# Participation and Care Protocol

The Bega Valley Data Commons is currently in Phase 0: a small invited formation space, not yet an open membership commons.

This protocol sets out the basic expectations for participation during this early stage. It is intended to protect the usefulness, care, clarity and trust of the space while the Commons is still being constituted.

The protocol is provisional. It should be tested, discussed and revised as the project develops.

**1. Participation is by trust**

During Phase 0, participation is by invitation, direct involvement or explicit agreement with the current formation process. Participants are asked to treat their access as a responsibility, not a status.

**2. The space is constituting itself**

Phase 0 participants are not entering a finished organisation. They are helping examine and form the conditions under which a commons may later exist. Participation should therefore be reflective as well as practical — not just using the forum, but questioning it, questioning the documents, the language, the assumptions, the risks and the proposed structures.

**3. Speak from position**

Be clear, where relevant, about the position from which you are speaking: as a resident, worker, volunteer, service user, carer, artist, business owner, researcher, Aboriginal person, organisation member, council officer, neighbour or interested observer. These positions shape what people know, what they can say and what interests they carry.

No participant should imply they speak for a whole community, organisation, profession, town, group or cultural authority unless they have been given that role.

**4. Disagreement is expected**

A commons must be able to hold disagreement. Questions, critique, correction and refusal are legitimate parts of constitution. Participants do not need to agree with each other, with the initiator, with the founding documents or with the direction of the project.

Disagreement should be directed toward the matter under discussion — not toward personal attack, humiliation, intimidation, baiting, derailment or exhaustion of others. The aim is not artificial harmony. The aim is usable conflict.

**5. Do not dominate the room**

A forming commons can be distorted by the most confident, articulate, angry, connected, institutionally powerful, technically skilled or time-rich participants. Be mindful of the amount of space you take. Participation includes listening, reading, waiting, asking, linking, summarising and making space for others.

**6. No extraction**

Participants must not use the space to harvest stories, contacts, cultural knowledge, service-user experience, organisational intelligence, personal testimony, local conflict or community vulnerability for private, professional, academic, commercial, political or institutional gain.

Research, reporting, advocacy or public communication may emerge from the Commons, but only under clear conditions of consent, context and accountability. Knowledge given in trust should not be removed from trust.

**7. Protect sensitive information**

Do not post personal, identifying, private, medical, legal, financial, cultural, family, service-user or conflict-related information without clear reason and appropriate consent. This is especially important where posts concern disability, children, Aboriginal people, vulnerable adults, service gaps, housing stress, family situations, institutional failure or traumatic events.

**8. Respect cultural boundaries**

Some knowledge is not public knowledge. Participants must take care around Aboriginal cultural knowledge, Country, language, ceremony, history, places, family matters and community authority. The Commons must not assume that information is available for open posting, discussion, archiving or interpretation simply because someone has access to it.

Where cultural authority is needed, the Commons should slow down and seek appropriate guidance rather than proceed by assumption.

**9. Keep local knowledge in context**

Local knowledge should not be stripped from the place, relationship or conditions in which it was produced. A comment, story, statistic, map or observation may mean different things depending on who produced it, when, why, under what pressure and for what use. Participants should avoid turning partial knowledge into sweeping claims.

**10. Do not weaponise the space**

The Commons should not be used to pursue personal feuds, institutional vendettas, factional campaigns, gossip, reputational attacks or indirect harassment. Criticism of organisations, policies, systems, decisions or public conduct is legitimate — but it should be grounded, relevant and proportionate.

**11. Institutional participants must take care**

People connected to organisations, council, services, funders, research bodies or public agencies should be clear about when they are speaking personally and when they are speaking officially. They should not quietly steer the space toward organisational priorities, extract unpaid intelligence or treat the Commons as an engagement channel.

Participation does not create entitlement to control.

**12. Moderation is care work**

Moderation exists to protect the conditions for useful participation. Moderators may move posts, ask for clarification, slow a discussion, remove harmful material, pause a thread, contact a participant privately or recommend changes to the protocol. During Phase 0, moderation should be as light as possible but as clear as necessary.

Moderation decisions should be explainable. Repeated problems should inform improvements to the protocol.

**13. Confidentiality and quotation**

Do not quote, screenshot, forward, publish or circulate material from non-public areas of the forum without permission. Even in public areas, take care when quoting others outside the Commons — words written in a forming space may be exploratory, provisional or context-dependent.

**14. Mistakes and repair**

Mistakes will happen. Phase 0 requires not perfection but willingness to listen, correct, apologise where needed, repair harm where possible and improve the structure so the same mistake is less likely to recur. The quality of the Commons will be shown partly by how it handles difficulty.

**15. Exit and refusal**

Participation is voluntary. People may leave, pause, refuse, decline to answer, withdraw a contribution where appropriate, or choose not to be involved. No one should be pressured to contribute knowledge, disclose experience, represent a group or remain in a conversation that feels unsafe or inappropriate.

The right not to participate is part of ethical participation.

**16. The standard for Phase 0**

The standard is not perfection, agreement or polish. It is whether participants can help hold a small formation space with enough trust, honesty, restraint, curiosity and care that a more open commons may eventually become possible.

This protocol exists to help that happen.