check the charter and policies, these are what govern the decision making process.

these documents where drafted on our wiki, discussed for a long time on the forum and the IRC channel and finally voted on (the policies where rushed in a bit besara7a), and the charter will be reviewed every year (the policies whenever needed).

basically speaking three general principles where agreed upon

1. participatory democarcy (meaning you don't vote for people who control you, you vote for decsisions).
2. individual initiative (meaning if you want to do something you don't need approval, not even through a democratic process, the democratic process can of course be used to stop you initiative).
3. no imposed leadership (there are no leaders, if someone asks you to do a job this is a suggesion, a request, a plea for help or an advice no more).
4. absolute equality (we try to avoid difrentiating between members, when we have to its based on their level of activity and commitment only).

rule two is what is responsible for the lack of structure you feel, no formal process is required for you to join an activity or start one, the only thing required is that you organize it in an open fashion over the website and allow interested people to cooperate with you.

this seams to confuse many people, some still seak figures to ask them for permission, some simply don't voice their ideas due to the lack of formal structure and many don't start moing until someone hands them tasks.

we'll be happy to hear practical ideas on how to deal with this, how to encourage more participation and more initiatives.

BTW website governance does follow a formal structure, with different user roles and privileges, unfortuantly this structure is crippled at the moment because of lack of a proper condorcet voting module for drupal (I'll get to writing it one day).

cheers, Alaa

http://www.manalaa.net

"u know i once dream that the office of mobinil is from el 7`os :S and the one that answer u and tell u rasidak a girl called ghada"