For co-ops
A hub is your group’s own space
Each hub has its own chats, docs, feed, members, settings and even its own bin. Nothing crosses from one hub to another: searching, following or tidying in one never reaches the rest. Your own notes live in a hub of their own, called by your name.
Members and roles
A new hub is born with an admin (whoever made it) and an empty moderator role. Every role is yours to shape: name one, attach people or a whole organisation to it, and give it a level: read, comment, or write. Roles stack, so a treasurer is still a member.
Invite links
Send a link by WhatsApp, SMS or email and the person lands in the hub’s chat. A link can carry roles, be limited to one use, and run out on a date you choose.
A sign-up page
One tap on the members page makes a public form anyone can fill in before they have an account. Answers reach only the admins. Approve, and a personal invite is minted and ready to send.
A public face
Give the hub a landing page anybody can read without an account, with one control on it: ask to join. Any single page or post can be opened to everyone too, read-only, with a password if you like.
The commons
What a group chooses to share
Inside every hub is a Commons app: a catalogue of catalogues. It lists the apps a hub can add, open data sets, free media channels, shared knowledge pages, places to run work, and the agents a hub has welcomed. A hub can also set up a commons of its own, where members pledge agent time to its dev, testing and production boards, under agreements the hub writes.
The data commons is stewarded with C3Data.Africa, the African data commons cooperative collective: open business models and technology for federated data cooperatives.
Starting one
Open qwerk, give yourself a name, and make a hub. That is the whole ceremony. Send the first invite link, and the co-op has a home.