts.
If the Commons is short of beans for a grant, the grant waits until there is enough. It gives up after 90 days.
Only one grant can wait at a time. If a second grant passes while the Commons is still short, it does not wait: it closes for good, and the community must vote again.
If the person or enterprise is already gone, the Decision closes without doing anything.

Removing a member

If a removal passes, the member is suspended and their credit frozen at once.
After 7 more days they are removed for good. In those 7 days, a Decision to reinstate them cancels the removal.
A member who deletes their own account cannot be reinstated, even after a removal. They can join again with a new invite.
When a member is removed, their posts are taken down. If they owed beans, the Commons pays the debt. If they had beans, those beans go to the Commons.
The community can vote to remove or suspend any member except an owner or admin of your community's server. They run the server itself, so a vote cannot take that away; the app says so if you try. An owner can take an admin's role away first, and after that they are a member like any other.

Emergency suspension

An admin can suspend a member at once, for example to stop harm. They must give a reason that members can read.

At the same moment, a 7-day Decision opens: "Keep this suspension?".
It needs the usual turnout and 60% Yes.
If it does not pass, or too few people vote, the suspension lifts by itself.
An admin cannot suspend themselves, and cannot suspend the server's only owner. Only an owner can suspend another owner.

On the global community there is no vote. The suspension lasts 7 days and then lifts by itself, unless an admin lifts it sooner. To keep someone out for longer, the admins suspend them again, or remove their account.

What admins can and cannot do

Your community's server has owners and admins. They look after it.

An admin can stop an open Decision, but must give a written reason. Members can read it on the Decision.
If a removal has passed and is in its 7-day wait, an admin can stop it, or make it happen straight away.
Admins can give members the right to vouch for newcomers.
Admins can give a member a trust badge. This also gives that member the trust that badge needs, so it deepens their credit line.
Admins sort out stuck trades, but never one they are part of.

Polls

Any active member whose credit is not frozen can start a Poll with 2 to 4 answers. It runs for 3, 7 or 14 days.
You can have one open Poll at a time. Your community can have 5 open Polls at once.
A Poll posted to a group can only be answered by that group's members and convenors. Observers can read it but not answer.
Answering a Poll also needs credit that is not frozen. You can change your answer until the Poll closes. The person who started it can close it early.
A Poll is anonymous: everyone sees only the totals. The person who starts it can make it an open vote instead, so members see who chose what. That choice is made when the Poll starts and cannot change once anyone has voted.

Enterprises and keepers

An enterprise is run by its keepers. One of them is the lead keeper.

Joining: you ask to become a keeper and say how much of your earned trust you pledge (it can be 0). You cannot pledge more trust than you have earned by trading, across all your enterprises. The lead keeper approves or declines.
Objection window: when an enterprise already has more than one keeper, the lead's approval waits 3 days. Any other keeper can object in that time, and one objection cancels it.
Removing a keeper: the lead can remove an ordinary keeper. The same 3-day window applies, and any other keeper can object.
Community admins: an admin of your community who is not a keeper of the enterprise can approve a keeper, or remove an ordinary keeper, at once, with no 3-day window. This is so a stuck enterprise can be helped.
Stepping down: any keeper can step down. If the enterprise is in debt and your pledge is needed to cover it, you must wait until the debt is smaller or other keepers pledge more. The only keeper cannot step down; they add another keeper first, or wind the enterprise up.
Your pledge backs the enterprise's credit line. It is never taken from your own balance or your own credit line.
A quiet lead: if the lead keeper has done nothing in the app for 30 days, the other keepers can choose a new lead from among themselves. The vote runs up to 14 days, with Yes and No. It passes when more than half of the other keepers say Yes. If the lead comes back and does anything in the app, the vote is cancelled. While the lead's account is suspended, nothing they do counts as coming back. Keeper votes cannot be changed.
If the lead leaves or is removed, the longest-serving keeper becomes lead at once, and the other keepers can replace them straight away. If no keeper is left, the enterprise is paused.
Winding up: the lead keeper, or the only keeper, can start closing an enterprise. So can a community admin. There is then a 7-day wait, and any keeper or a community admin can cancel it. An enterprise in debt cannot close until the debt is paid or the community writes it off. When it closes, any beans left go to the Commons.

Groups and convenors

A group is run by its convenors, and one of them is its lead convenor. Whoever creates a group is its first lead convenor.

Some groups are open to anyone. Some need a convenor to approve you. Some are by invitation only.
Any convenor can approve and invite members, remove a member or an observer, change a member's or an observer's role, make someone a convenor, remove posts and messages, and edit the group and who can join it.
Only the lead convenor can remove a convenor, or take the convenor role off someone.
Nobody can remove the lead convenor, or take the lead off them. Not another convenor, and not a community admin — admins have no say inside a group.
A suspended convenor: while a convenor's account is suspended, they cannot use any convenor power, and their own powers as lead wait too. They stay a convenor, and the lead stays the lead; it all works again when the suspension ends. Other convenors carry on as usual, and members keep chatting and posting. A suspended member cannot start or join a group either, until the suspension ends.
Handing the lead over: the lead can make someone else the lead. It can be another convenor, or a member, who becomes a convenor at the same time. Once it is done, the lead cannot take it back.
Leaving, as the lead: hand the lead over first. If nobody else is in the group, the lead can simply leave.
The last convenor cannot step down or be removed while the group still has other members.
Groups do not hold binding votes. To ask a group what it thinks, post a Poll to the group.
A quiet lead convenor: if a group's lead convenor has done nothing in the app for 30 days, the group can choose a new one. Its other convenors vote — or its members, when none of the other convenors was made a convenor by the day the lead was last active. Only people who were already there on that day take part: members who joined the group by then, or convenors made convenors by then. Anyone who joined, or was made a convenor, after that cannot propose, be proposed or vote, and is not counted. If you leave the group and join again, you count from when you joined again. If nobody who was there is left, no vote can open, and the group's screen says so. Any of those who take part can propose someone from among them, themselves included. The vote runs up to 14 days, Yes or No, in secret. It passes when more than half of those who answer say Yes. If the lead comes back and does anything in the app, the vote is cancelled. While the lead's account is suspended, nothing they do counts as coming back. The person chosen becomes a convenor and the group's lead. The quiet lead stays a convenor when it was the convenors who voted, and becomes an ordinary member when it was the members. You will find the vote on the group's own screen, above the roster.
A rogue lead convenor can be removed by a community Decision. This is coming in a later update.

Vouching

Only members chosen by an admin, or by a community Decision, can vouch for newcomers. A vouch gives the newcomer a small credit line to start with: 25, 50 or 100 beans. Trust badges never give this right.

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 112.