Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Rules, norms, and compromise

[Stuart Staniford-Chen (stanifor]

Gordon Weil writes

        However, even written rules have to be interpreted in light
        of the community culture.  The extent that they are flexible 

        and the ways they can be challenged or changed are not 

        readily apparent except to those who have participated in the 

        community for quite some time.

This is very true both in my experience at N Street and in other  
organizations.  We often create policy which solves some problem at a  
meeting but doesn't really work, or is attempting to solve some  
problem which doesn't actually exist, but people feared might exist.   
Such policies often get ignored subsequently.  It is then hard for  
newcomers to figure out what are the real rules, and what are the  
rules that only exist in the minutes of meetings.

I don't know how this can be fixed (except by us all getting more  
mature and more skillful at detecting what are the real issues for us  
and what policies are really likely to work).

Stuart.
stanifor [at] cs.ucdavis.edu
N St. Cohousing.